Future comments along those lines will be deleted. I’m serious, y’all. We are not going to get into an antagonistic back-and-forth on Israelis vs. Palestinians. There are many, many other places on the internet where you can do that.

The Palestinan BDS National Committee issued guidelines for BDS in 2009 for both academic and cultural BDS. Both clearly point out that individual Israeli artists and academics are not subject to boycott simply because they are Israeli.

Instead the focus is on the Israeli state, its institutions, Israeli state funded initiatives and corporations that violate international law and profit from Israel’s occupation and apartheid policies.

What Wiesenfeld and CUNY have done is very different.

Wiesenfeld has targeted an individual artist because they did not like his political point of view. BDS, however, does not target individual Israelis simply because they are Israeli, instead the campaign is aimed at Israeli institutions and Israeli state funded events because of Israel’s well documented, extensive and repeated war crimes and human rights abuses of the Palestinian people.

BDS Guidelines:
Academic boycott:
http://www.bdsmovement.net/2009/pacbi-issues-guidelines-for-applying-academic-boycott-566

Cultural boycott:
http://www.bdsmovement.net/2009/pacbi-issues-guidelines-for-applying-academic-boycott-566

It was brought to my attention early on in this semester that the BOARD of TRUSTEES was going to cut the general ed requirements to make the transfer from CUNY Community Colleges to Senior Colleges seamless, and if this happens the entire Philosophy Department at Lehman would be eliminated.

Considering the absolutely disgraceful events of the past week, and the COWARDICE displayed by 10 Board members who jumped on the BIGOT bandwagon with Wiesenfeld, it makes complete sense to me now that CUNY wants to churn out DRONES instead of intellectuals who can – egads! – think for themselves.

The entire Board needs to be replaced. And if Corey Provost was in agreement with Wiesendfeld, he definitely needs to be shown the door because he – of all people – should know better than to side with a BIGOT.

Bunch of damn jerks.

I can only imagine what Grandma would say about this Kushner situation. She had a sharp tongue, and she went to Hunter, a CUNY school—the first woman in her family to attend college—so I’m guessing it wouldn’t be pretty.

This is so profoundly true that I’m amazed I’ve never heard it before. And my family jokes that we’ll love our son if he’s gay, and we’ll even love him if he’s a republican, but maybe not if he’s both, because that’s just wrong. So why should I let him grow up believing he needs the approval of the Orthodox Rabbis who don’t even think we’re real Jews?

You are sadly misinformed, but young enough to learn about opinion and fact.

Mr. Kushner is a liar.

So he managed to insult me (someone about whom he knows nothing) and libel Kushner in the same email, as well as taking the stance of the injured party when in fact he used doctored quotations to make his case. He is loathsome.

I heartily agree with Becky. I am damned tired of right wing fanatics in Judaism who tell the rest of us that we’re not good enough, not authentic enough, not supportive enough of Israel. And we non-Orthodox Jews aid and abet this nonsense every time we write a check to a right-wing organization. Without us, these groups would have serious funding problems. We’re the Log Cabin Republicans of Judaism, feeling shame and guilt and acting pathetically grateful to be allowed to fund the very people who despise us.

If this incident causes non-Orthodox Jews to liberate ourselves from the tyranny of the right, it will have been worth it.