Kenneth Waltzer

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Apr 30, 2020, 11:08 PM

Jews and the Pandemic

The existence of Jewish life in a suffering, transforming world of pandemic, afflicted by a spreading global plague, raises the question how we may expect this to affect Jews, who have suffered historically during plagues. The Jerusalem Report in...

Dec 12, 2019, 7:29 PM

I watched a powerful film yesterday, “Forced Out,” available on youtube, co-written by David Hirsh and Andrea Frankenthaler about the forceful exclusion of veteran Jewish members from the British Labour Party. People with long experience campaigning and working for...

Aug 25, 2019, 6:48 AM

Israel’s error

If the word democracy has meaning and the claim to be democratic has important value, Israel made a mistake in its response to the prospective visit of two young Congresswomen, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, this past week. Israel...

May 1, 2019, 1:26 AM

Emory U. and Mock Eviction Notices

Stop! Pro-Palestinian students active in Students for Justice in Palestine recently put up mock eviction notices on dormitory doors of Jewish students at Emory connected with the annual hate Israel Apartheid Week. Student rooms with Jewish inhabitants were among...

Apr 4, 2019, 10:27 PM

We Do Not Support Your Movement

President Martha Pollock of Cornell University, formerly Provost at the University of Michigan, in early March spoke out boldly against the publicly announced effort by students to press the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement on campus and promote...

Feb 13, 2019, 1:20 PM

Deborah Lipstadt talks about American antisemitism, here and now

American journalist Chris Hedges hosted a political talk show recently, in which he and his guests claimed that “pro-Israel lobby groups have fabricated accusations of antisemitism on US college campuses in order to incite official crackdowns against Palestinian solidarity...

Jan 14, 2019, 11:23 PM

An Uneven Exchange

Mark Yudof and I placed a critical response to Katherine Franke’s essay, “The Pro-Israel Push to Purge US Campus Critics,” in the on-line New York Review of Books December 15, 2018, which was published on January 8, 2019 with...

Nov 18, 2018, 5:54 AM

What is the Effective Curriculum on Israel at UM?

A group of students styling themselves “Direct Action for Palestine” met in early November with President Mark Schlissel of the University of Michigan. The students demanded “divestment of all university monies from companies targeted by the Boycott, Divestment, and...

Oct 29, 2018, 6:56 PM

A Deeply Unsettling Moment

Jewish history is replete with stories of expulsion and exodus. Knowledge of the Holocaust includes the story of immense difficulties European Jews faced in finding open doors to flee and find haven. Even after the Nazi Holocaust, the barriers...

Oct 14, 2018, 6:59 AM

Barring students from study in Israel

It has been a rough few weeks for American students wishing to study in Israel. A faculty member opposed to the Israeli state refused to write a recommendation for a University of Michigan honors student who sought to study...

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About Me

Kenneth Waltzer is former director of Jewish Studies at Michigan State University and a progressive opponent of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. He a historian of the Holocaust completing a book on the rescue of children and youths at Buchenwald. He directed the Academic Engagement Network 2015-2019.