Last week, the New York Post reported that Hunter College was looking to hire a scholar in Palestinian Studies. The advertisement for the position read: “We seek a historically grounded scholar who takes a critical lens to issues pertaining to Palestine including but not limited to: settler colonialism, genocide, human rights, apartheid, migration, climate and infrastructure devastation, health, race, gender, and sexuality.”
It took less than a New York minute for Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, to order the job listing taken down and City University of New York leaders to comply. According to Hochul’s office, “Hateful rhetoric of any kind has no place at CUNY or anywhere in New York State.” The hateful rhetoric in question? These words and phrases: “settler colonialism,” “genocide,” and “apartheid.”
If a job advertisement mentioning these historical phenomena cannot be posted at CUNY — if a scholar studying or even mentioning these historical phenomena cannot be hired at CUNY — it’s safe to say that it won’t be long before a course examining them cannot be taught at CUNY.
What could that mean?
First, any Palestinian voices mentioning settler colonialism would be taken out of the curriculum. Second, any anti-Zionist Jewish voices mentioning settler colonialism would be taken out of the curriculum. And, last, any Zionist Jewish voices that mention settler colonialism would be taken out of the curriculum.
Let me give you an example.
My wife’s grandparents, refugees from Nazi Germany, fled to the United States in the 1930s. They brought with them an extensive library of Jewish books, which they kept in their possession until they died. My wife now owns some of these books.
One of them is an original edition of A Palestine Picture Book, which was published by the Jewish publisher Schocken Books in 1947. The book features stunning photographs of Mandate Palestine, all taken by Jakob Rosner for the Jewish National Fund.
It also features stunning text. Here are some passages:
- “It is barely forty years since the large-scale Jewish colonization of Palestine was begun. Despite natural and political handicaps, Jewish colonization, once begun, continued.”
- “Long a barren waste, it has been transformed by Jewish settlers into a place of fertile fields and green gardens in a generation’s time.”
- “Orange plantations now cover thousands of acres of the once water-starved coastal plain in dramatic contrast with the parched tracts of soil where colonization has not yet begun.”
- “From Lake Chinnereth the Jordan flows through a wide valley studded with new and thriving Jewish settlements.”
- “They have devoted their life and labor to the one aim of developing their settlements into strong and efficient units. Many of the new agricultural colonies are either ...”
- “… the permanent settlement… All collective settlements … The fully developed settlements … the collective settlements … Some settlements … especially settlements … A number of settlements … brought upon a settlement … fathers and mothers of the young settlers, left Europe to join the settlements … When a settlement is founded … in every settlement … reproduces the work of the settlement …”
Virtually every page is a reference to colonies, colonists, settlers, or settlements. Put the words together, and what do you get? A concept and a text, written by Jews, published by Jews, that Governor Hochul and the leaders of CUNY have decided is hateful rhetoric with no place at CUNY.
If the governor’s edict to eliminate the posted job listing is allowed to stand, the precedent will be set: In the name of protecting Jews from antisemitism, the governor of New York and the chancellor of CUNY, neither of whom is Jewish, could prohibit the teaching of a Jewish text — written by Jews, published by Jews, featuring photographs taken by Jews for the Jewish National Fund — once owned by two Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany, now owned by a Jewish woman in Brooklyn.
The words censorship, McCarthyism, and authoritarianism don’t even begin to describe the reality we might be facing here, of a Jewish text banned by non-Jews in the name of the Jews. It reads like a fable out of Franz Kafka or a story by Philip Roth. I’d suggest we adopt one of their readings instead, but perhaps it won’t be too long before they are banned, too.
An earlier version of this column appeared on Corey Robin’s website.
