SIMON WIESENTHAL CENTER TO LAUNCH INTERNATIONAL EFFORT TO COUNTER INTIMIDATION OF JEWISH STUDENTS ON CAMPUS
San Francisco State University’s newspaper to launch Center’s iCAN ad campaign
on Thursday, February 26th, 2009
On Thursday, February 26, 2009, at 10:30 a.m., famed UCLA Professor, Dr. Judea Pearl (father of the murdered Wall Street Journal writer Daniel Pearl) will join senior officials of the Simon Wiesenthal Center to protest increasing intimidation of pro-Israel students on California campuses and the demonization of the Jewish state by academics. Center officials will outline efforts in the US, Canada and the UK to counter these troubling trends. The Center will unveil its iCAN ad campaign that will run in student newspapers in major universities to counter a self-declared “Israel Apartheid Week” and other anti-Israel efforts in March that include calls for boycotting Israel academia and all Israeli products.
iCAN ads are scheduled to run in student newspapers in the UK, Canada, and United States including: York University, University of Toronto, Columbia University, University of Chicago, UCLA, UC Berkeley, UC Irvine, San Jose State and San Francisco State.
“The Wiesenthal Center has received calls for help from Jewish students at prestigious universities in the UK, Canada, throughout the United States, and especially right here in the State of California,” said Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Wiesenthal Center and Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the Center’s associate dean. “The intensity of these incidents has escalated since Israel’s incursion into Gaza to stop Hamas’ relentless rocket barrage against its civilians.”
“In addition to meeting with chancellors, presidents of universities and law enforcement, with this ad, we are launching a major effort to expose the hypocrisy of all who hide behind the facade of academia to target one country and one country only – Israel - for vilification,” they added.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino).
Visual is available online at iACT.wiesenthal.com
For more information, contact the Center’s Public Relations department, 310-553-9036.