Linda Sarsour is a friend to Jews
Linda Sarsour, a Palestinian-American activist, is invited to speak at graduation this year by the School of Public Health of the City University of New York. This has provoked a vicious smear campaign, led by state Assemblyman Dov Hikind, intended to bully the school into withdrawing the invitation. It’s the latest piece of a dishonest decadelong attempt to associate Sarsour with Islamic fundamentalism, anti-Semitism and hate.
We are rabbis in Brooklyn who have worked with Sarsour for more than a decade and, even if at times we do not entirely agree with her, we stand with her as friends and allies to support her and refute the false claims against her.
False claim one: Sarsour sees “the Jews” as “her enemies” — that’s the way Hikind put it in an Op-Ed in these pages.
Our experience with Sarsour argues the contrary. She has been building relationships between Muslims and Jews in Brooklyn since 2006.
The Jewish Week reported in 2007 that, as acting director of the Arab-American Association of New York, Sarsour developed a relationship with the Bay Ridge Jewish Center and engaged in coalition-building activities with the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York.
She has participated in multiple workshops and panels on interfaith dialogue.
She is a longstanding partner of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, an organization on whose rabbinic council we sit and about which she said, “I love this organization from the deepest of my heart.”
And as emcee at the 2017 May Day rally in Foley Square, Sarsour affirmed her commitment to supporting the rights of immigrants, workers, black people, Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs and Jews.
Yes, Sarsour is an ardent critic of Zionism — which should come as no surprise for a PalestinianAmerican with relatives in Palestine. But she has been clear that it is right-wing Zionism — Zionism that dismisses Palestinian claims to a national identity or for statehood — that she vehemently opposes.
Still, note Sarsour’s statement in 2006: “Israel is there, and it is going to be there whether we like it or not. We have to learn to deal with that.”
False claim two: Sarsour has no tolerance for Muslims who disagree with her. To advance this notion, many critics cite Sarsour’s 2011 Twitter response to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali anti-Islam activist who claimed (falsely) that female genital mutilation proves Islam’s inherent misogyny.
Sarsour’s retort — that Ali and others she disagrees with “don’t deserve to be women,” so she wishes she could “take their vaginas away” — was written in anger, and we agree it wasn’t nice. But it was not meant to be taken literally, and is hardly proof that she wants to assault Muslims who disagree with her or surgically strike women’s bodies.
False claim three: Sarsour supports terrorism.
To the contrary, she has clearly denounced it, saying “I do not support suicide bombers or anyone else who harms innocent people, regardless if they are Palestinian or Israeli.”
Yet, as supposed proof of terrorist sympathies, sites like MilitantIslamMonitor.org, under the headline “Head of Arab American Association Linda Sarsour linked to Hamas,” claim that Sarsour’s brother-in-law and a cousin are serving sentences in Israeli jails for Hamas activities. That’s a lie.
For others, the “proof” is an image she tweeted in 2015, of a child holding rocks which she captioned: “The definition of courage. #Palestine.” The image was of a child roughly aged 5 approaching a group of heavily armed soldiers.
Still others point to her friendship with and support of Rasmea Odeh, who was convicted of involvement in a 1970 supermarket bombing in Israel that killed two people. They ignore Odeh’s claim that she was tortured and coerced into confessing guilt, a contention worth exploring.
We do not know Odeh, but we know Sarsour — as a tireless advocate for social justice, and against racism, anti-Semitism, feminism, workers’ rights, immigrant rights and all other forms of prejudice.
She has never tried to hide her beliefs. We believe there is no reason why she should. The sloppy attempt to demoize her reeks of anti-Muslim bias.
CUNY wants to honor a leader at commencement. We say amen.