Campus activist urges students
to counter anti-Israel rhetoric

by Ron Kaplan
NJJN Staff Writer

Students need to challenge anti-Semitic and anti-Israel rhetoric by faculty on college campuses, according to Rachel Fish, New York regional director of the David Project.

About 80 people, from high school students to senior citizens, gathered at Oheb Shalom Congregation in South Orange on March 6 as Fish spoke of her experiences combating such incidents as a student at the Harvard Divinity School and, more recently, advising students at Columbia University, where instructors have been accused of lambasting the Jewish state while turning deaf ears to the protests of Jewish students.

The talk by Fish, 25, included a screening of Columbia Unbecoming, a documentary produced by the David Project that has thrust Columbia into the headlines with its accusations that professors in the school’s Mideast studies department have bated pro-Israel students.

The film’s accusations prodded the university’s president to launch an internal investigation of the department and prompted a heated national debate focusing on the clash between free speech and academic freedom on the one hand, and the responsibility of the university to ensure a classroom climate free of intimidation on the other.

Before the program, Dr. Jerome Horowitz, chair of Oheb Shalom’s Israel Affairs Committee and host for the discussion, told NJ Jewish News that he hoped Fish’s presentation would help the audience “understand the Mideast struggle in terms that are apolitical and…create as much support for the State of Israel as we can.”

According to its Web site, the David Project was founded in 2002 to promote a fair and honest understanding of the Middle East conflict in response to the growing ideological assault on Israel.

Fish told the audience that she had met wish students from Columbia who told her of a “handful of professors who used the classroom to promote a one-sided political agenda, and they do not allow pro-Israel students to offer a dissenting voice in the classroom. And if [the students] did offer a dissenting voice, [they were] often silenced, intimidated, and in some cases even abused by professors.”

The Project’s Web site describes the film as raising “significant questions about the misuse of academic freedom, insufficient academic integrity in teaching about the Middle East, student intimidation, and how professors use the classroom as a political platform.”

At both Harvard and Columbia, Fish said, the administration was reluctant to deal with the problems for fiscal and/or political reasons. She described the serpentine procedures involved in seeking redress, another factor that led to the production of Columbia Unbecoming.

Several in the Oheb Shalom audience — especially those who identified themselves as activists in the 1960s — questioned the apparent apathy on campuses.

“Students come and go in four to five years, so it’s great if you can get a handle on [those] who are willing to be involved,” she said. “But, unfortunately, we’re finding that many Jewish students lack moral courage and lack strong leadership skills, so they’re unwilling to get involved, especially when it’s something long-term, like this campaign.”

Likewise, it was very difficult to mobilize pro-Israel professors, many of whom “are hiding,” reluctant to take a public position out of fear that such a stand could affect their tenure or jobs.

After the program, many of the attendees approached Fish to offer encouragement, tell of a relative facing similar problems, or hand over a check for the David Project. Rabbi Mark Cooper of Oheb Shalom presented Fish with $1,000 collected from the audience for the David Project.

In an interview with NJJN, Fisk estimated she has given hundreds of such talks to Jewish day schools, congregations, high schools, and other institutions.

Fish, a native of Tennessee who has ties to the South Orange community — her husband, David Cutler, grew up here and his parents, Ada Beth and Chuck Cutler, are members of Congregation Beth El — said she was amazed by how little people know about the situation.

“People don’t know the details of what’s happening on these campuses. And many of them have children, they have grandchildren; I think it’s important to raise awareness,” she said.

Fish came to public attention while a student at the Harvard Divinity School, when she challenged the propriety of a $2.5 million donation from the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, president of the United Arab Emirates, to establish a chair in Islamic Religious Studies. Fish led the protest, citing the Zayed Center for Coordination and Follow-Up, a think tank that promoted Holocaust denial and anti-American conspiracy theories. Thanks in great part to her efforts, the money was returned.

She said that speaking out against anti-Israel rhetoric is not foremost in students’ minds. “It’s not until they’ve been in the university for at least a year or two that they realize this is something that’s important and they should be involved in because...you’re just trying to get used to being in college, let alone having your parents tell you [that] you should be fighting for Israel on campus.”

Ron Kaplan can be reached at RKaplan@njjewishnews.com.