WIESENTHAL CENTER PROTESTS GROWING INTIMIDATION OF JEWISH STUDENTS AND ABUSE OF ACADEMIC POSTS TO DEMONIZE ISRAEL

February 24, 2009

WIESENTHAL CENTER PROTESTS GROWING INTIMIDATION OF JEWISH STUDENTS AND ABUSE OF ACADEMIC POSTS TO DEMONIZE ISRAEL

Launch of iCAN ads to expose hypocrisy of boycotters of Israel

On Friday, February 27, 2009, at 10:30am, famed UCLA Professor Dr. Judea Pearl (father of the murdered Wall Street Journal’s 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 made in the US, Canada and UK to counter these troubling trends.

The Center will unveil its iCAN ad campaign which will run in student newspapers in major universities to counter a self-declared international “Israel Apartheid Week.” and other anti-Israel efforts in March that include calls for boycotting Israel academia and all Israeli products.

“The Wiesenthal Center has received calls for help from Jewish students at prestigious universities in the UK, Canada and 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," they added.

“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 those hiding behind the facade of academia to target one country and one country only- Israel for a campaign of vilification.”

The iCAN ad is scheduled to run in student newspapers in the UK, Canada, and United States are: Oxford University, York University, University of Toronto, Columbia University, University of Chicago, UCLA, UC Berkeley, UC IRVINE, San Jose State and San Francisco State.

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).

Visuals of the ad are available. For more information, contact the Center’s Public Relations department, 310-553-9036.