The Irvine Debate Continues
There were several falsehoods in Saul Elbein’s article about UC Irvine (“Students Say Activists Exaggerate Anti-Semitism at Irvine,” May 5, 2008), that could have been avoided with some simple fact-checking. Two students wrongly disparaged the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) and me, and Elbein simply accepted what they said as true, never contacting me or anyone at the ZOA to verify their stories. One of the students, Michelle Eshaghian, accused me and the ZOA of impropriety in connection with the legal action that the ZOA took on her behalf and on behalf of other Jewish students at UCI. I have detailed notes of my communications with Ms. Eshaghian, as well as our e-mail exchanges; rather than disclose that information, I will simply say that it saddens me to think that Ms. Eshaghian has been pressured or influenced to distort the truth. As to the other student, Isaac Yerushalmi, he well knows that he did not speak up at a “ZOA-sponsored event.” It was an event sponsored by Temple Bat Yahm, in Newport Beach, CA, and I was invited by the synagogue to speak there. Mr. Yerushalmi neglected to mention that he interrupted the event, and violated the protocol for asking questions that had been established by the synagogue. The ZOA had nothing to do with Mr. Yerushalmi being fired by the advocacy group for which he worked; none of us even knew that he worked there. It was irresponsible for Mr. Yerushalmi to suggest, without any facts to support it, that the ZOA played a hand in his firing, and even more irresponsible for you to disseminate the falsehood.
Susan B. Tuchman, Esq.
Director, Center for Law and Justice
Author’s Response
Ms. Tuchman,
I would have loved to have included your perspective in the article. However, I would like to humbly note that I did contact your office, as well as Morton Klein’s. No one from the ZOA got back to me by press time, so I went with what I had. I apologize profusely for any factual errors that might have resulted from that. But this, unfortunately, is how journalism works.
But beyond that, your letter troubles me. My article wasn’t about you, or Eshaghian, or Yerushalmi. It was about how off-campus Jewish organizations–like the ZOA–have made a cause celebre of the supposed endemic anti-Semitism at UCI, and about how they have ignored or tried to silence students who have disagreed with their narrative. It is about how, in the end, what those organizations want is censorship of voices they do not approve of.
And so I am troubled, Ms. Tuchman, that in response to an article about student voices being discredited and censored, your only reaction is to attack those students, who must, you say, have been “pressured” to say what they did. It troubles me that, rather than address the issues at UCI–issues that your organization, more than any other, has worked to bring to the national consciousness–you turn what should be a debate into a childish game of he-said-she-said.
Ms. Tuchman, I deeply, truly respect your commitment to the Jewish people and to protecting Jewish students at UCI. But this commitment does not absolve you, or the ZOA, from a responsibility to hear what people like Yerushalmi and Eshaghian have to say. It does not give you carte blanche to attempt to censor those you disagree with–such as the Union for Progressive Zionism–in what should be an open communal debate about what constitutes anti-Semitism. Given a choice between substantive debate and name-calling, the ZOA all to often resorts to the latter. In this, I am sorry to say, your letter was sadly typical.
Sincerely,
Saul Elbein
