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UNITED STATES Israel studies journal stokes row over ‘word crimes’ Tweet Israel Studies drew a defiant response on Wednesday from the journal’s editors. The weeks-long turmoil concerns essays that challenge how charged terminology is used in reference to Israel.



[This is an article from The Chronicle of Higher Education, America’s leading higher education publication. It is presented here under an agreement with University World News.]



But the wrangling also signals a potentially unbridgeable rift in the field and raises questions about the future of the Association for Israel Studies (AIS).



Critics slam the quality of the volume’s scholarship, as well as how the issue, called "Word Crimes", was created. Thirteen of the 25 members of the journal’s editorial board expressed



But the issue’s editors and contributors defend its content and say it is in keeping with special issues of the past. They say the outrage is, at least in part, being fanned by anti-Israel and anti-Semitic activists, some of whom support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement to spurn academic and other events in Israel.



Critics reply that the BDS element plays, at most, a trivial part in the discussion and is being used to distract from the more serious issues presented in the journal.



In striking symmetry, each side accuses the other of being uncivil, working outside the boundaries of academic propriety, and showing closed-mindedness toward rational opposing arguments.



Each asks for an apology, too, but neither is holding its breath. The only thing they seem to agree on is that the mayhem is likely to carry noisily over into the 35th annual



The essays in



Donna Robinson Divine, a professor emerita of Jewish studies and government at Smith College, developed the theme, as well as the title for the volume, and edited the issue with Miriam F Elman, an associate professor of political science at Syracuse University, and Asaf Romirowsky, executive director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East.



When the volume came out in early April, it quickly caught the attention of Arie Dubnov, an associate professor of history and chair of Israel studies at George Washington University, and Yair Wallach, chair of the Centre for Jewish Studies at SOAS University of London. Objecting to the volume’s content and what they saw as the inadequate academic bona fides of some contributors, they condemned the issue.



Wallach circulated open letters to the



The letters call for a "serious overhaul" of the journal and "concrete actions" by the association, a sponsor of the journal, "to reassure scholars … that it is not a platform for advocacy, and that it welcomes the work of scholars regardless of their identity, theoretical approach, or political persuasion."



Said Dubnov in an email from a conference in Dublin: "The entire affair reveals a complete lack of transparency in the organisation, unprofessional conduct, and what is honestly seen by many as an attempt of a handful of conservative and highly powerful professors to hijack an entire association and impose their ideas on its members."



Anger over the issue starts with its very title. In a phone interview from London, Wallach said the phrase "word crimes", Divine’s introduction to the issue, and the volume’s framing are "highly toxic and inflammatory". The position that certain terms are criminal, he said, "is a very dangerous route to take – that certain ways of thinking should be prohibited."



Wallach criticised the "absolutely poor quality of the journal … so far short of anything that we would call academic standards. Two essays don’t have a single footnote, he said, and the content overall "overwhelmingly failed to engage central literature on the topics that they were writing on".



Divine counters that she’d discussed the phrase "word crimes" with many colleagues and in a public presentation at the AIS meeting, and that no one thought it inappropriate or offensive. She meant it to be "clever, playful, but also serious".



As far as the scholarship, the issue is meant to be broadly accessible and jargon free, she said. Critics have disparaged the fact that the editorial board was not included in the creation of "Word Crimes".



Divine says it is the 19th special issue of the journal, which was founded in 1996, and that none of the special issues have gone through the editorial board. The assigning and article review are always handled by the special-issue editors.



Divine wanted contributors to include voices affiliated with think tanks and journalism and not only academe. "That seems to have offended people," she said, "and for that I am sorry."



She said that while she and her colleagues are open to constructive criticism, she feels like she "walked into a minefield". She has been advised, she said in notes purportedly sent "out of love", that she would be "humiliated" for her part in the journal issue at the June AIS meeting.



Dubnov said in his email that he too has received threats over the affair, from individuals and from a campus watch group. "The practices of such groups," he wrote, "are unfortunately familiar to practitioners of my field: They are busy producing ‘blacklists’ of professors they consider to be ‘radical’."



Elman called the response "a smear campaign based on misinformation and misnomer about how these special issues are produced". She said: "We were very taken aback by the furious rush to judgment."



True, she said, two essays have no footnotes. But the fall-2018 issue of the journal had six essays with no footnotes. Special issues are meant for a broad audience, with short essays, not 12,000-word scholarly articles.



And the undue scrutiny of the "Word Crimes" volume illustrates, she said, the bias against viewpoints sympathetic to Israel. It’s "such an attack on academic freedom".



Thane Rosenbaum, a distinguished fellow at the New York University (NYU) School of Law, a long-time essayist and media analyst on the Middle East, and director of the Forum on Law, Culture and Society at NYU, wrote for the issue about the term "Zionism".



"Everything about [the attack on the issue] is intellectually dishonest and frankly embarrassing for the academy," he said. "These people should not be working in a university setting. They can’t accept the fact that someone would view an issue differently from them."



He calls the response classic groupthink.



Academics know, he said, that a sure way not to get rewarded in academe is "to support Israel or to hold Palestinians responsible for anything". "Israel," he said, "is held to a double standard, and those that defend Israel on campus are held to a double standard."



Corinne E Blackmer, a professor of English and Judaic studies at Southern Connecticut State University, wrote for the issue about "pinkwashing", "Israel’s putatively dishonest abuse of its sterling record on LGBT human rights to conceal or ‘whitewash’ its struggles with the Palestinians."



While she thought a few of the essays were a little more politicised than the way she approaches such matters, "on the whole, it was in my opinion very even-handed."



She said she wasn’t surprised by the blowback – "I have had people throw chairs at me in lecture halls" – but that she was surprised that it came from within AIS. She thinks the issue’s editors "would have been well advised to consult with more people, share the table of contents, and say, this is what we’re planning to do."



But she also thinks the scorching attention, "the extreme demonisation", of the volume reflects an obsessive fixation on Israel.



She worries that her association with the volume might poison the well with future publishers, but she also knows, she said, that a certain amount of vitriol is to be expected regarding anything on this topic.



AIS has no editorial control over Israel Studies, Divine said, and the association in fact has its own affiliated journal, Israel Studies Review.



But, said Wallach, Divine is president of AIS, and Ilan Troen, one of the editors of Israel Studies, is a past AIS president. So even if editorial ties are limited, Wallach said, enough overlap exists that questions about bias in the journal inevitably raise questions about bias in the association.



"Is this the kind of scholarship," he asks, "that the association calls for and stands behind?" He dismisses BDS activism as a non-issue in the matter, a "bogeyman" meant to distract from substantive disputes.



But he thinks the clash will colour the June meeting in Israel, and that AIS is in a delicate place. Its future, he said, "depends on how the leadership of the association responds to this, if they understand the scale of the crisis. … It’s a very worrying situation." So far, he said, AIS leaders "have not responded adequately."



Troen, an emeritus professor of Israel studies at Brandeis University, and his co-editor, Natan Aridan, a professor at Ben Gurion University, said in a



"Resorting to external manipulation of an association of scholars bespeaks a fundamental disregard for its members and institutions," they write.



"The editors of the journal publicly acknowledged that the essays were uneven and invited a scholarly critical response," the letter says. But critics instead have made "increasingly harsh and uncompromising demands" that the editors resign and the editorial board be restructured.



"Some members of the current editorial board did resign to register their protest. More troubling are reports of pressure exerted on individuals, such as a warning that association with the journal could jeopardise promotion."



The journal’s affiliation with AIS, the editors write, "has benefited both parties. However, there are no impediments to disaffiliation should one or both sides determine that is desirable."



In any case, they say, the next issue will be published around the time of the June conference. "The following two issues are in advanced planning. Israel Studies will continue to lead in producing scholarship based on diversity of perspectives and the highest academic standards."



Alexander C Kafka is a Chronicle of Higher Education senior editor. Follow him on Twitter @AlexanderKafka, or email him at alexander.kafka@chronicle.com.

Controversy over a summer special issue of the journaldrew a defiant response on Wednesday from the journal’s editors. The weeks-long turmoil concerns essays that challenge how charged terminology is used in reference to Israel.The Chronicle of Higher EducationUniversity World NewsBut the wrangling also signals a potentially unbridgeable rift in the field and raises questions about the future of the Association for Israel Studies (AIS).Critics slam the quality of the volume’s scholarship, as well as how the issue, called "Word Crimes", was created. Thirteen of the 25 members of the journal’s editorial board expressed concerns about the issue, and nine of them have resigned.But the issue’s editors and contributors defend its content and say it is in keeping with special issues of the past. They say the outrage is, at least in part, being fanned by anti-Israel and anti-Semitic activists, some of whom support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement to spurn academic and other events in Israel.Critics reply that the BDS element plays, at most, a trivial part in the discussion and is being used to distract from the more serious issues presented in the journal.In striking symmetry, each side accuses the other of being uncivil, working outside the boundaries of academic propriety, and showing closed-mindedness toward rational opposing arguments.Each asks for an apology, too, but neither is holding its breath. The only thing they seem to agree on is that the mayhem is likely to carry noisily over into the 35th annual meeting of the 500-plus-member association, which takes place next month in Israel.The essays in "Word Crimes" are case studies in what the authors contend is anti-Israeli weaponisation of language to distort and inflame discussion of policy and politics. Among the terms under discussion are ‘indigeneity’, ‘colonialism’, ‘occupation’, ‘terrorism’ and ‘apartheid’.Donna Robinson Divine, a professor emerita of Jewish studies and government at Smith College, developed the theme, as well as the title for the volume, and edited the issue with Miriam F Elman, an associate professor of political science at Syracuse University, and Asaf Romirowsky, executive director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East.When the volume came out in early April, it quickly caught the attention of Arie Dubnov, an associate professor of history and chair of Israel studies at George Washington University, and Yair Wallach, chair of the Centre for Jewish Studies at SOAS University of London. Objecting to the volume’s content and what they saw as the inadequate academic bona fides of some contributors, they condemned the issue.Wallach circulated open letters to the journal and the association that were signed by 124 and 182 people respectively.The letters call for a "serious overhaul" of the journal and "concrete actions" by the association, a sponsor of the journal, "to reassure scholars … that it is not a platform for advocacy, and that it welcomes the work of scholars regardless of their identity, theoretical approach, or political persuasion."Said Dubnov in an email from a conference in Dublin: "The entire affair reveals a complete lack of transparency in the organisation, unprofessional conduct, and what is honestly seen by many as an attempt of a handful of conservative and highly powerful professors to hijack an entire association and impose their ideas on its members."Anger over the issue starts with its very title. In a phone interview from London, Wallach said the phrase "word crimes", Divine’s introduction to the issue, and the volume’s framing are "highly toxic and inflammatory". The position that certain terms are criminal, he said, "is a very dangerous route to take – that certain ways of thinking should be prohibited."Wallach criticised the "absolutely poor quality of the journal … so far short of anything that we would call academic standards. Two essays don’t have a single footnote, he said, and the content overall "overwhelmingly failed to engage central literature on the topics that they were writing on".Divine counters that she’d discussed the phrase "word crimes" with many colleagues and in a public presentation at the AIS meeting, and that no one thought it inappropriate or offensive. She meant it to be "clever, playful, but also serious".As far as the scholarship, the issue is meant to be broadly accessible and jargon free, she said. Critics have disparaged the fact that the editorial board was not included in the creation of "Word Crimes".Divine says it is the 19th special issue of the journal, which was founded in 1996, and that none of the special issues have gone through the editorial board. The assigning and article review are always handled by the special-issue editors.Divine wanted contributors to include voices affiliated with think tanks and journalism and not only academe. "That seems to have offended people," she said, "and for that I am sorry."She said that while she and her colleagues are open to constructive criticism, she feels like she "walked into a minefield". She has been advised, she said in notes purportedly sent "out of love", that she would be "humiliated" for her part in the journal issue at the June AIS meeting.Dubnov said in his email that he too has received threats over the affair, from individuals and from a campus watch group. "The practices of such groups," he wrote, "are unfortunately familiar to practitioners of my field: They are busy producing ‘blacklists’ of professors they consider to be ‘radical’."Elman called the response "a smear campaign based on misinformation and misnomer about how these special issues are produced". She said: "We were very taken aback by the furious rush to judgment."True, she said, two essays have no footnotes. But the fall-2018 issue of the journal had six essays with no footnotes. Special issues are meant for a broad audience, with short essays, not 12,000-word scholarly articles.And the undue scrutiny of the "Word Crimes" volume illustrates, she said, the bias against viewpoints sympathetic to Israel. It’s "such an attack on academic freedom".Thane Rosenbaum, a distinguished fellow at the New York University (NYU) School of Law, a long-time essayist and media analyst on the Middle East, and director of the Forum on Law, Culture and Society at NYU, wrote for the issue about the term "Zionism"."Everything about [the attack on the issue] is intellectually dishonest and frankly embarrassing for the academy," he said. "These people should not be working in a university setting. They can’t accept the fact that someone would view an issue differently from them."He calls the response classic groupthink.Academics know, he said, that a sure way not to get rewarded in academe is "to support Israel or to hold Palestinians responsible for anything". "Israel," he said, "is held to a double standard, and those that defend Israel on campus are held to a double standard."Corinne E Blackmer, a professor of English and Judaic studies at Southern Connecticut State University, wrote for the issue about "pinkwashing", "Israel’s putatively dishonest abuse of its sterling record on LGBT human rights to conceal or ‘whitewash’ its struggles with the Palestinians."While she thought a few of the essays were a little more politicised than the way she approaches such matters, "on the whole, it was in my opinion very even-handed."She said she wasn’t surprised by the blowback – "I have had people throw chairs at me in lecture halls" – but that she was surprised that it came from within AIS. She thinks the issue’s editors "would have been well advised to consult with more people, share the table of contents, and say, this is what we’re planning to do."But she also thinks the scorching attention, "the extreme demonisation", of the volume reflects an obsessive fixation on Israel.She worries that her association with the volume might poison the well with future publishers, but she also knows, she said, that a certain amount of vitriol is to be expected regarding anything on this topic.AIS has no editorial control over, Divine said, and the association in fact has its own affiliated journal,But, said Wallach, Divine is president of AIS, and Ilan Troen, one of the editors of, is a past AIS president. So even if editorial ties are limited, Wallach said, enough overlap exists that questions about bias in the journal inevitably raise questions about bias in the association."Is this the kind of scholarship," he asks, "that the association calls for and stands behind?" He dismisses BDS activism as a non-issue in the matter, a "bogeyman" meant to distract from substantive disputes.But he thinks the clash will colour the June meeting in Israel, and that AIS is in a delicate place. Its future, he said, "depends on how the leadership of the association responds to this, if they understand the scale of the crisis. … It’s a very worrying situation." So far, he said, AIS leaders "have not responded adequately."Troen, an emeritus professor of Israel studies at Brandeis University, and his co-editor, Natan Aridan, a professor at Ben Gurion University, said in a letter dated 2 May but widely distributed on Wednesday that the social-media-fuelled campaign against the volume breached academic civility."Resorting to external manipulation of an association of scholars bespeaks a fundamental disregard for its members and institutions," they write."The editors of the journal publicly acknowledged that the essays were uneven and invited a scholarly critical response," the letter says. But critics instead have made "increasingly harsh and uncompromising demands" that the editors resign and the editorial board be restructured."Some members of the current editorial board did resign to register their protest. More troubling are reports of pressure exerted on individuals, such as a warning that association with the journal could jeopardise promotion."The journal’s affiliation with AIS, the editors write, "has benefited both parties. However, there are no impediments to disaffiliation should one or both sides determine that is desirable."In any case, they say, the next issue will be published around the time of the June conference. "The following two issues are in advanced planning.will continue to lead in producing scholarship based on diversity of perspectives and the highest academic standards."Chronicle of Higher Education Follow University World News on Facebook



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