On Boycotts, Broadcasts, and Being there
Thoughts on a recent trip to Israel, and what Nadav and Avihu in Parashat Shemini teach us about the quest for justice
(Israeli musical collective performs a rendition of Ofra Haza’s Chai, for Holocaust Memorial Day. It was a profoundly moving moment to stand in silence with my children on our plane for two minutes during the national siren in Israel. We stood with millions for the six million.)
Traveling to Israel with my kids always produces a certain kind of anxiety, especially after October 7th. Empirically speaking, it is profoundly unlikely that anything will happen to us. That said, between the Houthis and the attempted bus bombings a few months ago, you just never know. But that isn’t really the deepest part of my anxiety. The unique fear of being in Israel is that if something did happen to our family, too many of those in our life would think that we had somehow brought it upon ourselves. We have spent over a year watching some students and faculty on elite college campuses (as I am often reminded — many of them Jewish!) denying (or just asking questions) the murder, abduction, and rapes of those in Israel (of all faiths and backgrounds) on October 7th. More of them have communicated that these crimes were — at best, understandable or — at worst, sacred.
Israel — more and more academics claim — should be the only no-go, no-contact, no-engagement zone in the world. In fact, the American Association of University Professors changed their stance of academic boycotts last year, now arguing that the right to boycott Israeli institutions and scholars — regardless of their fields, identities, or political beliefs — is a legitimate expression of academic freedom. It’s been difficult enough forbearing the messages that my friends and family in Israel are legitimate and praiseworthy targets. It is quite another to voluntarily and publicly tie your family’s fate to theirs.
I deserve nor desire any sympathy in this respect. Palestinian and Israeli children murdered and maimed in this conflict should be the primary recipients of our moral and human concern.
However, it is still worth acknowledging this phenomenon in the academy — it is real, and its impact is deeply felt. Despite the good intentions of some, it is worth acknowledging the damage these boycotts cause, their hypocrisy in the Trump era, and their profound moral turpitude.
I have no regrets about going to Israel with my family every year. It is only through going that I can see what is changing in the Israel and in the evolution in the Hebrew language — two things that are central in the classes I teach. I could not see what is happening on the ground through the internet or the articles written by others (especially if they are from Israeli academics whose work I should purportedly be boycotting.)
Much of what I saw was disturbing and deeply upsetting to translate for my kids. They are now at the age that they can read and ask questions. And Mel and I feel duty bound to answer them. On the way to the playground, we saw a STOP sign plastered with the slogans “transfer now,” and in the shuk where we brought gummy candy and met up with our friends, stalls were covered with bumper stickers in English that said, “finish them.” Were they talking about Hamas or all Palestinians? The fact that there is any ambiguity puts those kinds of messages beyond the pale. The girls absorbed this, recoiled, and then started to struggle. How do we beat Hamas — which is evil — while not hurting the people who are innocent? All of this ambiguity came together in a moment. They would not have experienced the sweetness or the bitterness of this juncture, or learned how to struggle with it all, had they not been there physically to experience it. They couldn’t have understood most of it had their parents not known Hebrew, a language we both learned studying abroad in Israel. A growing number of leaders in the academy believe that their colleagues and students should never be afforded experiences like these. Academic freedom, they assert, is a value that should be afforded only to ideological fellow travelers, and never to actual or perceived enemies - or really just one enemy, those who believe in learning and teaching about Israel through engagement with Israel.
On this past trip, I was driving back from the Dead Sea to Tel Aviv with a good friend, an Israeli Jewish leftist. I commented to her that the road we took was far more militarized than the last time I drove on it, about 8 years ago. More concrete walls and watch towers, more barbed wire around Palestinian villages. I took a moment to take it all in — a reality I would not have fully absorbed or understood in context in Maine.
As we got closer to Tel Aviv, I mentioned to her that I had just read an op-ed from a Columbia professor decrying the injustice of being boycotted. He laments the ridiculousness of Columbia professors being boycotted by anti-Israel activists:
Then came the circular firing squad. By mid-April, 2,000 people and more than 75 organizations, most of them faculty groups, had signed onto a boycott of our events and said they would refuse to work with Columbia scholars, like me, a vice dean, who hold administrative positions.
It is easy to kick people when they are down. I’m a historian, and two of my government grants, which funded a program to help archivists and scholars maintain records that would otherwise be lost to history, have just been canceled.
One of the main organizers of the boycott, the City University of New York anthropologist Gary Wilder, has struggled to explain this strange form of solidarity. He says he took it upon himself to act even though “Columbia faculty are exhausted, besieged, demoralized and threatened.” It is true that we are besieged and threatened. It is also true that Columbia professors and students have been calling on others to stand with us.
“It’s rich, isn’t it?” I commented with a sad grin. “Do you think this guy spoke out against boycotting the Israeli academics and activists who have been protesting and criticizing Israel at immense personal cost for decades?” She laughed, and then told me something that sadly didn’t surprise me either. Apparently, not just left-wing academic departments are boycotting Israeli academics and activists — Hillels and Jewish Studies Departments have started to preemptively disinvite Israeli scholars from talking about Israel on campuses, scared to cause too much of a fuss. After all, what could an Israeli with academic expertise teach an American Jewish college student about Israel that a social media feed or a scholar who hasn’t lived in Israel couldn’t?
Now, not only are progressive academics boycotting other progressive academics because of their workplace’s political choices, they are facing state violence and deportation because of their views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A Tufts student is facing deportation for writing an anti-Israel op-ed without being accused of a crime, Palestinians are preemptively being denied academic opportunities in the United States, and students/faculty/staff with pro-Palestinian sympathies are engaging in a wide variety of self-censorship.
What we are witnessing now is a disturbing crackdown on academics on the basis of their nationality and viewpoints. It is wrong, but it isn’t new. And those who have done it to Israelis (or stood by silently) for the past two decades are the ones now most loudly screaming foul. In both cases, however, it is stupid and indefensible. Boycotting, self-censorship, and targeting people on the basis of their nationality or viewpoint is an attack on learning, teaching, classical liberalism, and American values. If only there were more who could hold to their values regardless of their political biases and inclinations. To do so would probably require an abiding faith in the founding values of the nation and institutions that sustain and support us — a faith (that for many reasons) is now in short supply.
I must admit, I’ve become more and more reticent to talk about Israel and post about my travels on social media. It’s exhausting, carries social and political consequences, and requires vulnerability. However, I’ve noticed that many of those who have filled the void have often never been to Israel or Palestine for any significant period of time, haven’t read full books on the topic, and aren’t proficient in Hebrew or Arabic. It has become intolerable. So I’m writing this because those cannot be the only voices in the mix.
When I did post about our trip recently, I received a torrent of support and appreciation. Hundreds of people from throughout my life were appreciative that broadcast the beauty, the pain, and the moral challenges of our journey. I’m glad that I resisted self-censorship encouraged by the anti-intellectual and anti-liberal groups that have rooted themselves in academic and activist circles. To quote one of our greatest sages, “if not me, who?”
At the core of the Jewish tradition is the commandment to teach and learn, starting with our own children. We never know how they will pick up and interpret what we have given them. In this week’s portion, parashat Shemini, Aaron teaches his sons how to offer sacrifices in great detail for the first time. Right afterward, they choose to offer their own sacrifice in their own way on their own terms and are punished for offering “strange fire.” They had good intentions. They probably believed that they were doing right by God and their dad. And yet, they did harm. For Nadav and Avinu, having performed a core ritual one time was not enough to take on the mantle of leadership responsibly. They hadn’t learned or had done enough - and inspired by arrogance, righteous passion, or both — they defiled the altar, and caused the community to question Aaron’s leadership.
Good intentions without thorough experience and expertise can cause great harm, and when taken to the extreme, can compromise how a community views those charged with educating the next generation. I don’t know how my children will view the choice to bring them to Israel time and time again, especially now, during wartime and under the leadership of a vile government. Will they be Nadav and Avihu, those who offered strange fire that subverted the tradition with righteous intentions, or Joshua and Caleb, who faithfully transmitted the tradition and saw the blessings in the the Land of Israel when others only saw curses. Most of us, myself included, end up being a combination of all of those ancestors all at once.
However, I do know that I will expose them to a variety of Israeli and Palestinian voices — repeatedly — that will give them a complicated, beautiful, and agonizing understanding of our people, our homeland, and our now inextricable connection to the Palestinian people. We will continue to strengthen those connections and expertise, and will try to inspire them to build something better for Israelis and Palestinians alike. My prayer for them is that they will love enough to do justice, and know enough to walk humbly with their God.
Shabbat Shalom.
What I’m reading:
This Yom Ha’atzamut (Israeli Independence Day), conservative, anti-gay activist Ben Shapiro will be sharing the stage with a trans Israeli icon, Dana International, as they light torches together in Jerusalem. Everyone is outraged.
If you haven’t been following Palestinian scholar, Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a scholar at the Atlantic Council, you should be. His voice is courageous, informed, and insightful. And he’s paying a terrible price for speaking out.
Governor Josh Shapiro speaks about the arson of his residence on seder night.
Haviv Rettig Gur on “The Jews Who Saw Around History’s Darkest Corner,” and saved millions.
