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Cornel West & Rosemary Ruether launch petition to stop Marc Ellis’s dismissal from Baylor University

ellis
Marc Ellis (Photo: Baylor University)

Mondoweiss contributor Marc Ellis is under threat of losing his job at Baylor University under pressure from new university president Kenn Starr (yes, that Kenn Starr). Cornel West and Rosemary Ruether have started a petition on Change.org to support him:

Kenn Starr former Clinton White House nemesis and President of Baylor University, to dismiss dissident Jewish voice Dr. Marc Ellis.

For more than three decades the prophetic voice of Marc Ellis has influenced generations of academics and activists. His dissident voice in the realm of contemporary Jewish identity and his theology of solidarity with Palestinians has been encouraged by numerous scholar-activists including Noam Chomsky, Edward Said, Desmond Tutu and the two of us, Rosemary Ruether and Cornel West.

Unfortunately this voice is now being silenced at Baylor University where Marc has served with distinction for almost fifteen years as University Professor and Director of the Center for Jewish Studies. With the approval of Kenneth Starr, President of Baylor University, Marc Ellis is under internal investigation in what looks more and more like a persecution to silence a Jewish voice of dissent. In short, Baylor is re-writing its rules to dismiss Marc Ellis from the faculty.

We, the undersigned, request President Starr to honor Dr. Ellis’ academic freedom and stop all hostility toward him, including any attempt at dismissal. Join us signing this petition.

The petition site also includes the following update:

Marc Ellis was brought to Baylor in 1998 and all previous presidents supported his dissident voice. After Ken Starr (nemesis of Clinton in the White House) became president in 2010 the attacks started. During the last year Baylor lawyers were instructed to communicate with many of Marc’s colleagues, past students and staff. The objective was to request all of them to report all “abuse of authority.” Most of us explained to the lawyers that was a lost cause because Marc has been an exemplar colleague, professor and mentor.

But starting this Fall he was separated from his classes, his center closed and a hearing scheduled to take place some time in this academic year. As far as we know the accusations are about abuse of authority but we are not aware of the details because they are part of the internal legal process. Obviously it is about something else: Marc’s dissident voice. We wil inform all of you as soon as we know more information.

Some signatories to the petition have included comments with their signature. Israeli academic Ilan Pappe signed the petition saying:

Dr Ellis is a unique voice of moral courage, professional acumen and educational inspiration. To fire such a person with such qualities and qualifications is a suicidal action for any academic institution. I am signing this to save Baylor from itself.

Activist and author Anna Baltzer simply said:

As a Jew, an American, and a human being, I stand with Marc Ellis.

You can sign the petition here and learn about Ellis’s work here

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When Ken Starr took the helm of the Christian university, he said that it was his vision to be like “Barnabus, the encourager” in the New Testament’s Book of Acts. Except that Barnabus apparently was known for his kindness and encouragement, not his suppression of unpopular views. But in a way this incident demonstrates how Evangelical Christians want to have their tidy views of what Jews should be and that when those views are challenged the Jews just have to go. While this case is about academic freedom and political repression (Starr’s forte), it’s also about a bunch of rightwing Christians telling a Jewish theologian to shut the f*** up.

How come these crappy right-wing hacks can not only find jobs still (other than taking out the trash at a fast food restaurant which is the only thing they’re really qualified for) but they still find really important jobs?

Marc Ellis wrote in his book: “Judaism Does Not Equal Israel: A Call for a Return to Prophetic Jewish Values.”
“Coterminous with the Holocaust and the founding of Israel have been the conquest and destruction of much of Palestine. The creation of Israel forced an ethnic cleansing of more than 700,000 Palestinians to create room for the Jewish state. The removal of the Palestinians from their own land continued through the early years of Israel’s existence. It accelerated in the wake of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. These policies continue today in the Jewish ‘settlements’ —really expansive towns and small cities — that mark the future of Israel’s dominant and permanent presence in Jerusalem and the West Bank. … ‘Ethnic cleansing’ has been protested and mourned in Jewish identity as something that happens to Jews.
That Jews used ethnic cleansing to form the state of Israel introduces another, profoundly disturbing factor in the formation of modern Jewish identity.
It appears our empowerment is tainted with the same abuse of power others have used against us, an abuse we have condemned.”

Those who express such views, Ellis notes, are all too often simply dismissed as “anti-Semitic” or as “self-hating Jews.”
He writes that, “Jewish life has settled into a self-understanding that revolves around the Holocaust. Jewish assertions of power are seen as a response to this fundamental injustice. Hence, the axiomatic equation of Jewish life: ‘Jewish power equals innocence.’ …
Their corollary is: ‘Those who doubt Jewish and Israeli innocence are anti-Semitic.’ This corollary asserts that those who challenge the formation of Israel and the linking of Jewish identity with it must be against Jewish identity itself. ..
. The charge of anti-Semitism is even leveled against those Jews who dissent from the ‘Jewish power equals innocence’ identity formulation. We are labeled ‘self-hating’ Jews … Accusations of anti-Semitism and Jewish self-hatred are the flip side of the counterfeit claim that Jewish power is innocent.”

Very intersting and obviously “dangerous” views for some.
http://www.acjna.org/acjna/articles_detail.aspx?id=530

Uh,just went to Wikipedia and saw his wife is a Christian convert from Judaism.
Does it have a bearing?You decide.

We all know the drill by now: the Israel lobby seeks to utterly crush anyone who dissents from it, without exceptions. Likud Zionism bears all the hallmarks of the worst totalitarian movements throughout history.

What do you want to bet that a big of digging would reveal that Kenn Starr is a Christian Zionist?