For years, Marianne Hirsch, a prominent genocide scholar at Columbia University, has used Hannah Arendt’s book about the trial of a Nazi war criminal, “Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil,” to spark discussion among her students about the Holocaust and its lingering traumas.

But after Columbia’s recent adoption of a new definition of antisemitism, which casts certain criticism of Israel as hate speech, Hirsch fears she may face official sanction for even mentioning the landmark text by Arendt, a philosopher who criticized Israel’s founding.

For the first time since she started teaching five decades ago, Hirsch, the daughter of two Holocaust survivors, is now thinking of leaving the classroom altogether.

“A university that treats criticism of Israel as antisemitic and threatens sanctions for those who disobey is no longer a place of open inquiry,” she told The Associated Press. “I just don’t see how I can teach about genocide in that environment.”

  • culprit@lemmy.ml
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    5 days ago

    When you change the definition of anti-semitism to include any criticism of Pissreal, that’s called being anti-semantic.

        • Optional@lemmy.world
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          4 days ago

          Um, Israel.

          I’m assuming there’s not really a country called “Pissreal” but I’ve been wrong before.

          • Bloomcole@lemmy.world
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            4 days ago

            There certainly isn’t a country named Israel.
            That is some temporary entity in occupied Palestine.

              • Bloomcole@lemmy.world
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                4 days ago

                What a weird thing to say. AFAIK Belgium isn’t occupied.
                Might as well be since our government like most of the EU countries and US are obediently allowing the holocaust in Palestine.

                • Optional@lemmy.world
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                  4 days ago

                  It’s a weird US thing to say. The whole country was stolen. It’s a whole . . . deal.

                  • Bloomcole@lemmy.world
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                    4 days ago

                    I’m Belgian so obviously not from the US banana republic.
                    And why this whataboutism?
                    Besides they don’t compare since Palestine is ongoing and the monsters haven’t managed to genocide all of them yet.