Controversy continues to smolder over UC Lecturer Tammi Rossman-Benjamin’s “racist and defamatory” off-campus comments

A recent re-surfacing of taped remarks at a synagogue outside of Boston from UCSC Hebrew Lecturer Tammi Rossman-Benjamin has prompted Ms. Rossman-Benjamin to write a letter to University President Mark Yudof to defend her words and condemn what she calls “a vicious and unjustified personal attack.” The letter is a response to a change.org petition penned by the Committee for Justice in Palestine (Facebook page) asking President Yudof to condemn Ms. Rossman-Benjamin’s “hateful attacks on Muslim/Arab student groups” and rescind any involvement with The Amcha Initiative, an organization dedicated to “combat[ing] antisemitic behavior on college and university campuses in America…” of which Ms. Rossman-Benjamin is a co-founder. The full video can be found in the first link above, but here is the portion that the CJP takes issue with in the petition:

“We cannot underestimate how many students have become poisoned by the rhetoric that they hear on campus. And who are, who are the primary sources of this – or one of the primary sources of this? The MSA and SJP students. And who are they? Who are these students? They are generally motivated by very strong religious and political convictions, they have a fire in their belly. They come to the university – many of them are foreign students who come from cultures and countries where anti-Semitism … is how they think about the world, right? There’s virulent anti-Semitism in the Arab world and many of these students come from countries where anti-Semitism is perfectly acceptable – in fact they’re fed on a diet of anti-semitism and they come to American universities to California and they have not been educated … about what anti-Semitism is. So these student groups often have strong ties to international campaigns to demonize and delegitimize Israel as well as to organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood, in fact the Muslim Brotherhood founded the Muslim student association the MSA forty years ago – and other terrorist – other organizations … these are students who come with a serious agenda who are – have ties to terrorist organizations.”

The petition argues that these claims are “openly racist and defamatory” and that they “reflect the worst stereotypes and slurs leveled at Arab and Muslim communities in the post-9/11 era.” Rossman-Benjamin, in her letter to President Yudof, says,

“The intent of my talk at the synagogue near Boston was certainly not to defame the students in MSA or SJP groups (nor did I defame anyone). Rather my intent was to educate members of the Jewish community about how difficult it can sometimes be, on some campuses, for Jewish students who identify with the Jewish state. My words were neither “racist” nor “Islamophobic,” but rather accurate and educational.”

She also lists several incidents and reports of harassment and violence on UC campuses.

The petition goes on to argue that Rossman-Benjamin’s Amcha Initiative is “an extreme pro-Israel group … which has launched a series of censorship attempts … based on claims that academic critique of Israel is tantamount to anti-Semitism.” As evidence, they list several complaints filed by Ms. Rossman-Benjamin regarding what she considered to be abuses of academic authority, but the SJP consider to be acts of free speech. Notably, they reference a March 2012 letter to President Yudof that they claim misrepresented an incident at UC Davis.

The letter claims that the heckler(s)’ intent was to shut down an event at UC Davis at which two Israeli speakers were slated to appear. You can see recordings of the heckler(s) here and here. Judgement rests the hands of the audience’s good taste.