Hotovely at Princeton

With regard to “Princeton University’s Hillel cancels Hotovely’s campus talk” (November 7), this is a disgrace! It’s an earthquake! The Hillel at the prestigious Ivy League university disinvites Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely from addressing students – the same Hillel chapter that recently hosted Breaking the Silence on Israel’s Independence Day!

Israel’s Diaspora Affairs Ministry and Strategic Affairs Ministry funnel millions of dollars to Hillel to strengthen Jewish identity on campus. Time and again they get slapped in the face – yet continue to financially assist the organization. Why waste Israeli taxpayer money on an inefficient partner?

BDS and Israel’s detractors on US campuses just scored another victory without lifting a finger!

MICHAEL JANKELOWITZ Jerusalem The writer is a former international director of the Student Division of the World Zionist Organization.

How unfortunate that Princeton Hillel executive director Rabbi Julie Roth withdrew an invitation to Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely.

Universities used to pride themselves on opening students’ minds by exposing them to a wide array of information and teaching critical thinking. Now students are entitled only to campusthink.

Rabbi Roth says she looks forward to a “robust and healthy debate around Israel.” I can’t help but laugh. How will that happen when she caves in to the dictates of the Alliance of Jewish Progressives?

The AJP and its cohorts shut down debate. They defend the rights of all indigenous peoples to be heard... except their own. Their narrow-mindedness affords no space for one tiny Jewish homeland that provides a safe haven to a minority group unwelcome in scores of Muslim nations.

As a rabbi, Roth knows the preeminence of the site of the Holy Temple and the holiness of Jerusalem to Judaism, just as an imam knows the preeminence of the Kaaba and the holiness of Mecca to Islam. As a campus educator, she should reject wearing the mantle of the thought police – and as a woman, she should have the strength to stand up to bullies like the AJP.

LYNN KOSS Fayetteville, New York

I was saddened to read “Princeton University’s Hillel cancels Hotovely’s campus talk,” which says this followed a “petition by a progressive Jewish group on campus.”

Rabbi Julie Roth opted to “postpone Hotovely’s program until we can properly vet the program through our Israel Advisory Committee.” Who would Rabbi Roth like to vet? God? Moses? Those of us who believe that God gave the Land of Israel to the Jewish people? Are there any members on her advisory committee who hold these views?

How can there be a “robust and healthy debate” when other points of view are silenced?

ANN ROSMAN

Jerusalem

Eight years ago, in my capacity as the Middle East correspondent of Philadelphia Bulletin, I was assigned to cover the appearance at the same Princeton Hillel of a pro-Israel Arab activist, Nonie Darwish – except that her appearance was canceled by the same Rabbi Julie Roth, executive director of the Center for Jewish Life at the Hillel.

Jewish students had invited Ms. Darwish to speak because they felt it was important to hear her critique of radical Islam. The Muslim leader on campus, Imam Sohaib Sultan, demanded that Hillel cancel her appearance because, he contended, “she perpetuates stereotypes about Islam that implicate all Muslims, not just Muslim fundamentalists.”

In the spirit of academic freedom and dialogue, Jewish students on campus offered the Muslim students a chance to rebut and respond to her after her presentation, and offered the imam equal time to express his point of view. The Muslim students, however, would hear nothing about a dialogue in an academic setting and pressed Imam Sultan’s demand that Ms. Darwish’s lecture simply be canceled.

Rabbi Roth supported the campus imam and told the students: “An invitation to Nonie Darwish is like an invitation to a neo-Nazi.” Describing herself as a leader in the promotion of “dialogue between the Muslim and Jewish communities on campus,” she told me she did not want to present views that disturb the sensitivities of Muslims at Princeton.

So much for academic freedom and dialogue on an Ivy League campus. From banning Nonie Darwish to banning Tzipi Hotovely, it would seem that Rabbi Roth’s academic standing should be questioned.

DAVID BEDEIN Jerusalem The writer is director of Israel Resource News Agency and the Center for Near East Policy Research.