Dear Editor:
Anti-Zionists hijack and hide behind ‘Freedom of Speech’ to spread their real anti-Jew agenda which is slowly eroding the infrastructure of our democracy. In September, Columbia University, NYC, defended inviting Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, a “self-described proud anti-Semite and Israel-hater” as freedom of speech. Mohamad is known for his public denial that six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, describes Jews as being “hooked nosed”, claimed that “Muslims were not responsible for 9/11 terror attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, but rather that the U.S. staged the events.” His latest ignorant tirade, “Muslims have “a right to be angry and kill millions of French people” just hours after an attacker yelling “Allahu akbar!” beheaded one woman and killed two others in a church in France.”
Our “freedoms” come with responsibility. Freedom of speech also means saying NO to inviting bigots to speak which lends credibility to their hate speech, and gives it a platform. Would Columbia or other universities also invite Hitler to speak? Or Neo Nazis? Or White Supremacists? Yes, Mohamad and others like him have a “right” to speak. But not a “right” to be invited to speak at any university or anywhere else where civilized people gather. Freedom of speech has been hijacked to mean you can now invite only one kind of bigot to speak on your campus- rabid, vicious, anti-semites.
This has nothing to do with Israel or its policies. This has everything to do with the lack of moral leadership of our University Presidents, pressured by anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, Jew hating students, going down the abyss of moral relativism’s moral bankruptcy. It’s peace and love time for everyone but Zionists and Jews, once again.
Sincerely
Robert Lopichansky
A Cure for Unrelenting Anti-Zionism
Dear Editor:
The increasingly unapologetic demonization of Zionists, those who support the right to a Jewish homeland, as subhuman “colonial white racists”, is fast becoming part of the new narrative. So it should come as no surprise that this bigotry has morphed into medical personnel threatening to harm their Zionist/Jewish patients via posts on their social media.
“Jewish students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have faced an “unrelenting campaign of antisemitic harassment; swastikas scrawled across the campus, menorahs and mezuzahs vandalized, windows of Jewish fraternities “smashed with bricks…” Pro-Palestinian students assailed Jewish students with epithets like “Nazi”, “white supremacist”, turned university diversity training “into anti-Israel indoctrination,” the complaint said. Canary Mission issued a resource to increase awareness of anti-Semitic and bigoted doctors, nurses, med students and other medical professionals, Medical List–https://canarymission.org/medical
A Tufts dental student’s posts “present an obsession with conveying hatred for Jews, relaying anti-Semitic tropes and posturing about a desire to harm Jews physically,”
https://unitedwithisrael.org/act-now-demand-tufts-expel-student-who-promoted-violent-anti-semitism/
Astoundingly, a recent survey revealed most people, including American Jews, do not even have a basic understanding of what constitutes antisemitic beliefs and behaviors. We need to advocate for the IHRA’s definition of anti-Semitism to be formally adopted into all public and private institutions as an effective tool to educate, legally prosecute and deter anti-semitic actions.
IHRA’s Definition of anti-Semitism
- Calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews in the name of a radical ideology or an extremist view of religion.
- Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.
- Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust.
- Denying the fact, scope, mechanisms (e.g. gas chambers) or intentionality of the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of National Socialist Germany and its supporters and accomplices during World War II (the Holocaust).
- Accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group, or even for acts committed by non-Jews.
- Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.
- Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.
- Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.
- Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis.
- Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.
- Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.
Sincerely
Maxine Dimbrowitz
The Results of Demonization
Dear Editor:
What are the results of American Jewish progressives’ decades of permitting, and sometimes aligning with and encouraging, the antisemitic demonization of Zionists and Jews as subhuman, “genocidal killers, apartheid, white colonialist racists” in the media and on campuses across America? One result, which should chill you to your bones, is the shocking and growing list of medical personnel who are brazenly posting on social media, threats to harm “Zionists” and their Jewish patients, something which Goebbel’s, Eichmann and Nazi Germany would have applauded. “Canary Mission has launched a new Medical List–https://canarymission.org/medical a resource dedicated to helping the public become aware of anti-Semitic and bigoted doctors, nurses, med students and other medical professionals.”
Just last week, StandWithUs sent a letter to Tufts University’s president and the dean of its dental school warning that dental student Adam Elayan’s online posts present an apparent obsession with conveying hatred for Jews, relaying anti-Semitic tropes about Jews and posturing about a desire to harm Jews physically. The Medical Board of Ohio on August 20, 2020, permanently revoked the Jew-hating Dr. Lara Kollab’s certificate to practice osteopathic medicine and surgery in Ohio. The order followed the revelation that Kollab posted numerous antisemitic statements on social media, including that she would endanger the lives of Jewish patients by intentionally giving them dangerously wrong medications. In March 2017, Canary Mission published the profile of then-medical student, Khass. His social media was replete with threatening anti-Semitic posts, including “Kill the Jews” and “Go beat up a Zionist.” Khass did not face any consequences for his statements until they went viral two years later. By that point, Khass had secured a Pediatric Residency at the New York-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital.
So while American Jewish groups are tripping over themselves to support every cause imaginable, they might want to take a break and “put aside their differences’’ to unite to stop this. It’s 2020, not 1930’s Germany, yet Jewish patients can no longer assume the Hippocratic Oath, ‘first do no harm’ will apply to them and their children. They accuse us of “being too powerful.” I would suggest we show them how “powerful” we can be. Demand legislation on a federal and state level to stop this. Zero tolerance. No fake “apologies” accepted. You get fired or dismissed. Period. When will enough be enough for American Jews?
Sincerely
Ayelet Nussbaum
