Princeton Jewish Center Cancels Israeli Minister Speech

A Jewish center at Princeton University canceled a speech by the Israeli deputy foreign minister the day before she was scheduled to deliver it, prompting criticism and calls to boycott the group.

Rabbi Julie Roth, executive director of the Center for Jewish Life (CJL), which is affiliated with Hillel International, announced on Sunday that CJL "decided to postpone the program with Member of Knesset Tzipi Hotovely until we can properly vet the program through our Israel Advisory Committee (IAC)."

The CJL decision came after the Alliance for Jewish Progressives (AJP), a left-wing student group, wrote an op-ed in the student paper and started a petition decrying Hotovely as a racist who should never have been invited to Princeton.

According to AJP, Hotovely's comments refuting Palestinian historical claims to Israel, as well as her conservative policies, are "hateful and racist."

AJP claimed Hillel violated its own official policy on Israel-related events by inviting Hotovely, citing the provision that "CJL will not … sponsor groups or speakers that, as a matter of policy or practice, foster an atmosphere of incivility, intend to harm Israel, or promote racism or hatred of any kind."

The policy has "previously served as a thinly veiled method to exclude left-wing voices," AJP said.

In neither the op-ed nor the petition was there any mention of the IAC as reason for AJP's opposition.

Chabad on Campus, Princeton's other Jewish center, stepped in and sponsored Hotovely, with the speech going ahead as planned on Monday evening.

Chabad Rabbi Eitan Webb said that he was "proud" to replace CJL as Hotovely's host.

"We bend over backwards to give free speech to all, and it is an honor to make sure that this ideal is upheld tonight," Webb said in his opening remarks.

Hotovely spoke about what she called the "ridiculous" ongoing Palestinian refugee crisis, and how a period of frequent Palestinian suicide bombings in the early 2000s showed her that the conflict is "not about land."

Rafi Lehmann, one of the organizers of the protest, titled "Stand Against Chabad-Sponsored Hatred," rejected the depiction of his camp as anti-free speech.

"We were not aiming to shut down the event, or silence MK Hotovely. In fact, many of us attended the event and spoke with [Hotovely] afterwards," said Lehmann.

Mikaela Gerwin, co-president of AJP who attended Hotovely's talk, maintained that the deputy foreign minister has said "hateful things" about Palestinians and non-Orthodox Jewish religious sects, but that her group may have misstepped in claiming racism.

"That’s a complicated word," she said.

Gerwin added that nothing Hotovely said at Princeton struck her as racist, but that it was a generally uninteresting speech that lacked nuance.

"It was a lot of talking points, but she's the [deputy] foreign minister. That’s what she's supposed to do," said Gerwin.

Gerwin insisted her group was taking CJL to task only for having no objective and clear guidelines about who it sponsors.

"They haven't been consistent on how the IAC is used—applying it to us [AJP] for all our events, but not making Minister Hotovely go through the same process," she said. "We need a Hillel that is truly open, because right now, conservative and progressive voices are not being equally represented."

The IAC process is not transparent, agreed a student instrumental in ensuring that Hotovely's speech went ahead, who spoke with the Washington Free Beacon on condition of anonymity.

However, the AJP is being disingenuous in now framing its complaint as being with Hillel's event policies, the student said.

"AJP didn’t once mention the IAC until after the event took place. The name of the protest was 'stop hate,'" said the student. "This wasn't about having a debate about ideas, and it wasn't about process. This was about stopping Hotovely coming at all."

Michael Oren, Israel's deputy minister for diplomacy and a former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S, tweeted in response to the protest, "I am ashamed that the Hillel at Princeton my alma mater denied Dep Min Hotovely the right to speak. Israeli officials shouldn’t speak there."

Yair Lapid, leader of Israel's Yesh Atid party, posted, "The cancellation of Hotovely's speech at Princeton University again proves that ‘progressive’ liberals only want to hear themselves."

Danny Ayalon—another former Israeli ambassador and one-time deputy foreign minister—called the decision "outrageous."

"Where is the commitment to free speech?" he asked on social media.

Princeton has been doing damage control, responding to Ayalon’s post and others with the corrective, "The event was NOT canceled. It was held as scheduled."

Hotovely has repeatedly said CJL's decision was the result of a "liberal dictatorship" that stifles free speech.

This incident marks the second time a Hillel center backed out unexpectedly from hosting an Israel event after student groups protested.

Matthew Berger, vice president of communications at Hillel International, said, "We work to ensure diverse Israel programs are represented in hundreds of campus events each week. These are two isolated incidents."

CJL representatives were not immediately available for comment.