High on the community agenda right now is the growing list of ‘victories’ being claimed by the BDS (Boycott, Divest, Sanctions against Israel) campaigners at the hands of South Africa.

The two big-ticket items have no doubt been the misrepresentation of the Advertising Standards Authority ruling which was featured on over 30,000 websites – and now the Russell Tribunal’s planned November sitting in SA.

And yet the third issue, the new deal between Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) and the University of Johannesburg (UJ) seems to be the one the Community are writing, posting and talking about most – despite the fact that it may ultimately be the least significant in terms of the BDS implications.

There were three letters published and various related stories again in this weeks’ edition of the Jewish Report (JR) – although one letter was conspicuous in its absence. MyShtetl was given a copy of a right-of-reply letter by recently-sacked chair of the SA Associates of BGU, Brenda Stern, with an embargo placed on its publication until the JR was published.

MyShtetl was surprised to note that this did not appear in the JR – specifically as Stern had been named and taken to task in a letter published the previous week – and her letter was a clear right-of-reply issue. Stern explained that she did not support the new agreement, that she had been sacked and that she was involved in an unfair dismissal matter with SAABGU.

In his letter published in the JR, Jack Miller of Joburg wrote that BGU shouldn’t have accepted the deal. “UJ is patently anti-Israel and possibly anti-Semitic, despite some Jewish staff and students and if one may judge by the possible religious persuasions of Prof Adam Habib and Farid Essack,” wrote a clearly angry Miller. While saying that UJ’s “circumlocutions fool none but the most gullible,” Miller lays “most of the blame at the door of BGU. Why did they accept this intended deliberate slight?” he asks.

Zev Krengel’s “namby-pamby response”

“BGU should have suggested to UJ that they go take a hike and forget about us,” says Miller, and while he has a considerable amount of respect for Zev Krengel of the SAJBD, he feels that “his namby-pamby response on this issue really irks.”

Another correspondent on the JR’s letters pages writes: “Legitimate treatment clothes the BDS campaign with respect.” Prof David Hirsh, a South African working at Goldsmiths, University of London says that BDS campaigners want to make people feel that Israel is a unique evil, and , he adds, “it makes progress towards this goal whenever its arguments are treated as a legitimate side of a public debate.”

Even when the campaign loses, therefore, it also wins, says Prof Hirsh, if, “unlike other anti-Semitic campaigns, it is treated with respect.” He writes that “there is a sense in which the (mis)educative function of the campaign is more important than actually excluding Israelis from the cultural, academic and sporting life of humanity.”

This can “lead the boycotters into the realm of the absurd”

When celebrated intellectual Slavoj Zizek recently spoke in Tel Aviv, the campaign tried to spin his visit as a boycott because he spoke in an independent bookshop.

When Roger Waters, formerly of Pink Floyd, played a gig in Israel, the campaign tried to portray this as a boycott because he played in a mixed Arab/Jewish village.

”Enough mirage of a boycott” to carry on their work

“Now,” says Hirsh, “scientists from UJ and BGU are quietly resuming their important work together,” but the “anti-Zionists are pretending that there is a boycott.”

While Prof Hirsh acknowledges that “the boycott of BGU has taken a dent,” he says that “there remains enough mirage of the boycott for the [BDS] campaign to carry on its work, which is to portray Israel as the pariah of humankind.”

Another letter-writer in the JR today vents most of his anger at the UJ professors Essack and Habib, labelling them “hypocrites.” Myron Robinson of East London says it is a “disgrace that they are called academics.”

Robinson says how “extremely distasteful” he finds it that “Israelis (Jews) now again have to be regarded as second class citizens,” and lays down a challenge to Professors Farid Esack and Adam Habib, “to name any researcher from any university in Zimbabwe, China, Burma, any Arab state, none of which are democracies, many African countries or other dictatorships who commit the most vile acts of human rights abuses, who have been required to sign a similar agreement with UJ.”

The community outcry finding its way onto MyShtetl is also angry. MyShtetl’s “reports and interviews suggest that certain people in leadership positions in the Jewish Community (self-appointed it seems!) seem to be ill-equipped to deal with the delegitimisation campaign against Israel issue effectively, or with any modicum of political intelligence and integrity,”: said one anonymous post.

His logic is clearly better than his grammar/typing

Shtetler Joshua Grigst, whose logic is clearly better than his grammar and/or typing skills, lashed out at another Shtetler who was supportive of the new UJ-BGU deal and said as Jews we shouldn’t worry what others say about us.

“If there are enouf Jews who like you want us to stay stuck in 1995, their maynot always be an Israeli homeland. That’s why we need to worry about what Palastinians say! We need to take boycotts and sanctions seriously. We need to fight this scurg. Wake up Jewish Soth Africa. Wake up Israel. Wake up all diasporah Jewry. We must not feed this scurg.”

Shtetler ‘hebrewprophet’ chooses Prof Habib as the sole recipient of his anger. He politely calls something Habib said as “sounding very much like an untruth.” ‘hebrewprophet’ says “the bottom line here is Adam Habib’s refusal to take “Bertie Lubner’s advice to go to BGU in person to see for himself what this university is involved in… Adam Habib is a bureaucrat, his words not mine, and the messenger only.”

‘hebrewprophet’ asks: “Is [Habib] the main instigator of this debacle?”

There seems little doubt that this will remain high on the community agenda outside Shuls this weekend. Maybe next week will bring happier and somewhat less contentious topics to our Shabbas tables.

• BRENDA STERN SPEAKS, JR IGNORES RoR LETTER

• ADAM HABIB INTERVIEW & USER COMMENTS

• BERTIE LUBNER INTERVIEW

• PDF OF UJ SENATE RESOLUTION – SEPT 2010

• BALEGAN OVER NEW BGU-UJ DEAL

• FUNDER ASKS UJ FOR HIS R1,6-MIL BACK

• HABIB INTENTIONALLY SABOTAGED RELATIONSHIP

• MY SHTETL PUBLISHER SLAMS M&G WRITER, EDITOR IN M&G