Researcher who boycotted 13-year-old girl: ‘Jews have become Nazis’

The Jewish Chronicle follows up on an ex-Cambridge academic who refused to answer a 13-year-old schoolgirl’s question about horses until “there is justice for Palestine.”

The article lays out the play-by-play of responses.

Israeli schoolgirl Shachar Rabinovitch wrote the former researcher last week: “I know you are a very important person and I’ve read your article about horses (Domestication, Breed Diversification and Early History of the Horse) and I love horses very much and it will be an honour if you will answer my questions.”

Former archaezoologist Marsha Levine, replies: “I’ll answer your questions when there is peace and justice for Palestinians in Palestine…. You might be a child, but if you are old enough to write to me, you are old enough to learn about Israeli history and how it has impacted on the lives of Palestinian people.”

Shamir Rabinovitch, Shachar’s mother , says: “Boycotting a 13-year-old girl just to prove something is no better than not treating some kid in an Israeli hospital just because his father is a terrorist. Kids for me are out of the equation.”

Levine, reached by the JC, says, among other things, that “The Jews have become the Nazis.”

“The violence against Palestinians never stops,” she tells the Jewish paper. “The people who live in Gaza cannot get education, health, water. What does it say about Jews that they support that? Jews have turned themselves into monsters…. I want this girl not to worry about horses. I don’t need people emailing me. I’m not an academic anymore. My research was all in the past. I’m doing other things now. I don’t see any obligation to further her ego or make her feel better about herself. I don’t think it’s about her – I think it’s about her parents.”

And she adds: “Benjamin Netanyahu wants ethnic cleansing. The Jews have become the Nazis. Jews are behaving just like the people who treated them.”