POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN

The letter below, which has so far attracted over 700 signatures, a veritable who’s-who of Jewish and Israel Studies, comes in response to the University of Washington placing its five-year-old Israel Studies Program on hold after a major donor, angry about a professor’s criticism of Israel, took her money back.  Becky Benaroya gave $5 million in 2016 to create the program.  But after Professor Liora Halperin, the Jack and Rebecca Benaroya Endowed Chair in Israel Studies, was among hundreds of Jewish studies and Israel studies professors to sign a widely circulated statement criticizing Israel last year, Benaroya requested months of meetings to discuss  the program’s direction. Those meetings  culminated in the university returning the entire endowment to Benaroya earlier this year.  The university then stripped Halperin of her chair position and halted programming related to Israel studies. 

“In making the nearly unprecedented choice to return the endowment money — in the absence of any contractual obligation to do so — UW has dealt an immediate blow to the students who have come to rely on the resources of the program, limited our opportunities to bring innovative academic programming, and sent a broader chilling message about the potential material consequences of engaging in principled political speech,” Prof. Halperin said.

Letter in Support of Prof. Liora Halperin

We, the undersigned scholars and students of Jewish and Israel studies based in North America and beyond, write to express our grave concern at the treatment of our colleague, Liora Halperin, associate professor of international studies, history, and Jewish studies at the University of Washington.  Prof. Halperin was recently informed of her removal from the endowed chair she held in Israel studies, with the endowment to be returned to the donor, a nearly unprecedented decision taken by the university’s president, Ana Mari Cauce.  She was also informed that the Israel Studies program she has been chairing since her arrival at UW would no longer have dedicated funds.  Prof. Halperin is an esteemed teacher, citizen of the university, and scholar who has authored two highly regarded books in the field of Israel studies, Babel in Zion: Jews, Nationalism, and Language Diversity in Palestine, 1920-1948 (Yale University Press, 2015, recipient of the Shapiro Prize from the Association for Israel Studies for the best book in Israel Studies); and  The Oldest Guard: Forging the Zionist Settler Past (Stanford University Press, 2021).

The events leading up to the university’s decision to return the endowment and take away Prof. Halperin’s chair appear to have stemmed from a letter that Prof. Halperin signed in the wake of the outbreak of violence in Israel-Palestine in May 2021.  In that letter, the signatories condemned the “state violence” committed by Israel and expressed solidarity with Gazans, while also affirming the “pain, fear, and anger” provoked by “unjustifiable and indiscriminate Hamas rockets.”  It should be noted that Prof. Halperin, along with the other signatories, was expressing herself in the letter as a private individual, not in any official university capacity.

The right to free expression is the foundation of the modern university. But the actions of the University of Washington administration in response to donor discontent over the letter Prof. Halperin signed marks a dangerous capitulation and violation of that bedrock principle.  Ideas generated within the academy—and by academics outside of the university–may break with received patterns of thought.  That kind of iconoclasm is not to be discouraged or penalized; it is a key part of the advancement of knowledge for the betterment of society.  In its statement on free speech, the flagship American Association of University Professors has declared: “Freedom of thought and expression is essential to any institution of higher learning.  Universities and colleges exist not only to transmit knowledge.  Equally, they interpret, explore, and expand that knowledge by testing the old and proposing the new.”

Prof. Halperin’s decision to sign the May 2021 letter did not violate the university’s code of conduct nor indicate any criminal behavior, both legitimate grounds for a university to strip a faculty person of an endowed chair.  Instead, in responding to donor pressure by returning the endowment and stripping Prof. Halperin of her chair and dissolving the Israel studies program, President Cauce set a dangerous precedent that sends a chilling message to faculty members and undermines the principle of academic freedom.

A far wiser tack would have been for the university to uphold the principle of free speech and make clear to its donors that the goal of an Israel studies program is not to defend the state of Israel or give it a good name.  It is to offer a wide-ranging set of programs that capture the complexity of that state in all its political, cultural, and social dimensions.   This, by definition, would include consideration of the Palestinian populations living under different regimes in Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, and elsewhere in the world.  This is not to say that all scholars must cleave to the same political view or solution on the question of Israel-Palestine.  Nor, for that matter, is it to say that all of Israel studies can or must be reduced to this question.  Rather, it is to say that considering Israel-Palestine as a guiding frame of analysis is perfectly legitimate.  To suggest otherwise is to abandon the values on which universities are built as sites of free and open discourse.

It is essential to repeat that Prof. Halperin has done nothing wrong. She has discharged her professorial and program leadership duties with distinction.  Accordingly, we call upon the University of Washington to reinstate the resources that came with the  endowed chair and the Israel studies program—resources which she assumed she would receive when she was first recruited from her previous position.  The University’s actions have endangered the principle of free speech that lies at the heart of every credible institution of higher learning in the world—and it should acknowledge its serious mistake and pledge to uphold that principle without regard to a faculty member’s political views.

If you would like to add your name to the list, please click here to access the Google form.