1 CUNY Board Nixes Honorary Degree For Playwright Tony
Kushner
2 Tony Kushner Responds to CUNY Board Decision
------------
1

CUNY Board Nixes Honorary Degree For Playwright Tony
Kushner

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright's Israel views
presumably behind rare move.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Doug Chandler Special To The Jewish Week
http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/new_york/cuny_board_nixes_honorary_degree_playwright_tony_kushner


In what is believed to be a rare move, the City University
of New York has turned down a request by one of its
colleges to honor Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony
Kushner at its commencement ceremony this spring, The
Jewish Week has learned.

The action was taken presumably because of the author's
critical comments concerning the State of Israel.
The move took place at a meeting of CUNY's board of
trustees Monday night after one of its members, Jeffrey S.
Wiesenfeld, raised objections to plans to honor Kushner by
John Jay College, one of the system's schools.

The outcome may have been the first time in CUNY's history
that its board of trustees vetoed an honorary-degree
candidate proposed by one of its schools, according to a
source with knowledge of the university.

Each college within CUNY chooses its own honorary-degree
candidates and sends those names to the CUNY board, which
then normally approves the entire list of candidates, from
all the system's schools, as a package.

This year, that list included former Mayor Edward Koch and
Bernard Spitzer, the father of former New York Gov. Eliot
Spitzer, both of whom will receive Doctor of Humane
Letters degrees from the City College of New York; Joel
Klein, the city's former schools chancellor, who will
receive the same honorary degree from CUNY; and Judith S.
Kaye, the state's former chief judge and John Jay
College's other honorary-degree candidate.

But Wiesenfeld, a board member of several Jewish
organizations and an activist in conservative circles,
spoke out against plans to honor Kushner, who, like others
receiving honorary degrees, may have spoken at the
graduation ceremony.

Wiesenfeld cited what he believed were some of Kushner's
anti-Israel statements, all of which he said he found on
the website of Norman Finkelstein, another figure known
for his vehemently anti-Israel views.

When people identify themselves with "these types of
viewpoints," Wiesenfeld told his fellow trustees, "it's up
to all of us to look at fairness and consider these
things," especially when Israel sits in such a hostile
neighborhood. "There's a lot of disingenuousness and
non-intellectual activity directed against the State of
Israel on campuses across the country," he said, adding
that CUNY has had its share of such activity, although
it's far better than most universities.

Following Wiesenfeld's comments, a majority of CUNY board
members voted to remove Kushner's name from the list of
this year's honorees, and then voted unanimously to table,
or put off, the honor to the playwright, according to CUNY
spokesman Michael Arena. The move, though, effectively
kills the honor, because the next scheduled board meeting
is at the end of June, after John Jay's June 3
commencement ceremony.

Kushner, who won the Pulitzer for his epic play about
AIDS, "Angels in America," has written that Israel was
"founded in a program that, if you really want to be blunt
about it, was ethnic cleansing." He has also said that "it
would have been better" had the State of Israel never been
created and that Israel is involved in the "deliberate
destruction" of Palestinian culture and identity.

He has also been active with organizations, including
Jewish Voice for Peace, that have endorsed the Boycott,
Divestments and Sanctions campaign against Israel.
Kushner told The Jewish Week Wednesday, "There's never
been a moment in my entire life when I haven't expressed
complete and full support of the State of Israel."

In a 2007 interview with The Jewish Independent, a
Canadian newspaper serving British Columbia, he is quoted
as saying, "I want the State of Israel to continue to
exist.  I have always said that. I've never said anything
else. My positions have been lied about and misrepresented
in so many ways. People claim that I'm for a one-state
solution, which is not true." In the same interview he
said, "In terms of the Palestinian situation, as I've
always said, I'm in favor of a two-state solution."

Kushner also attacked Wiesenfeld as a right-wing
extremist.

Brandeis University granted Kushner an honorary degree in
2006, over opposition from the Jewish right.

Contacted by The Jewish Week Tuesday night, Wiesenfeld
said the board's action demonstrates that those who don't
necessarily "go with the flow" can make a difference.
"Boycotters can also be boycotted."

Earlier this year, Wiesenfeld and Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov
Hikind tried to force Brooklyn College to fire an adjunct
professor they believed held strongly anti-Israel views.
The university initially fired the professor, Kristopher
Peterson-Overton, but soon rehired him, saying it believed
the criticism by Wiesenfeld and Hikind was politically
motivated.

-------------
2

Tony Kushner Responds to CUNY Board Decision
 May 4, 2011

http://www.thejewishweek.com/tony_kushner_responds_cuny_board_decision
 
To Chairperson Benno Schmidt and the Board of Trustees:
At the May 2 public meeting of the CUNY Board of Trustees,
which was broadcast on CUNY television and radio, Trustee
Jeffrey S. Weisenfeld delivered a grotesque caricature of
my political beliefs regarding the state of Israel,
concocted out of three carefully cropped, contextless
quotes taken from interviews I've given, the mention of my
name on the blog of someone with whom I have no connection
whatsoever, and the fact that I serve on the advisory
board of a political organization with which Mr.
Weisenfeld strongly disagrees. As far as I'm able to
conclude from the podcast of this meeting, Mr. Weisenfeld
spoke for about four minutes, the first half of which was
a devoted to a recounting of the politics of former
President of Ireland and UN Human Rights High Commissioner
Mary Robinson that was as false as his description of
mine.

Ms. Robinson, however, was not on public trial; I was,
apparently, and at the conclusion of Mr. Weisenfeld's
vicious attack on me, eight members voted to approve all
the honorary degree candidates, including me, and four
voted to oppose the slate if my name remained on it.
Lacking the requisite nine votes to approve the entire
slate, the Board, in what sounds on the podcast like a
scramble to dispense with the whole business, tabled my
nomination, approved the other candidates, and adjourned.
Not a word was spoken in my defense.

I wasn't told in advance that my willingness to accept an
honorary doctorate from John Jay would require my presence
at a meeting to defend myself. As far as I know, no one
who might have spoken on my behalf was notified in
advance. I'm not a difficult person to find, nor am I
lacking in articulate colleagues and friends who would
have responded. For all his posturing as a street-tough
scrapper for causes he believes in, Mr. Weisenfeld, like
most bullies, prefers an unfair fight.

But far more dismaying than Mr. Weisenfeld's diatribe is
the silence of the other eleven board members. Did any of
you feel that your responsibilities as trustees of an
august institution of higher learning included even
briefly discussing the appropriateness of Mr. Weisenfeld's
using a public board meeting as a platform for deriding
the political opinions of someone with whom he disagrees?
Did none of you feel any responsibility towards me, whose
name was before you, and hence available as a target for
Mr. Weisenfeld's slander, entirely because I'd been
nominated for an honor by the faculty and administration
of one of your colleges?

I can't adequately describe my dismay at the fact that
none of you felt stirred enough by ordinary fairness to
demand of one of your members that, if he was going to
mount a vicious attack, he ought to adhere to standards
higher than those of internet gossip. Mr. Weisenfeld
declared to you that, rather than turn to "pro-Israel"
websites, he'd gleaned his insights into my politics from
the website of Norman Finkelstein. I find it appalling
that he failed to consider a third option: familiarizing
himself with any of the work I've done, my plays,
screenplays, essays and speeches, for which, I assume, the
faculty and administration of John Jay nominated me for an
honor.

It would have taken very little effort to learn that my
politics regarding the state of Israel do not resemble Mr.
Weisenfeld's account. I don't intend to mount a full
defense of myself or my opinions in this letter, an effort
on my part which an honorary degree ought not to require.
But I can't allow myself to be publicly defamed without
responding:

*	My questions and reservations regarding the founding
of the state of Israel are connected to my conviction,
drawn from my reading of American history, that democratic
government must be free of ethnic or religious
affiliation, and that the solution to the problems of
oppressed minorities are to be found in pluralist
democracy and in legal instruments like the 14th
Amendment; these solutions are, like all solutions,
imperfect, but they seem to me more rational, and have had
a far better record of success in terms of minorities
being protected from majoritarian tyranny, than have
national or tribal solutions. I am very proud of being
Jewish, and discussing this issue publicly has been hard;
but I believe in the absolute good of public debate, and I
feel that silence on the part of Jews who have questions
is injurious to the life of the Jewish people. My opinion
about the wisdom of the creation of a Jewish state has
never been expressed in any form without a strong
statement of support for Israel's right to exist, and my
ardent wish that it continue to do so, something Mr.
Weisenfeld conveniently left out of his remarks.

*	I believe that the historical record shows,
incontrovertibly, that the forced removal of Palestinians
from their homes as part of the creation of the state of
Israel was ethnic cleansing, a conclusion I reached mainly
by reading the work of Benny Morris, an acclaimed and
conservative Israeli historian whose political opinions
are much more in accord with Mr. Weisenfeld's than with
mine; Mr. Morris differs from Mr. Weisenfeld in bringing
to his examination of history a scholar's rigor,
integrity, seriousness of purpose and commitment to
telling the truth.

*	I won't enter into arguments about Israeli policy
towards the Palestinian people since 1948, about the
security fence or the conduct of the IDF, except to say
that my feelings and opinions - my outrage, my grief, my
terror, my moments of despair - regarding the ongoing
horror in the middle east, the brunt of which has been
born by the Palestinian people, but which has also cost
Israelis dearly and which endangers their existence, are
shared by many Jews, in Israel, in the US and around the
world.

*	My despair is kept in check by my ongoing belief in
and commitment to a negotiated conclusion to the
Palestinian-Israeli crisis.

* I have never supported a boycott of the state of Israel.
I don't believe it will accomplish anything positive in
terms of resolving the crisis. I believe that the call for
a boycott is predicated on an equation of this crisis with
other situations, contemporary and historical, that is
fundamentally false, the consequence of a failure of
political understanding of a full and compassionate
engagement with Jewish history and Jewish existence.

*	I am on the advisory board of Jewish Voice for Peace,
and have remained there even though I disagree with the
organization about a number of issues, including the
boycott. I remain affiliated because the women and men of
JVP are courageous, committed people who work very hard
serving the interests of peace and justice and the Jewish
people, and I'm honored by my association with them. I
have a capacity Mr. Weisenfeld lacks, namely the ability
to tolerate and even value disagreement. Furthermore,
resigning from the advisory board of JVP, or any
organization, to escape the noisy censure of likes of Mr.
Weisenfeld is repellent to me.

* Mr. Weisenfeld attempts to cast me as a marginal
extremist, a familiar tactic on this particular issue.
It's a matter of public record that this is not the case.
I'm co-editor of a volume of essays on the crisis in the
middle east, which includes among its 58 contributing
authors many rabbis, two US Poet Laureates and two
recipients of the Jerusalem Prize. I've had a long and
happy affiliation with such organizations as the 92nd
Street Y, The Jewish Museum and the Upper West Side JCC.
My work has been recognized by such groups as The National
Foundation for Jewish Culture, The Shofar Center, The
Central Synagogue and Brandeis University (one of fifteen
honorary degrees I've received). I state this not to
present credentials, but because I refuse to allow Mr.
Weisenfeld or any other self-appointed spokesman/guardian
to diminish the depth or meaningfulness of my connection
to the Jewish community.

I accepted the kind offer of a degree from John Jay
College not because I need another award, but because I
was impressed with the students and teachers there - as I
have always been impressed with CUNY teachers and students
- and I wanted to participate in celebrating their
accomplishment. I did not expect to be publicly defamed as
a result, and I believe I am owed an apology for the
careless way in which my name and reputation were handled
at your meeting.

I decided long ago that my job as a playwright is to try
to speak and write honestly about what I believe to be
true. I am interested in history and politics, and long
ago I realized that people uninterested in a meaningful
exchange of opinion and ideas would selectively
appropriate my words to suit their purposes. It's been my
experience that truth eventually triumphs over soundbites,
spin and defamation, and that reason, honest inquiry, and
courage, which are more appealing and more persuasive than
demagoguery, will carry the day.

Sincerely,
Tony Kushner

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