More than half of the professors who teach about Judaism and Israel at American colleges and universities have signed public statements or petitions that support boycotting the Jewish state or that call it “genocidal” or “apartheid,” according to a new artificial intelligence-aided “audit.”
In the Ivy League, 72.3% of Jewish studies professors have supported anti-Israel ideologies publicly, according to The Olam, a site run by public relations executive Ronn Torossian, which calls its results the “widest audit of its kind ever conducted.”
Torossian’s staff analyzed 2,499 faculty listings at 313 universities and cross-referenced them with documented public petition and statement campaigns and with membership in organizations like Faculty for Justice in Palestine, according to the site. It said that the research was conducted last month and in early August.
The audit found that 1,014 professors (40.5%) teach Jewish, Israel or Holocaust studies or Hebrew, and of those faculty, 401 (39.5%) have signed public, anti-Israel statements. That number rose to 1,298 (51.9% of the 2,499 professors) when faculty were included from adjacent departments, such as religious studies, history, political science and Middle Eastern studies, according to the audit.
Columbia University had the highest number (41) of offenders in the audit, followed by Princeton University (35), Pennsylvania State University (32), New York University (31), Yale University (30), University of Chicago (28), Brown University (27), University of Michigan (26), University of California, Berkeley (25), University of California, Los Angeles (44), Stanford University (24) and University of Washington (24).
University of Pennsylvania (19), Harvard University (18) and Cornell University (13) also had large numbers, according to the audit.
The analysis says that it excludes those who criticized the Israeli government and its policies, and only includes those who have signed on to public anti-Israel statements, like denying the Jewish state’s right to exist.
“As diaspora Jewry exits its ‘golden age,’ the data reveals that the Jewish studies professors are the hostility to Zionism and Israel at the front of the classroom,” Torossian, founder and chair of the New York public relations firm 5WPR, told JNS.
The audit reveals that “the people paid to teach Judaism, Hebrew, Israel and the Holocaust are against the Jewish state itself,” the Israel-based publicist said. “This is not anecdotal. It is the broadest study of its kind ever conducted.”
Miriam Elman, executive director of the Academic Engagement Network, told JNS that the public should take the audit’s methodology “with some caution.”
“Just because you sign a statement or position, it doesn’t mean you are teaching in a prejudicial way,” Elman told JNS.
She spoke to JNS from the Israel on Campus Coalition conference in Washington, where she brought 75 college professors who are affiliated with the network.
“Signing a document doesn’t mean these faculty are hostile to Jewish students in or outside of the classroom,” she told JNS. “I know faculty who sign petitions all the time but in the classrooms bring in multiple opinions.”
“We need to look beyond petitions and see what they are teaching and how,” she said.
At the nation’s 4,000 accredited colleges and universities, most have no anti-Israel problems, according to Elman, who said that her network includes 1,300 pro-Israel professors at 350 campuses across the United States.
Letitia James, attorney general of New York, cited Torossian as an officer of Betar U.S. in a settlement, which her office said came after an “extensive investigation” and ended a “campaign of violence, harassment and intimidation against Arab, Muslim and Jewish New Yorkers” by the “extremist group.”
Betar denied all wrongdoing, and Morton Klein, national president of the Zionist Organization of America, told JNS at the time that the attorney general’s “aggressive pursuit of Betar and resulting settlement agreement sends a terrible message that defending Jews makes one an ‘extremist’” and that the charges are “highly distorted.”
“This will encourage more attacks on Jews and discourage Jewish self-defense,” he told JNS at the time.
The World Zionist Congress expelled Torossian for what it said was an “aggressive, hateful tone and vulgarity.” It subsequently reinstated him.
“We expect further studies on this subject and naturally expect change from visibility and research,” Torossian told JNS.
