Monday, October 12, 2020
Elder of ZiyonOne of the attendees described the lecture this way:
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
Today I attended a lecture given by Brown University professor Ariella Azoulay who had been invited to talk to a Cornell class in the school of architecture. This lecture was afactual, ahistorical and steeped in antisemitic narratives to the extent that all photographs showing Jews or Israelis she had erased the image of the people (see below) because "I can't bear to look at them". Deeply disturbing and profoundly depressing.
Sure enough, Azoulay tweeted her photos that she showed at the lecture, and they show all Jews who were the early pioneers of modern Israel are deliberately blacked out of the photos.
Even though Azoulay is Jewish, she actually went out of her way to blacken the images of Jews because, in her words, she couldn't bear to look at them. This is dehumanizing Jews and only Jews - there is really no other way to interpret this. (In her caption of an unedited photo advertising the lecture, Azoulay specifically calls out Jewish - not Zionist - soldiers.)
There was no controversy at Cornell over this blatant dehumanizing of Jews. On the contrary - the controversy was over the fact that a few minutes into the lecture s message was placed on the screen, apparently in response to the one-sided nature of the lecture, which said, “We are aware that these topics are sensitive and have multiple view points and would like to assure all participants that the department is looking forward to organizing a future lecture that presents other view points than those that are offered here today and in subsequent talks.”
This message prompted a petition with nearly a thousand signers about how terrible it is for a college to say that they would make alternate points of view available.
This may be the most antisemitic thing I have ever seen in a US university lecture hall.
(h/t Andrew P)
UPDATE: Here's Azoulay's editing of the classic photo of Ben Gurion declaring the State of Israel, along with the original.
