Anti-Zionist rabbi banned from Oxford University college say

[TriWooOx]

There's an interesting academic spat hotting up at Oxford University today.

Taj Hargey, a very controversial Muslim academic and self-styled "liberal imam", has accused Wolfson College of stifling free speech by forcing him to reorganise a debate that he was intending to hold with an equally controversial anti-Zionist rabbi.

Prof. Hargey invited Rabbi Ahron Cohen (pictured) from Manchester to the post-graduate college in order to present a paper entitled: "Zionist is not Judaism, Anti-Israelism is not Anti-Semitism."

But Wolfson College has informed Hargey today that Rabbi Cohen is not welcome and that they will have to find another venue.

Rabbi Cohen is a deeply controversial character within Britain's Jewish community. He belongs to Neturai Karta (Guardians of the City), an international ultra-Hasidic sect of a few thousands people that is deeply opposed to Zionism. Three years ago their members even attended an international conference in Tehran which critics dubbed "The Holocaust denial conference".

The Neturai Karta are theoligically opposed to Zionism because they believe it goes against the teachings of the Jewish faith. They believe the Talmud insists that the creation of the Jewish state prior to the coming of the Messiah must not be done by force and have called the state of Israel a "poison" that "threatens true Jews".

Needless to say Neturai Karta's opinions are rather incendiary within the Jewish community.

Taj Hargey is also a very controversial character. He runs the Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford and describes himself as a Muslim reformer who is trying to create a liberal and progressive Islam. He has a small following around Oxford where he encourages men and women to pray together and even once invited a female academic to lead Friday prayers.

But his following remains miniscule within Britain's mainstream Muslim community who are deeply skeptical of him.

Hargey says Wolfson's decision to ban Rabbi Cohen is stifling free speech on campus.

But Wolfson insist otherwise. I've just been on the phone to Edward Jarron, the college bursar, who said they told Hargey to find another venue because they only found out that Rabbi Cohen had been invited at the last minute.

Jarron said the debate had been on the college's books for a couple of months but there was no indication that someone as controversial as Rabbi Cohen had been invited.

Mr Jarrow said: "I don't want anyone thinking Wolfson College does not support free speech. But if you're going to invite someone as close to the knuckle as Rabbi Cohen then we should have been informed two months ago in order to allow the governing body to decide whether the person should be allowed in and whether, in the interest of academic fairness, there should also be speakers from an opposing side."

My understanding is that the debate is still taking place but in order to counter any mass demonstrations the venue will only be disclosed at the last minute. It will be interesting to see if this argument heats up.

http://community.livejournal.com/ti_mr/10311.html

[scooby]

Jewish tenacles menace university systems throughout the world. In 2002 jews organized the Israel on Campus Coalition (ICC) which comprises over 30 well-funded foundations which are determined to liquidate all opposition to Israel on US university campuses:

http://www.israelcc.org/about

ICC Members:
Aish HaTorah / Hasbara Fellowships
Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi)
Alpha Epsilon Phi (AEPhi)
American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)
American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise (AICE)
American Jewish Committee (AJC)
The American Jewish Congress
Americans for Peace Now (APN)
Anti-Defamation League (ADL)
CAMERA
Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation
Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations
The David Project
Fuel For Truth
Hillel - The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life
Israel University Consortium (IUC)
Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA)
Jewish National Fund (JNF)
KESHER - Union for Reform Judaism (URJ)
KOACH - United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism (USCJ)
Media Watch International (MWI)
Stand With Us
Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America (OU)
Union of Progressive Zionists (UPZ)
United Jewish Communities (UJC)
USD - Hagshama of the World Zionist Organization
Yavneh Olami
YJ Impact!, sponsored by Hadassah
Zionist Organization of America (ZOA)

Other wretched institutes devoted to the same evil purpose include:
AMCHA-CJC, The Coalition for Jewish Concerns
American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA)
Campus Watch
Chabad on Campus
Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life
Holocaust/Genocide Project
Holocaust Teacher Resource Center
Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI)
International Academic Friends of Israel (IAFI)
Israel Campus Roundtable
Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA)
Madison Center for Educational Affairs (defunct, absorbed into the Hudson Institute)
Mesora
National Heritage Academies (NHA)
Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME)
Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation
Social Philosophy and Policy Center
StandWithUs (SWU)
Task Force for International  Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research
UJA Federation of New York
Yad Vashem

[mgt23]

Rabbi Ahron Cohen could be a great guest.

[scooby]

They may not be funded by the Scaife Family Foundation, but the California Scholars for Academic Freedom http://cascholars4academicfreedom.wordpress.com/ are resisting Abe Foxman's efforts to destroy the career of UC Santa Barbara professor William Robinson for his condemnation of the Gaza Massacre:

http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/more-o ... ight-them/

Joel Michaelsen, Academic Senate Chair
Henry Yang, Chancellor
University of California, Santa Barbara

Dear Professor Michaelsen and Chancellor Yang,

We, the California Scholars for Academic Freedom, are all deeply disturbed to hear about the charges brought against Professor William Robinson. The charges of anti-Semitism and of violation of the Faculty Code of Conduct, based on an email he sent to his class condemning the Israeli assault in Gaza, are clearly without merit. First, criticism of the state of Israel and of Israeli leaders and government policy obviously does not constitute anti-Semitism, which is defined as "hatred toward Jews - individually or as a group - that can be attributed to the Jewish religion or ethnicity." Second, the information that Prof. Robinson sent was certainly relevant for a course on global issues and in no way involved harassment of students nor "a misuse of University resources...on a significant scale."

It appears in fact that University officials have violated university procedures in bringing these charges. The right to present controversial material in the context of a course - including opinions that may be deeply disturbing to some students - is an essential element of academic freedom. This includes the right to criticize government actions, whether they be American, Israeli, or those of any other government.

We request that the Academic Senate dismiss these charges, apologize to Professor Robinson, and publicly uphold the right of Prof. Robinson and other members of the University community to discuss controversial issues in a free and open environment.

Sincerely yours,

California Scholars for Academic Freedom

Contacts:
Nora Hamilton, Political Science, University of Southern California – nhamil[at]usc.edu
Katherine King, Comparative Literature, University of California, Los Angeles – king[at]humnet.ucla.edu
David Klein, Mathematics, California State University, Northridge – david.klein[at]csun.edu

The California Scholars for Academic Freedom is a two-year old group of over 100 academics who teach in 20 California institutions. The group formed as a response to various violations of academic freedom that were arising from both the post-9/11/2001 climate of civil rights violations and the increasing attacks on progressive educators by neo-conservatives.

Many attacks were aimed at scholars of Arab, Muslim or Middle Eastern descent or at scholars researching and teaching about the Middle East, Arab and Muslim communities. Our goal of protecting California Scholars based mainly in institutions of higher education has grown broader in scope. We recognize that violations of academic freedom anywhere are threats to academic freedom everywhere.

More on the ADL attack on Professor Robinson here: http://sb4af.wordpress.com/

[nik]

Michael Whine

Michael Whine is Government and International Affairs Director at the Community Security Trust, the defense agency of the UK Jewish community, and Defence and Group Relations Director of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the representative body of the community. He is a consultant on antisemitism to the European Jewish Congress, which he represents at the OSCE. He has been engaged in researching antisemitism and extremism for twenty years.

http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/Show ... =0&IID=567
-----

The thing with Neturai Karta is they might hold israel in disdain - but they do STILL believe in the dictates of the Talmud. They just believe in a different manifestation of Zionism.
I don't see them as innocuous in any way, personally.

Btw. this thread was started by a concen admin.

[joeblow]