Category: anti-semitism

Maarten Boudry’s job at the University of Ghent endangered because he has “Zionist-tinged opinions”

August 27, 2025 • 10:30 am

Maarten Boudry, a Belgian philosopher at the University of Ghent, is not a timorous man.  You’ve met him before when he wrote this recent post defending our anthology, edited by Lawrence Krauss, against claims that we should not be criticizing the Left’s intrusion into science when the Right is doing it more vigorously. You may also recall that both he and I were deplatformed when we were supposed to hold a discussion on science and ideology at the University of Amsterdam, and this cancelation was done for a completely irrelevant reason: we were “too sympathetic to Israel.” Having visited both Belgium and the Netherlands in recent years, I have become depressingly aware of how anti-Israel, if not anti-Semitic, these countries are, perhaps because of a large influx of Muslim immigrants.

(I should mention by way of self-aggrandizement that Maarten and I also co-wrote a paper in Philosophical Psychology on the cognitive status of supernatural beliefs: my only philosophy paper, and one that gives me a soupçon of credibility in philosophy.)

But I digress. The point of this post is to show how anti-Semitic academia really is in the Low Countries, to the extent that Boudry has been threatened with being sanctioned (and certainly with having his speech chilled and repressed) simply for defending Israel in published interviews.  And he’s standing up to some of his colleagues who would take away his professorship.

I reproduce some of the history of to this conflict, putting Maarten’s background explanation as well as the exchange of emails in indented text. Bold headings are mine, as are the words that are flush left.

Introduction from Maarten:

A few words on the context of the letter bellow. What “triggered” my colleagues was a joint interview I gave to a Flemish magazine alongside a rabidly anti-Zionist MP (interestingly, he was from the Right), who stormed out after 20 minutes because he couldn’t take it anymore. You can read it here in the archive (right-click “translate” in Google).

This MP actually subscribes to the antisemitic conspiracy theory that Netanyahu knew about the October 7 pogrom in advance and deliberately let it happen, sacrificing 1,200 of his own citizens—women, men, and children. The fact that such a figure sits in our parliament says everything about the state of Belgian politics.

During that interview I made remarks they deemed so offensive that they urged the Board of Directors to discipline me. As an aside: I dislike these double interviews and hesitated to agree, since the result is always an extremely condensed, truncated transcript that strips away nuance, context, and sources. You’re at the mercy of the journalist—not that he did a bad job, but such reduction is inevitable. And it’s always weak to attack a sound-bite interview rather than engage with what I’ve actually written in my book or opinion pieces, where the arguments are properly developed and sourced.

When I asked Maarten who the author of the letter below (Herman Mielants) was, Martin replied,

Herman Mielants is a professor emeritus (UGent) and physician, specialized in rheumatology.

And when I asked why Mielants wrote the letter below, Maarten replied:

Why did Mielants write the letter? Because he’s fervently anti-zionist, like many people on the Left, and he’s so dogmatic that he cannot tolerate a colleague dissenting with his own “correct” view. In general, public opinion in Belgium on Israel is an echo chamber: many people are completely shocked to hear about Israel’s disengagement from Gaza in 2005, or about Arabs in high positions in the Israeli parliament and in the courts. They have no idea.

Here’s Mielants’s Letter to Ghent professors about Boudry’s “impure views”, demanding some kind of punishment. (The rector is the head of the University). 

From: Herman Mielants
Sent: Friday, July 25, 2025 9:06 PM

To: rector; Petra De Sutter

Cc: Jean Jacques AMY; Marleen Temmerman; Marc DeMeere Jan Tavernier <

Subject: FW: Double interview Jean-Marie Dedecker vs. Maarten Boudry

Importance: High

Dear Rector and dear future rector

The undersigned, professors emeritus of Ghent University (Marleen Temmerman, Jan Tavernier, Mark Demeyer, and Herman Mielants), are deeply concerned about the Zionist-tinged opinions of philosopher Prof. Maarten Boudry. While Boudry certainly has the right to freedom of expression, he coldly distorts the truth regarding the Gaza issue. He defends outspoken Zionist ideas regarding the apartheid regime since the beginning of the state of Israel, as well as the illegal occupations of the Palestinian territories and the genocide currently being committed in Gaza. In a recent publication in De Morgen, Omer Bartov, professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown University USA, himself a Jew and former Zionist, concludes that Israel is undoubtedly committing genocide in Gaza. The denial of this genocide is all the more cynical now that starvation, especially of children, is also being used as a weapon of war. Maarten Boudry’s ideas reflect extremely negatively on the objectivity of Ghent University. Given Maarten Boudry’s authority and charisma as Professor of Philosophy, who inherited the chair from Prof. Etienne Vermeersch, we ask the Board of Governors of Ghent University to make it clear to Prof. Maarten Boudry that Ghent University attaches importance to an objective approach to humanitarian problems and to promote this in his academic teaching and publications.

Below you will find the letter from Prof. Em. Jean-Jacques Amy, Professor Em. VUB, which he sent to Knack, following a conversation between Jean Marie DeDecker and Maarten Boudry, with the approval of JJ Amy [JAC: those letters aren’t attached here]

Kind regards
Prof. Em. Rheumatology, Herman Mielants, U Gent

More from Boudry about his job at Ghent:

About my current position: I don’t have tenure, only a part-time (50%) research position until the end of the year. Even the Etienne Vermeersch Chair which they mention, which I held for four years, was not a tenured position. By the way, it would be virtually impossible for me to get such a position in the academic climate post-7/10. Even before that I was already a controversial figure (for my views on islam & migration, climate policy, etc.), and there was an outcry about the appointment in the Flemish media. But today it would be a non-starter, and my rector would never risk it.

And, as he notes, “Here is my reply to the miscreants.” It is bold and unapologetic:

From: Maarten Boudry
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2025 at 19:15
Subject: Re: Dubbelinterview Jean-Marie Dedecker vs. Maarten Boudry
To: Jean Jacques AMY
Cc: Rik Van de Walle, rector, Petra De Sutter, Marc De Meyere, Marleen Temmerman, Jan Tavernier, M.Galand Pierre, Maarten Boudry

It is disheartening that some academics, even after decades-long careers at universities, still fail to grasp the meaning and value of academic freedom. The debate over the war in Gaza is still raging among scholars and experts. I have never denied that the Israeli army has committed war crimes in Gaza—such crimes occur in nearly every war—and I have myself often voiced sharp criticism of Netanyahu and his far-right allies (see my book and previous articles, which are naturally more detailed and substantiated than a condensed interview transcript).

What I emphatically deny is that a “genocide” is taking place in Gaza, and I am far from alone in this view. Holocaust scholars such as Norman Goda and Jeffrey Herf, historians like Benny Morris, legal experts including Julia Sebutinde of the ICJ, and specialists in urban warfare like John Spencer share this position.

Your letter, by contrast, contains almost no argumentation; it simply repeats, in indignant tones, the familiar accusations of “genocide,” “apartheid,” and “open-air prison.” Anyone who seeks to prematurely shut down scholarly debate, even calling for sanctions against dissenting voices before the ICJ has issued a ruling, betrays a complete lack of understanding of academic freedom and of the UGent motto Dare to Think. Even Omar Bartov’s article in The New York Times, which you cite, acknowledges the intense debate among experts over whether genocide is the right term. What is particularly cowardly is that you demand disciplinary measures behind the back of the person targeted.

Most troubling, however, is your repeated pejorative use of the term “Zionist.” That I supposedly hold “Zionist-tinged views” is, in your eyes, sufficient reason to urge the Board of Directors to sanction me. Yet “Zionism,” at its core, is simply the pursuit of self-determination of the Jewish people. Unless you deny that same right to every other people in the world, your argument is therefore guilty of antisemitism.

But by all means, feel free to engage in antisemitism—that, too, is part of the academic freedom I cherish. I can recommend it highly to all of you.

Cheers
M.

I fear that Maarten’s day as a scholar at Ghent University—or any university—are numbered.  Yes, we have our haters and antisemites in American universities, but it is much, much worse in Belgium and the Netherlands. I should add that he is not Jewish.

A new movie about campus antisemitism

May 16, 2025 • 9:15 am

Reader Enrico sent me a link to this video called “Blind Spot“, a 2024 movie that’s 95 minutes long. The topic is antisemitism on American college campuses.

The YouTube notes:

“Blind Spot” is the only current film focused exclusively on campus antisemitism. Featuring never-before-seen interviews with students before and after October 7th, along with testimony before Congress and insights from officials, journalists, and university staff, it reveals how antisemitism on campus didn’t appear overnight—and what can be done about it. Described as “like nothing I’ve ever seen” and “a fire alarm ringing,” the film highlights the resilience of Jewish students and the urgent need for change.

It begins with the infamous conflict between Rep. Elise Stefanik and the Presidents of Harvard, Penn, and MIT. The Presidents’ answers about the rules were correct, but the Presidents of Penn and Harvard later resigned, largely because of the hypocrisy of their answers: free speech is indeed within the colleges’ ambit, but they enforced it erratically and hypocritically.

The rest of the video consists of short interviews and statements and scenes of anti-Israel demonstrations from many schools, including the University of Chicago. As we already know, anti-Semitism is pervasive at many of these schools. What impresses me is the resilience and determination of the Jewish students. Compared to the angry, shouty, ace-covered advocates of Palestine, they seem eminently rational. I found it both depressing and heartening.

This film was made last year, but I can’t say things have gotten palpably better in the last year.  As Hamas continues to lose in Gaza, the intensity of Jew hatred has only grown.

BTW, my Belgian colleague Maarten Boudry, a philosopher with whom I’ve published (and an atheist), just published an article in Quillette detailing his impressions of his first trip to Israel.

David Wolpe, once a visiting rabbi at Harvard’s Divinity school, says there’s no doubt about the school’s antisemitism

May 8, 2025 • 9:45 am

Harvard has simultaneously released its reports about antisemitism and anti-Muslim bias, a prime example of trying to be prefectly balanced ideologically. I haven’t read either yet (they’re long!), but the links are below. What I have read about them suggests that neither is an “analysis” but merely a collection of anecdotes, and the recommendations of the two reports are conflicting (see below)

Rabbi David Wolpe, who spent the year of 2023-2024 as a visiting scholar at Harvard’s Divinity School, reports on the antisemitism he cncountered at Harvard. (He eventually resigned from Harvard’s antisemitism advisory committee because of his perceived pervasiveness of Jew hatred at the University.

But all rabbis, I am most willing to listen to Wolpe because he’s thoughtful and responsive, and even debated Christopher Hitchens, as you can see below (I’ve listened to this, and it’s worth watching).  Of course I don’t accept any of Wolpe’s religious beliefs, but if you want to argue with a Jew about their faith, he’s the one to encounter. For one thing, his views about God and Judaism are sufficiently mushy that you find it hard to come to grips with them. (Hitchens, I think, took him apart.)

Here’s a section of Wolpe’s bio from Wikipedia:

David J. Wolpe (born September 19, 1958) is an American rabbi. He is Visiting Scholar at Harvard Divinity School and the Max Webb Emeritus Rabbi of Sinai Temple. He previously taught at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York, the American Jewish University in Los Angeles, Hunter College, and UCLA. Wolpe was named the most influential Rabbi in America by Newsweek in 2012, and among the 500 most influential Angelinos in 2016 and 2018. Wolpe now serves as the Inaugural rabbinic fellow for the ADL,and a Senior Advisor for the Maimonides Fund. Wolpe resigned from an advisory group on antisemitism assembled by Harvard President Claudine Gay in December 2023 in response to what Wolpe characterized as a hostile environment to Jews at Harvard.

Wolpe wrote a scary report for the Free Press about his year at Harvard, and although you can dismiss the antisemitic anecdotes told by students because they’re students telling anecdotes, it’s not so easy to dismiss Wolpe’s own experiences. For one thing, he gives links.  Of course he can’t recount anti-Palestinian anecdotes, but read the report below for yourself. Click on the title to read it, or find it archived here. I’ve put a link to both reports below.

I’ll just give some quotes about Wolpe’s experiences. He’s a good writer for a theologian/rabbi:

Let’s start the clock with what I saw in the year I was at Harvard as a visiting scholar.

I attended my first Jewish event at the Divinity School on the holiday of Sukkot in the fall of 2023. The ceremony began with a speaker reassuring us, “This is a safe space for anti-Zionists, non-Zionists and those struggling with their Zionism.” In other words: not for me.

That happened one week before the attacks of October 7, 2023.

Hamas leaders have reportedly bragged that they have allies on campus. Who knows if they mean that literally or seriously? What I know, because I saw it myself, was that the Hamas massacre intensified hatred against Jews on an already hostile campus.

In posts on Sidechat, a campus social network, student comments ranged from “She looks as dumb as her nose is crooked” and “We got too many damn Jews in state supporting our economy” to far more sinister comments: “Decolonization is not a metaphor” (with Jewish blood dripping from the text). There were endless references to “Judeo-Nazis,” including by tutors in a student house, and swastikas made frequent appearances.

Students were insulted, shunned, harassed, and hounded in a hundred ways. An Israeli student was mobbed and assaulted at a “die-in” protest days after October 7. “Privilege trainings” for Jewish students were run by the university. Another student, a former soldier in the Israel Defense Forces, told me she was afraid to walk alone to her dorm room. Students were ghosted by longtime friends for expressing sympathy with Israel; one was told by friends it would hurt their careers to “associate with a Zionist.” Professors, in courses on Israel, removed all Israeli sources from the syllabus. Required reading in a Public Health course titled Settler Colonial Determinants on Health teaches that “Zionism manipulated Judaism as a religion to reinterpret history and redefine Jewishness in terms of ethnic belonging.”

So as anxious students flocked to my office, I was shocked but not surprised to see the hostility continue unabated. There was memorably a cartoon posted by a Harvard faculty group on Instagram showing a Jewish hand hanging an Egyptian and a black man—a retread of a cartoon from the 1960s that was condemned at the time by black leaders as antisemitic. This cartoon was, to quote the report, “circulated by groups of pro-Palestinian Harvard students, staff, and faculty on social media.” Faculty! That is Harvard in 2024.

An antisemitic cartoon was circulated by groups of pro-Palestinian Harvard students, staff, and faculty on social media. (via Harvard Antisemitism Report)

. . . . Critically, the report also explains the ideological roots of the abuse. It explains that anti-colonialism has become the ideological battering ram to mobilize a diverse cult of anti-Western sentiments. The challenge to Zionism becomes a first step in turning disillusion with the West into a wholesale indictment of it. The old antisemitism of the Soviet Union had this double purpose as well—destroy the Jews, and you’ve destroyed the root of Western civilization. Harvard is not just a host for this worldview. It is the dominant view on campus.

I taught as a visiting scholar in Harvard Divinity School—which is singled out, as it should be—for special censure. The Religion and Public Life program became “a focal point for concerns about one-sidedness and the promotion of a specific political ideology under the guise of academic inquiry.” Religion and Public Life commenced a six-year program inquiring into Israel-Palestine (since that is the only issue) with no real instruction in Judaism, a Zionist perspective, or Palestinian terror. The only people invited to speak were either explicitly anti-Israel or Jewish professors on the very far left of the Israel debate.

. . . Save a discussion before October 7, 2023, on Zoom with a pastor about forgiveness in our traditions, not once did the Divinity School ask me to present anything. Not once. Meantime, the Religion and Public Life program, an integral part of the Divinity School, was a nonstop parade of anti-Israel speakers without rebuttal.

And some of Wolpe’s conclusions. This first part could also apply at the University of Chicago:

There was also a striking asymmetry of action: Zionist students did not camp out in Harvard Yard; they did not break into classrooms; they did not come with bullhorns (as I myself witnessed) into local restaurants and chant in Arabic, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be Arab.” Their teaching assistants did not offer passes on exams to attend rallies, or attend rallies with them. They did not insist on wearing masks outdoors, so they could yell slogans with impunity. They did not continually yell slogans in the yard after they were understood to be eliminationist.

Another similarity is that the epicenter for antisemitism at Harvard was at, of all places, the Divinity School. Would you have expected that? I would have thought that the atmosphere of love would be greater there, but in fact the atmospher of Jew hate was predominant. This also seems to be true at the University of Chicago. And if this is true, then I expect Divinity Schools elsewhere in America might also be anti-semitic, aligning with “Social Justice” departments. I still don’t understand this phenomenon, and would be glad if readers explained it to me or at least took a guess.  To Wolpe, it’s based on factors already in place in Divinity Schools, but he doesn’t explain why those factors are there:

These two reports should not have been issued in tandem; it is an example of “bothsidesism” on steroids.

The antisemitism report has some important recommendations on admission, encouraging a more ideologically pluralistic and tolerant student body, creating rules for protest, and offering ideas for building a genuinely diverse community.

But what the report offers no solution for is that there is a deep ideological commitment among much of the faculty—particularly in the humanities and social sciences—that is anti-Western, anti-Israel, and often antisemitic. The Islamophobia report mentions “donors” (read: Jewish donors) who influence policy, but the antisemitism report does not focus on millions flowing from places like Qatar. The confluence of Islamism, old-line Christian antisemitism, and hard progressive antagonism to the Western and Israel project produced a perfect storm in places like Harvard Divinity School. Without a vast unlearning—among the faculty, not just the students—all the reports in the world will not change the atmosphere on campus. We will only be spraying perfume on a sewer.

I agree that the two reports should not have been issued in tandem.  I am eventually going to go through them both, but (and remember my pro-Jewish bias), I suspect that the atmosphere of anti-Semitism at Harvard was stronger than the atmosphere of anti-Palestinianism.  (I do deplore the doxing of anti-Israel students by a truck adorned with videos, but that was not done by students or faculty at Harvard.) This dichotomy of atmospheres was certainly true at Chicago, where there was constant broadcast of Israel or Jew hatred from organizations like Students for Justice in Palestine, but the Jewish students limited to themselves to anodyne banners saying things like, “Bring the hostages home.”

But of course I am biased, and you should take my sentiments, like those of Wolpe, with a grain of salt. Nevertheless, when even Harvard’s President said he encountered antisemitism at his school, you have to take that accusation seriously.

***********************************************************************************

This part comes from Greg Mayer. The comments are his and he provided some of the links.

President Garber’s announcement of both reports is here.

There’s a thread reader here on the antisemitism report.

Click on both reports’ titles to read them:

 

More from Greg:

As usual, Harvard Magazine provides a useful, non-administration perspective on Harvard’s actions:
On April 29, Harvard released its long-awaited reports on campus antisemitism and anti-Muslim bias.The task forces, convened together by then-interim President Alan M. Garber in January 2024, published initial findings in June 2024, but publication of the final reports were continually delayed.The Department of Human Health and Services’ Office for Civil Rights demanded Harvard turn over the …
In particular, they note that the reports are directly contradictory– they recommend doing not just different things, but opposite things.

NYT whitewashes antisemitic podcaster

May 5, 2025 • 11:15 am

The NYT has always been anti-Israel, and I toy with calling it “antisemitic” because it always downplays antisemitism.  And it did it big time this week in an article called “A progressive and in a body made for the ‘manosphere.’ Read it by clicking below or find it archived here. 

This handsome, manly, handsome, and much-followed podcaster on Twitch and YouTube (4.5 million total), Hasan Piker turns out to have some nasty views on Israel. But of course the NYT downplays those views greatly.  Have a read; it’s short.

They add up, to me at least, to deem him an antisemite, as does NY Representative Ritchie Torres. Click to go to the thread.

The NYT article is mostly about how his wonderful physique, his diet, his workouts and his avid following, noting just this on  his views about the war:

Mr. Piker is similarly unfiltered with his viewpoints. Some can be extreme.

A vocal critic of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, Mr. Piker has been labeled anti-American by people across the political spectrum for saying the country “deserved” the Sept. 11 attacks. His recent accusations that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza and his diatribes against the Zionist movement have led many supporters of Israel, including liberals like Representative Ritchie Torres of New York, to call Mr. Piker antisemitic.

“I find antisemitism to be completely unacceptable,” Mr. Piker said on a call in April. “I find the conflation of antisemitism and anti-Zionism to be very dangerous,” he added.

It’s not a very explicit explanation (what foreign policy does he oppose?), and the conflation of antisemitism and antiZionism have turned them nearly into the same thing: hatred of Jews because most of them think that Israel is okay as a Jewish homeland.

The Free Press, however, took a deeper dive (click if you subscribe0:

Here are a few quotes from the FP (bolding is mine):

Because Piker records for up to 10 hours a day, and has done so for five years, it is hard to paint a comprehensive picture of his views. But even a cursory look at his work reveals a person who dismisses violence against Israelis, celebrates Islamist terrorists, and advocates for treating pro-Israel Americans as neo-Nazis.

“It doesn’t matter if rapes happened on October 7th,” Piker said while livestreaming on May 22, 2024. “It doesn’t change the dynamic for me.” Apparently, not even the most brutal, inhumane crimes committed during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 invasion of Israel could justify the Israeli military response—which he repeatedly refers to as an “ethnic cleansing campaign.”

Just this week, he claimed on Twitch that “in a totally just world, regardless of your background, any kind of fucking Zionist tendency should be treated in the same way as being a fucking rabid neo-Nazi.” (The vast majority of Jews identify as Zionists.) He went on: “You shouldn’t even let someone be the fucking local dog catcher . . . if they have exhibited any sort of positive feelings about the state of Israel.”

At the same time, Piker implies that acts of violence committed by Islamists are justified. On November 29, 2023, he described the attacks of October 7 as “a retaliation for an ongoing apartheid.”

Piker doesn’t only justify terrorism. Sometimes, he glorifies it:

  • On December 20, 2023, Piker played a Hamas propaganda video on his livestream for an audience of 25,000. In it, dramatic music plays as members of the terrorist group forge and demo guns. The title card reads: “We will continue Killing your Soldiers by our locally manufactured Snipers.” Piker reads it aloud, then says: “Wow, there’s a little message for the Americans out there as well!”
  • In January 2024, Houthi pirates seized a commercial ship in the Red Sea, and took the crew hostage. Among the rebels was 19-year-old Rashid Al-Haddad, who went viral in the U.S. for posting videos of himself from the vessel. (Al-Haddad later denied affiliation with the Houthis.) Piker tracked down Al-Haddad via social media and interviewed him on his stream with the help of a translator. In the interview, Piker compared Al-Haddad to the pirate hero from a popular anime called One Piece.
  • In a later stream on October 14, 2024, Piker likened Al-Haddad, who grew up in Yemen, to a victim of the Holocaust: “For most of his life, he has withstood genocide,” Piker said, before saying that speaking to Al-Haddad was like “talking to fucking Anne Frank, basically.” (Later, in a now-deleted tweet, Al-Haddad posted this image of a man impaled on a stake with the caption: “The execution that we will carry out on all Zionists.”)
  • On September 28, 2024, Piker shared what he called a “music video,” which was actually a Houthi propaganda clip. In it, gun-toting Islamists sing a rallying cry to “defeat the masses of infidels.” They march over burning American and Israeli flags and wave banners emblazoned with the Houthi credo—which translates to “God is Great. Death to America! Death to Israel! Damn the Jews! Victory to Islam!”
    “When the beat drops, it’s like jihad drops in your heart,” Piker said to an audience of nearly 30,000. Of the Houthis, he said: “They’re very musical people.”

Piker himself is aware of his influence on young people. In November, he posted a news article about that rise in pro-Hamas sentiment among Jewish-American teenagers to his Discord server—with the comment: “i did this.”

There’s more, but I’ll give just one more bit of NYT censorship to show how they downplay Piker’s antisemitism. There was no reason for the NYT do do this save to avoid tarnishing Piker’s reputation:

But amid all the descriptions of Piker’s attractiveness—and all the photos that back it up—the Times let something small yet grimly revealing slip into its profile of the streamer. One of the images shows Piker’s monitor, during one of his livestreams. If you zoom in, you can see a comment from a Twitch user referring to an Israeli Defense Force soldier: “I’d phuck this idf btch to death and make his mother shove missles up her ass.”

The Times has since updated the photo with the comment cropped out of the picture.

Piker did not respond to a request for comment.

Apparently the NYT cannot trust readers to make their up their own minds, so they slant the news to make Piker look better than he is.  So it goes. Right now with what’s going on in the world, and with the huge influence that Piker has, it’s just like the NYT to concentrate on his manliness, muscles and handsomeness instead of his dislike of Jews anti-Zionism.

Our Mayor dons a keffiyeh

April 27, 2025 • 11:30 am

Ever since the City of Chicago dropped the charges against 26 pro-Palestinian students and two faculty arrested on our campus for trespassing, I’ve wondered whether mayor Brandon Johnson, elected in 2023, has some sympathies for Palestine contrasted with some opprobrium for Israel.  (The city also refused to send Chicago cops to take down our encampment, so it had to be done by University police, who in the end did a great job.)

The Instagram post below was put up by CAIR Chicago (the Council for American-Islamic Relations), showing the mayor donning a keffiyeh to celebrate Arab Heritage Month (this month of April),  Now keffiyehs of various types been used by Arabs for centuries, mostly as headdresses but sometimes as shawls. However, this particular black-and-white garment is Palestinian, and, as CAIR surely knows —and Brandon Johnson should have known—is associated with Palestinian resistance, beginning with Yasser Arafat’s frequent wearing of it, including while appearing in front of the United Nations (see the history of the garment and its symbolism at this Guardian article).  As Wikipedia says:

The black and white keffiyeh’s prominence increased during the 1960s with the beginning of the Palestinian resistance movement and its adoption by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

Johnson, who is not a popular mayor (see below) has been accused before of “disrespecting” Chicago’s Jewish community, though I didn’t know about that. But the actions of the City of Chicago with respect to illegal activities of Palestinian protestors, and the city’s refusal to act, combined with the photo above, makes me wonder about Johnson’s feelings about Israel. (One instance: when pro-Pals blocked Lake Shore Drive, our main artery along the Lake, the city did nothing.)

To be fair, I did find this picture of Johnson accepting a yarmulka from Jews before he was elected, but of course the article says that he was “courting the Jewish vote”.  I don’t think he put it on, though!

I don’t think I need worry much longer about a possible anti-Semite being mayor, though, for, as I said, Johnson is not at all well liked by Chicagoans of all stripes. As Wikipedia notes:

Johnson is considered to be a political progressive. His term as mayor has been marked with low approval ratings, with only 6.6% of Chicago voters expressing favorable views of him in a February 2025 poll.

As for CAIR, well, it’s been accused of touting antisemitism many times before; I’ll give just three links: here, here, and here (h/t Malgorzata). A few quotes, one from each source (in order):

. . . . key CAIR leaders often traffic in openly antisemitic and anti-Zionist rhetoric. Some of CAIR’s leaders, such as Nihad Awad, CAIR’s executive director, were previously involved in a now-defunct organization that openly supported Hamas and, according to the U.S. government, functioned as its “propaganda apparatus.”

and

The White House strongly condemned recent comments from the leader of a top American-Islamic group who said he was “happy to see” Gazans invading Israel on October 7.

The comments came from Council on American-Islamic Relations Director Nihad Awad at a conference two weeks ago, when – according to a video posted on X, by DC-based Middle East Media Research Institute – he said, “I was happy to see people breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land and walk free into their land, which they were not allowed to walk in.”

“We condemn these shocking, Antisemitic statements in the strongest terms,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement shared with CNN.

Bates echoed President Joe Biden in calling the October 7 attacks “abhorrent” and “unadulterated evil,” noting that October 7 “was the deadliest day for Jewish people since the Holocaust.”

and

Two years in the making, this new book is the product of extensive meticulous research into the most dangerous Islamist political group in the U.S. today—CAIR. It is dangerous because it was created as a front group for Hamas in 1993—in a secret meeting of Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas leaders, including CAIR’s current leader Nihad Awad, held in a downtown Marriott Hotel in Philadelphia in 1993, a meeting the FBI wiretapped.

Since its corporate inception in 1994, CAIR has been the number one promoter of incendiary vile antisemitic tropes and conspiracies in the U.S. by any “mainstream” Islamist group. I use the word mainstream in quotations because CAIR has successfully duped virtually the entire media establishment—many of whom have willingly collaborated—into portraying this Hamas front group as a “Muslim civil rights organization.” CAIR is soaked with antisemitism, yet we hear NOT a word about this reality from the gatekeepers.

Students for Justice in Palestine erects approved installation in our quad, one using blood libel tropes against administration and trustees

April 21, 2025 • 7:40 am

As far as I know, this week is some kind of pro-Palestine week, and it’s kicked off with a bang at the University of Chicago. The usual suspects, the Students for Justice in Palestine, have erected a tent accusing the administration (through President Paul Alivisatos) and the Board of Trustees of the University of guilt for “economic genocide”, failure to divest (it’s not clear from what), and complicity in the deaths of Palestinians. This is in the form of a painted tent erected in the Quad yesterday, covered with caricatures of Trustees and the President Alivisatos, many with blood running out of their eyes and mouths. Yep, it’s the old “blood libel,” and I have no compunction in calling this anti-Semitism. (See some photos below.)

Note the “red hands” drawings, which have always been a symbol of death to Jews, reflecting a Palestinian who, in 2000, held up his blood-covered hands after helping kill two Jews. They were two Israelis who lost their way and wound up by accident in Ramallah. The PA detained them, but the mob gathered and, storming the building, tore the pair to pieces:

From Honest Reporting (note: gore and murder):

What followed can only be described as a savage, barbaric lynching. The crazed mob beat and stabbed the Israelis, tore the men limb from limb and gouged out their eyes. During the attack, Mr Avrahami’s wife Hani called him on his mobile phone. Instead of being greeted as usual, an unfamiliar strange voice answered the phone : “I just killed your husband.”

As all this was happening, one man came to the window and, much to the delight of the delirious crowd below,  triumphantly held up his blood-soaked hands for all to see.

The crowd stood below, waving fists and cheering. The body of one of the soldiers was then thrown out of the window. The baying crowd rushed to attack, beating and stamping the lifeless body in a frenzy. The body of the other soldier was set on fire. One of the soldiers was later seen upside down, dangling from a rope.

The horrendous episode was not over. Within minutes of murdering the Israelis, the mob dragged the two butchered bodies to nearby Al-Manara Square, and broke out into impromptu victory celebrations.

The famous photo:

As The Canary Mission notes, “The ‘red hand’ has a decades-old violent meaning for Jews in the Middle East. It signifies the bloody history of pogroms and the slaughter of Jews.”

That said, here are photos of the “installation” erected in the Quad, probably last night (I don’t remember it from yesterday afternoon):

Approval for the installation, showing who put it up:

Paul Alivisatos, our President, called a “genocide normalizer”:

Rachel Kohler, David Rubenstein (chair of the Board) and Antonio Gracias, characterized as “ecociders”, “CEOs of blood baths”, and so on. Note all the red hands, which to me means “kill the Jews”. (Of course you could interpret it as the trustees kill Palestinians, but the red hand has never symbolized that.) Note the blood coming out of their mouths and their satanic appearance. It’s the old blood libel, put onto the Trustees.

Tom Pritzker, also a Trustee with blood running out of his mouth. He’s called a “baby killing scum” and “Epstein Scum”.  Note the red hands again:

More red hands and Satya Nadella, also on the Board of Trustees.  He was born in India, and the caricature, with dark brown skin, could be seen as racist. More red hands.

Finally, trustee Michele Kang, also with blood coming from every orifice.

As I said, this was erected by the Students for Justice in Palestine, the major contributor to antisemitism on our campus. I have noted this in a 2024 letter to the Chicago Maroon and have called for a reassessment of their status as a Recognized Student Organization. From my letter:

Has the time come to ask whether the activism of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) belongs on our campus? It’s not the morally reprehensible things they say that brings this question to the fore, as their speech is protected, but how they behave: in a way that violates campus rules and disrupts the University’s mission.

.  . . . The continual disruption of our campus and violation of University regulations raises the question of whether SJP as a campus group is involved in these actions. If so, we should ponder whether that group should be a recognized student organization. At the very least, student organizations should enrich the mission of the University: promoting discourse and enriching our intellectual life. SJP does none of this, for their mission seems to be purely ideological: to promote Hamas and whitewash its terrorism—as well as to erase the state of Israel—all through disrupting campus activity. If it is to remain, it should at least desist from violating University regulations.

In fact, SJP did not desist from violating University regulations, and was given a slap on the wrist: an “official warning” that further “discipline” (LOL) would be enacted should SJP violate university regulations. This tent, since it was approved, is not a violation, but if the past is any guide, there will be more violations. And the University, which has other problems, won’t do anything.

Note that the University has already affirmed that it’s not divesting from anything, so this is purely performative, and I see it as an act of hatred and antisemitism. That, of course, is within the purview of the First Amendment, and although this kind of thuggery makes me queasy, we Jews have been subject to this for millennia and we’re not going to be put off or scared by it now.

It’s going to be a rough spring.  SJP knows that it’s lost the war, both in Gaza and on campus, and that will simply make them more active and more hateful. I trust that the Jewish students will respond with messages that aren’t hateful, but simply call for the return of the remaining hostages and embody the phrase “Am Yisrael chai” (“The people of Israel live.”)

UPDATE:  We have high winds here today, and apparently the tent blew down. Here’s a photo of the remnants. I’m sure it will be put up again.

****************

Malgorzata, who lost many of her family in the Holocaust, has been arguing with me for several years about whether stuff like this constitutes free speech. I think it does since it doesn’t violate how our courts have construed the First Amendment, but she differs and thinks installations like this should be banned. I will reproduce with permission what she said to me when we discussed this installation this morning:

You see, Jerry, that’s why I’m definitely not a free speech absolutist. As somebody famous (I don’t remember who) said: the Holocaust didn’t start with Auschwitz, it started with words. OK, the ground was fertile, hatred of Jews was very popular for centuries, and smaller orgies of murders were done in many places. The words which are spoken now, the pictures which are shown (like this installation in your University), can very easily morph into violence (in some places it already has) and to greater and more organized violence. In Rwanda they needed the radio dehumanizing Tutsis for a few months before they went over to calling for the murder of Tutsis. The ground was prepared and people started the mass murder with joy. It’s always easier to give rise to hatred and violence than to love and tolerance. Good ideas always lose against murderous ideas.

 

It’s not a good time for Jews and not a good time for Western civilization. The monsters of barbarism are awake again and many people are embracing them.

Anti-semitic poster at the University of Chicago: is it compatible with our policies?

March 31, 2025 • 11:30 am

Someone sent me this tweet a few days ago, and I was unsure about whether this was any kind of violation of University policy.  As far as I gather, this was posted on the inside of a chemistry professor’s office, facing outwards.

 

Here’s a photo from that tweet, but all I can make out in it is “Israel murdered 18,000 children” (Hamas’s figures, and probably grossly untrue) as well as “Israel must pay for the murders and destruction” and “DEPORT ISRAELIS.” If you can read more of it, please decipher in the comments. 

Anyway, I sent the tweet around to our local free speech group and asked if this was a violation of University rules.  This morning someone said that this kind of thing is indeed allowed, though you’re not allowed to display flags in your office (some wonky rule). A watermelon, though, does nicely as a substitute for the Palestinian flag. At any rate. I saw the tweet below this morning, indicating that the University of Chicago itself had apologized for the sign, which was “voluntarily” taken down, and said that it is being investigated as a possible violation of the “University’s non-discrimination policy.”

 

The statement:

If this is indeed allowed behavior, then putting a sign like this inside your office, facing out, is not a violation of free speech, which is part of the Chicago Principles. On the other hand, one could argue that such a sign creates a climate of harassment towards Jewish students, which is a Title VI violation. Now that Trump is threatening to withhold money from universities for condoning anti-semitic behavior, I can see where this kind of publicity could scare our university.

I don’t know if I’ll learn any more about this, but if I do I’ll impart it below.  All I can say is that IF displaying this kind of sign is permitted by University regulations, then it’s not kosher to investigate the person who posted it (that’s chilling of speech) or to make a public statement about it. All of this hangs on the “time, place, and manner” restrictions of speech at the University here, and people aren’t sure what the policy is.

Anyway, weigh in below with your opinion.