Posted on 08/11/2002 7:29:42 PM PDT by American Preservative
Edited on 04/13/2004 2:40:43 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Trying to improve relations between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli students at San Francisco State University, a task force has recommended that the college create an Arab and Islamic studies program.
The suggestion is one of many contained in a report issued Friday by a 42- member panel that University President Robert A. Corrigan assembled in June to examine ways of improving relations between pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian students.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
[ Browse | Search | Topics | Post Article | My Comments ] Click to scroll to commentary. Anti-Semitic Pogrom at San Francisco State Front Page Magazine ^ | 05/13/02 | Laurie Zoloth, Director, Jewish Studies Program at San Francisco State University Posted on 05/13/2002 8:02 AM Pacific by FreeperinRATcage Dear Colleagues, TODAY, ALL DAY, I have been listening to the reactions of students, parents, and community members who were on campus yesterday. I have received e-mail from around the country, and phone calls, worried for both my personal safety on the campus, and for the entire intellectual project of having a Jewish Studies program, and recruiting students to a campus that in the last month has become a venue for hate speech and anti-Semitism. After nearly 7 years as director of Jewish Studies, and after nearly two decades of life here as a student, faculty member and wife of the Hillel rabbi, after years of patient work and difficult civic discourse, I am saddened to see SFSU return to its notoriety as a place that teaches anti-Semitism, hatred for America, and hatred, above all else, for the Jewish State of Israel, a state that I cherish. I cannot fully express what it feels like to have to walk across campus daily, past maps of the Middle East that do not include Israel, past posters of cans of soup with labels on them of drops of blood and dead babies, labeled "canned Palestinian children meat, slaughtered according to Jewish rites under American license," past poster after poster calling out "Zionism=racism, and Jews=Nazis." This is not civic discourse, this is not free speech, and this is the Weimar Republic with brown shirts it cannot control. This is the casual introduction of the medieval blood libel and virulent hatred smeared around our campus in a manner so ordinary that it hardly excites concern-except if you are a Jew, and you understand that hateful words have always led to hateful deeds. Make Comments View Comments Printable Article Email Article Yesterday, the hatred coalesced in a hate mob. Yesterday's Peace In The Middle East Rally was completely organized by the Hillel students, mostly 18 and 19 years old. They spoke about their lives at SFSU and of their support for Israel, and they sang of peace. They wore new Hillel t-shirts that said "peace" in English, Hebrew and Arabic. A Russian immigrant, in his new English, spoke of loving his new country, a haven from anti-Semitism. A sophomore spoke about being here only one year, and about the support and community she found at the Hillel House. Both spoke of how hard it was to live as a Jew on this campus how isolating, how terrifying. A surfer guy, spoke of his love of Jesus, and his support for Israel, and a young freshman earnestly asked for a moment of silence, and all the Jews stood still, listening as the shouted hate of the counter demonstrators filled the air with abuse. As soon as the community supporters left, the 50 students who remained praying in a minyan for the traditional afternoon prayers, or chatting, or cleaning up after the rally, talking -- were surrounded by a large, angry crowd of Palestinians and their supporters. But they were not calling for peace. They screamed at us to "go back to Russia" and they screamed that they would kill us all, and other terrible things. They surrounded the praying students, and the elderly women who are our elder college participants, who survived the Shoah, who helped shape the Bay Area peace movement, only to watch as a threatening crowd shoved the Hillel students against the wall of the plaza. I had invited members of my Orthodox community to join us, members of my Board of Visitors, and we stood there in despair. Let me remind you that in building the SFSU Jewish Studies program, we asked the same people for their support and that our Jewish community, who pay for the program once as taxpayers and again as Jews, generously supports our program. Let me remind you that ours is arguably one of the Jewish Studies programs in the country most devoted to peace, justice and diversity since our inception. As the counter demonstrators poured into the plaza, screaming at the Jews to "Get out or we will kill you" and "Hitler did not finish the job," I turned to the police and to every administrator I could find and asked them to remove the counter demonstrators from the Plaza, to maintain the separation of 100 feet that we had been promised. The police told me that they had been told not to arrest anyone, and that if they did, "it would start a riot." I told them that it already was a riot. Finally, Fred Astren, the Northern California Hillel Director and I went up directly to speak with Dean Saffold, who was watching from her post a flight above us. She told us she would call in the SF police. But the police could do nothing more than surround the Jewish students and community members who were now trapped in a corner of the plaza, grouped under the flags of Israel, while an angry, out of control mob, literally chanting for our deaths, surrounded us. Dr. Astren and I went to stand with our students. This was neither free speech nor discourse, but raw, physical assault. Was I afraid? No, really more sad that I could not protect my students. Not one administrator came to stand with us. I knew that if a crowd of Palestinian or Black student had been there, surrounded by a crowd of white racists screaming racist threats, shielded by police, the faculty and staff would have no trouble deciding which side to stand on. In fact, the scene recalled for me many moments in the Civil Rights movement, or the United Farm Workers movement, when, as a student, I stood with Black and Latino colleagues, surrounded by hateful mobs. Then, as now, I sang peace songs, and then, as now, the hateful crowd screamed at me, "Go back to Russia, Jew." How ironic that it all took place under the picture of Cesar Chavez, who led the very demonstrations that I took part in as a student. There was no safe way out of the Plaza. We had to be marched back to the Hillel House under armed SF police guard, and we had to have a police guard remain outside Hillel. I was very proud of the students, who did not flinch and who did not, even one time, resort to violence or anger in retaliation. Several community members who were swept up in the situation simply could not believe what they saw. One young student told me, "I have read about anti-Semitism in books, but this is the first time I have seen real anti-Semites, people who just hate me without knowing me, just because I am a Jew." She lives in the dorms. Her mother calls and urges her to transfer to a safer campus. Today is advising day. For me, the question is an open one: what do I advise the Jewish students to do? Laurie Zoloth, Director, Jewish Studies Program
The Dean seeks to revise history of the Jew-hating circus his institustion promoted... just like a good lil'Socialist.
I get it now: the crowd that has gathered around the Jewish students threatening to kill them --- that happened only because the University had not had an Islamic program. Now that the Jewish students are able to take courses in that program and understand Islam better, they will feel much more at ease when they are threatened with death. Makes sense.
That's a great response from a true American: make terrorists take more courses -- that'll teach them how to take American lives!
ARTICLE 9 EDUCATION SEC 6. Paragraph 2
The Public School System shall include all kindergarten schools, elementary schools, secondary schools, technical schools, and state colleges, established in accordance with law and, in addition, the school districts and the other agencies authorized to maintain them.
SEC. 8. No public money shall ever be appropriated for the support of any sectarian or denominational school, or any school not under the exclusive control of the officers of the public schools; nor shall any sectarian or denominational doctrine be taught, or instruction thereon be permitted, directly or indirectly, in any of the common schools of this State.
According to the CA constitution, Islamic Studies, as well as Jewish Studies, are indeed unconstitutional. Do you think the ACLU will step in and sue the state? Me, neither.
More than a quarter of the world's population is Muslim. It would seem pretty foolish of any university not to study it.
There's also another notion around that we shouldn't study our enemies. People who say that have things exactly backward. I think we would want to study our enemies first. Any major university that didn't offer a course on National Socialism in the forties simply wasn't fulfilling its responsibilities.
There's a big difference in teaching people to practice a religion and teaching about a religion. I'm not religious at all but I've always enjoyed (to a point) learning about various religions. Studying a given religion is a way of studying culture. It's a part of anthropology. It's not the slightest bit inappropriate in any public university. As for the private universities they are free both to study religion and promote it as they see fit.
SF State has a long reputation as a leftist university. I assure you that this department of Islamic studies will turn into a propaganda tool. And place for all the Arab homies to hang out
The suggestion is one of many contained in a report issued Friday by a 42- member panel…
42 academic panel members come up with the solution to the Islamic/Judean problem with teaching Islamic studies? How odd that they did not consider Judeao studies as part of the solution. I am all for teaching the truth about Islam, but of course banning Judeao studies while teaching only Islam is not studies, but propaganda.
Me thinks there are 42 members of this School that need a new job, because they have lost the ability to think. The bias is obvious to all but them. The Emperor has no clothes...
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