Germany awards anti-Zionism
The case of Judith Butler, September 11, 2012
Description of a Book project – by Edition Critic, publishing house, Berlin
On September 11, 2012, Judith Butler, professor of Rhetoric and Comparative Literature at the University of California in Berkeley, will be awarded the Theodor-W.-Adorno-Prize of the city of Frankfurt, Germany. On that day in 1903 philosopher Adorno was born; however, we associate 9/11 with that date today. Butler is a leading anti-Israel voice on campus. In Germany her public lectures are followed by up to 3000 students, like at Free University Berlin a few years ago. She is a highly influential and prominent voice in promoting the BDS movement (Boycott Divestment Sanctions), aiming at the Jewish State of Israel. Butler calls Israel an Apartheid state and compares the US anti-terror policies after 9/11 with the “barbarism” of Nazi Germany, analyzed by Adorno decades ago. Her writing fuels both anti-American and anti-Western ideology as well as antisemitism. Butler promotes a “cultural Zionism” like Martin Buber or Hannah Arendt and fights the Jewish State of Israel. Butler attacked former President of Harvard University, Lawrence Summers, in 2003, and called his criticism of antisemitism and boycotts of Israel “a blow against academic freedom.” She is also an outspoken critic of Campus Watch, an organization of the Middle East Forum (MEF) in Philadelphia, known for its criticism of antisemitism and anti-Western ideology.
Adorno, whose father was Jewish, fled Nazi Germany and the boycott of Jews in 1934. Butler promotes the boycott of Jews. Comparing Israel to the South African apartheid regime is antisemitic. It also downplays and distorts the racism of South African apartheid and distorts the life of Blacks during that horrible regime in South Africa.
Adorno was a scholar who dealt a great deal in his life analyzing and fighting antisemitism. German professor Axel Honneth, among others, like the major of the city of Frankfurt, Petra Roth (who was in office until the end of June 2012), were on the committee for the Adorno-Prize.
Edition Critic, a newly established small publishing house in Berlin, intends to publish a small book against anti-Zionist antisemitism and Judith Butler. Butler stands pars pro toto for academic hatred of Israel. It is particularly disturbing that she will be awarded the Adorno-Prize, because Adorno was a life-long critic of antisemitism.
We invite scholars and authors to submit articles for this book. The editor is Dr. Clemens Heni, a political scientist and expert on research on antisemitism. He published three books on German antisemitism since 2007, including his groundbreaking study Schadenfreude. Islamic Studies and Antisemitism in Germany after 9/11 (published in August 2011 in German). In 2012 he will publish his first book in English, Antisemitism: A Specific Phenomenon. One chapter of that book has already been published online, dealing with Butler and the Adorno-Prize, you can find the article here https://spme.org/articles/8748/4/34/The-German-city-of-Frankfurt-awards-the-Professor-of-Parody-and-hatred-of-Israel-Judith-Butler.html
The book will be a small book, some 100 pages maximum, due to the lack of time. Therefore we encourage contributors to write short pieces on Butler, and academic antisemitism.
Please contact the editor via e-mail, c.heni@gmx.de
We intend to publish the book prior to the award in late August 2012, articles should be submitted until August 7, 2012.
