Yaman Salahi, a Yale Law School student, joins the call on Yale to dissociate itself from the conference last week that equated criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. From the Yale Daily News. Note Salahi’s sophisticated navigation of Jewish identity. Help us, dude.
[I]n a plenary about anti-racist Jewish critics of Israel titled “Self Hatred and Contemporary Antisemitism,” Richard Landes’ speech asked, “What Drives Jews to Loathe Israel Publicly?” as if those dissidents’ claims were based not on merit but on some pathological psychosis. Landes and others were not speaking about radical organizations but rather reputable human rights organizations, prominent Jewish dissidents and international student activists — exactly the kind of people a center purporting to fight bigotry should celebrate. By sponsoring such a forum, Yale lends its name to the notion that Jews who publically criticize Israel and Zionism are “self-haters.” Predicated on a rigid definition of a “real” Jew as someone who tows a particular political line, the underlying ideological definition of Jewish identity limits the freedom of Jews to develop their own identity based on their individual experiences in their particular social and historical context. Ironically, the same logic, inverted, often provides a pretext for racist ideas about Jews around the world, for those who imagine that Jews, no matter where they are or what they say, form a monolithic body that can be blamed for Israel’s actions.
Worse still, considering the dangerous landscape on which American Muslims now dwell, is the harm that anti-Muslim bigotry disseminated under Yale’s banner of credibility may cause. At a time when Muslim communities as close as Bridgeport, Conn. have been harassed at places of worship, Yale should be especially sensitive to the impact that the knowledge produced in its name can cause in the world. The University cannot preach tolerance and inclusion while simultaneously also providing a haven for bigoted ideas about Muslims and Arabs that often form the basis for Islamophobic sentiment in this country.
While the center’s failure to abstain from inflammatory anti-Muslim and anti-Arab rhetoric is offensive and dangerous, the real tragedy is its failure to recognize that a successful and principled stand against anti-Semitism requires a principled stand against all kinds of racism, including anti-Muslim/anti-Arab bigotry in America and anti-Palestinian racism in Israel. Yale has an obligation to distance itself from the conference’s more questionable affiliations and pronouncements, while at the same time making sure that Yale’s name is not hijacked in order to demonize Muslims and Arabs.
