Last week the American Studies Association (ASA) voted for a resolution in support of a boycott of Israeli academic institutions.

The Jewish Community Relations Committee of the Jewish Federation of Delaware (JCRC) is deeply concerned by the resolution as it undermines principles of academic freedom, punishes and restricts relationships with the universities and scholars of one nation, and inhibits important discourse on issues of global concern.

The resolution purports to support academic freedom in which scholars are free to pursue ideas without being targeted for repression, discipline, or institutional censorship, yet urges a sweeping boycott of Israeli institutions based on extreme rhetoric and distorted generalizations. It is based on factual inaccuracies and distortions predicated on mischaracterizations of the role of Israel's universities, public and private, in the development and implementation of government policy.

The process showed very little integrity and violated academic principles by not having any counterbalancing view to the one proposed by those who controlled the entire process.

JCRC urges University presidents, professors and students to repudiate this unjust boycott and reaffirm the principles of tolerance and openness that should prevail in academia and in the enlightened world.

The Jewish Community Relations Committee advocates for Israel, promotes Federation's political agenda, educates our greater community on Jewish issues and participates in a broad variety of social justice activities.     

Federation is pleased to share the University of Delaware's statement issued Thursday afternoon:

"The University of Delaware rejects the decision of the American Studies Association to endorse an academic boycott of Israel. Such a boycott is fundamentally incompatible with the principle of academic freedom, which is central to the mission of this University and to that of American higher education as a whole. It is imperative that the University's scholars be able to freely associate with colleagues and institutions around the world, and we will not suppress the rich research collaborations, faculty exchanges and program agreements with Israeli universities that have enlarged the breadth and enhanced the quality of our scholarship, nor will we discourage the formation of new partnerships."  - Patrick T. Harker, President  

As recent surveys reveal a disturbingly large number of American Jews-millions, in fact-who feel disconnected from their Jewish identity, allow me to share what being Jewish means to me.

To me, being Jewish means entering into a partnership with the Divine for the repair of our broken world (in Hebrew, Tikkun Olam).

To me, being Jewish means recognizing that this is not work to be outsourced to a higher authority or to other people, but my responsibility during my lifetime.

To me, being Jewish means affirming life (Deuteronomy: "I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse, therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live") - and the moral choice each of us has to bring us all a little closer to the prophetic vision of a world at peace and in harmony.

To me, being Jewish means championing what is arguably the single most revolutionary concept in the annals of human civilization, introduced to the world by the Jews- monotheism. We are all created in the image of the one God (in Hebrew, B'tzelem Elohim). more