Stephen Hawking and the Israel Boycott

Sometimes very smart people do very dumb things.

by Yvette Alt Miller

 (Credit and thanks to www.aish.com)

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There's an old joke about the definition of chutzpa. A boy murders his parents and pleas to the judge: "Have pity on me – I’m an orphan!"

Sadly, that comic story can be applied this week to Stephen Hawking, the brilliant Cambridge physicist who announced he was pulling out of the "Facing Tomorrow" conference in Israel next month, "based on advice from Palestinian academics that he should respect the boycott" of Israel. For such a clever man, his recent actions are shockingly foolish and short-sighted.

Short-sighted because, given Israel's central position in scientific and technological fields, to boycott the Jewish state would mean giving up on some of the most important advancements of recent years.

• Stephen Hawking himself, who has suffered from motor neuron disease for most of his 71 years, communicates using a mechanical voice system run by the Intel Core i7 Processor developed by the Israeli division of Intel.
• As a particle physicist, he is intimately involved in the most significant development in modern times: the discovery of the Higgs-Boson particle, found last year using Israeli-developed particle detectors.
• Last year, Hawking accepted a prestigious physics award worth $3 million – awarded by Yuri Milner, a major investor in Israeli high-tech.

Clearly, Prof. Hawking is not about to take out his Intel voice chip, return $3 million, and cease engaging in scientific debate. With so many areas of his life impacted and improved by Israeli dynamism, his refusal to visit the Jewish state comes across as a whole lotta chutzpa.

Double Standard

If Hawking wants to boycott a nation for perceived human rights outrages, he is targeting the wrong country.

In a week when the world's newspapers were filled with gruesome descriptions of profound human rights violations, it's ironic that Prof. Hawking would choose to target Israel for approbation:

• Civil war is raging in Syria, with the Assad regime using chemical weapons against civilians
• Nigeria is massacring Islamist opponents of the government
• China is enforcing its brutal one-child policy through forced abortions
• Saudi Arabia is executing political prisoners and homosexuals

Of course, Israel is not be above criticism, but to single it out for special treatment is to hold it to a biased double-standard that is required of no other country in the world. To single out Israel, a liberal democracy with an open press, transparent judiciary, universal suffrage, and enshrined equal rights for all – as a country not only to be criticized, but utterly avoided – is total chutzpa.

Dr. Hawking, whose academic research is world-class, must also realize the key to bettering the world lies in fostering communication, not in shutting it down. By turning his back on all of Israel, he's sending a reactionary and hate-filled message at odds with the extensive academic collaboration that's marked his entire career. Chutzpa!

Hawking’s cancellation was a major embarrassment to Cambridge University.

Indeed, serious academics, such as Sari Nusseibeh, the Palestinian President of Al-Quds University, deplore academic boycotts. Dr. Nusseibeh has pioneered joint projects with Hebrew University in Jerusalem and Brandeis University near Boston.

Hawking’s cancellation was such an embarrassment to his employer, Cambridge University, that the school spokesman tried to claim it was due to “health reasons” and not as a boycott of Israel. The university was then forced to backtrack, after Hawking's office made perfectly clear that the decision was due to the boycott.

Wrong Side of History

Amazingly, the conference that Hawking is boycotting is designed to promote the very sort of tolerant, open world for which he surely yearns.

Held under the auspices of Israeli President Shimon Peres, the annual Facing Tomorrow conference brings together a diverse group of 5,000 world leaders and intellectuals for discussions on an array of pressing world – including geopolitics, economics, environment and culture. Peres, a Nobel Prize laureate and Israel’s elder statesman, is using his considerable political capital to address some of the planet’s most pressing issues. To boycott this effort is not reasoned criticism but rather pure chutzpa – an attempt to destroy an Israeli initiative not on its merits, but simply because it originates in the Jewish state.

As a theoretical physicist, Hawking surely knows that his field was shaped by unsuccessful attempts to silence Jews in the past.

In the 1930s, Jewish scientists in Germany – including Albert Einstein – found themselves edged out of traditional academic fields and into burgeoning scientific areas such as particle physics. Einstein and Enrico Fermi (who left Europe to save his Jewish wife) came to the United States, and built much of the foundation of modern theoretical physics.

This latest boycott attempt to silence Jews has a long and infamous history. Hawking’s synergy with this movement to delegitimize the existence of the Jewish state is destined to prove on the wrong side of history.

Credit and thanks to:  www.aish.com

    Happy Yom Yerushalayim:  Jerusalem Reunification Day

     Jerusalem: The Jewish Nation's DNA - Nadav Shragai

•  
  When celebrating Jerusalem Day, let's talk about the nature of our connection to the city, from the time of King David, through the First and Second Temples, to modern independence in 1948, through the Six-Day War, and up to today. We need to talk about our birthright to this city of ours.
  Our connection to it is rooted in our religious faith, in our history, and in two thousand years of recollection and longing. The Jewish presence in Jerusalem never ended. As former Prime Minister Menachem Begin said, "More than Israel watches over Jerusalem, Jerusalem watches over Israel."
  Jerusalem is the DNA that runs through the veins of Jewish people all over the world. Jerusalem was a magnet to us, a compass, a glue, the weave forming the Jewish people's most characteristic memory. Without Jerusalem our nation would never have been resurrected here in Israel.
  Islam, which now claims Jerusalem and its holy places, entered the scene some 2,000 years after Israel became a nation. The Palestinians - who are claiming eastern Jerusalem, including the Old City and the Temple Mount, as their capital - only began to define themselves as a nation within the last century. Jews have lived in Israel for the past 3,300 years. Throughout this time, Jerusalem has always been the Hebrew capital. (Israel Hayom)
• reprinted from Dailly Alert  (for other wonderful articles, go to:  www.dailyalert.org)

Join us on Sunday, June 2nd at the Celebrate Israel Parade commemorating the 65th Anniversary of Israel’s founding.

GHC had a great turn out last year and we hope for even more participation this year! We will be arranging bus transport from GHC to the NYC midtown location and then back to GHC.

Our 2012 Westchester Cluster group was a huge success. It was wonderful for our Westchester Community to unite in Celebration of Israel. We had a great group of over 20 synagogues and organizations with almost 400 people. Additionally, we enjoyed the music of the Westchester Klezmer program who added a special energy to our march.

Get your Israeli and American flags to wave proudly! March behind our cool GHC Banner. An amazing and memorable day is in store for all! We hope you can join us on June 2, 2013 as we march down Fifth Avenue in Celebration of Israel. Please put it on your calendar!

T-Shirts:  Pick up your Free GHC-Israel T-Shirt on Sunday, June 2nd at 9am.
GHC Israel T-Shirts will be provided for FREE to all marchers. Since all marchers Must wear a GHC Israel T-shirt to identify them as part of our group this year, we will provide "Celebrate Israel" T-Shirts with the GHC logo on the back free of charge. T-Shirts will be availabe at the bus on Sunday, June 2. . If you are not taking the GHC bus, please contact Mark at israel@g-h-c.org to arrange for the shirt (recall, the shirt is required to march this year)
(Donations welcome/RS and Schechter students' shirts cost generously covered by the RS Fund and the Non-School marchers' shirts are covered by Sisterhood and the Israel Team.)

Buses: Sponsored by the Religious School Fund and Sisterhood--a mega shout out of thanks to you both!
Bus departure from the GHC parking lot at 9am, sharp!
To arrange bus transportation we need a head-count, so if you haven't already sent in your RSVP to Judy Goldstein, please RSVP to Mark Sloane at israel@g-h-c.org. For those meeting us in NYC, we will be assembling at "Section 4 W" located on 54th St. between 5th and 6th Ave.

Parade Do's and Dont's:  ****FOR OUR ADDED SAFETY****

• All marchers MUST have wear GHC Israel t-shirts to identify them as part of our group. We will provide shirts (donations welcome; cost of the RS students' shirts generously covered by the RS Fund and the Non-School marchers' shirts are covered by Sisterhood and the Israel Team).
• NO BACKPACKS in the parade (you can leave them on the bus). Small fanny packs can be worn. Snacks can be in your pocket.
• Bring a water bottle. Bottles can be carried or held on a lanyard type holder that attaches to the top of the bottle.
• No Strollers in the parade. They are allowed in the spectator section.

Questions? Contact us at israel@g-h-c.org