AMCHA Initiative Gets Support in Canada

I am pleased to cross-post this article by Barbara Kay in the Port Arthur Herald. Ms Kay wrote it after hearing Tammi Rossman-Benjamin of the AMCHA Initiative speak recently in Montreal. In this article, Ms Kay describes Tammi's article in the new book, The Case Against Academic Boycotts of Israel.


http://princearthurherald.com/en/politics-2/amchas-valiant-defence-of-israel-054

"No pro-Israel student, for example, would wish to study with UC Riverside Professor and academic boycott founder David Lloyd, cited by Rossman-Benjamin. As part of his course curriculum, Lloyd invited Omar Barghouti to speak to his students. Barghouti is a high-profile BDS leader and an overt anti-Semite, who has publicly voiced his desire to “euthanize the Zionist project.” The talk was funded and sponsored by the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, along with the Department of ethnic Studies, a third of whose faculty have endorsed the academic boycott of Israel, including the department chair. Students in eight courses were required to attend and listen to Barghouti’s talk, which “consisted of anti-Israel propaganda laced with classic anti-Semite tropes used to promote the academic boycott of Israel.” This is not academic freedom. This is anti-Semitism tout court, tricked out in the vestments of academic respectability."

I was at that event at UC Riverside in January 2014. Though I arrived late, I was able to videotape the event and participate in the q and a, which rose the hackles of the aforementioned anti-Israel activist professor, David Lloyd.

I am grateful to Ms Kay for supporting Tammi and AMCHA in this article.