The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) encourages everyone to attend and participate in a pro-Israel counter-demonstration in front of the Beacon Theater, at 2124 Broadway, between 74th and 75th Streets in Manhattan, on Sunday evening April 12, starting at 6 p.m.
Please attend to show your support for the right of Israel’s musicians to perform their incredible music in America. Israeli superstar keyboardist and composer (and Israel Defense Forces veteran and supporter) Idan Raichel will be performing at the Beacon Theatre on Sunday evening April 12. Raichel collaborates with and has created Israeli fusion music with Ethiopian Jews, Yemenite Jews, and Jews from other diverse traditions, as well as global fusion music with musicians from a large variety of ethnic and religious backgrounds from around the world. Raichel is a unique Israeli cultural ambassador, whose music is a bridge to mutual understanding.
Disgracefully, Israel-hating BDS (boycott, divestment & sanctions against Israel) groups, including Adalah-NY, will be demonstrating at 6 p.m. on Sunday April 12 against Idan Raichel’s appearance that evening. Adalah-NY is also running a defamatory anti-Israel campaign to try to prevent Idan Raichel from performing in New York.
Please come to the pro-Israel counter-demonstration in front of the theatre on Sunday evening. Bring Israeli flags, pro-Israel posters, posters condemning Arab terrorists, and posters celebrating Israeli music and culture. The counter-protest starts at 6 p.m. (The performance starts later, at 7:30 p.m.) We hope to see you there!
STAND UP TO UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH ANTI-SEMITIC ACTIVITY ON HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY
On April 16, 2015, the so-called “Students for Justice in Palestine” (SJP) chapter at the University of Pittsburgh plans to host an event on Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), featuring a Holocaust survivor who will be linking the Nazis’ atrocities committed against the Jewish people to Israel’s policies and practices toward the Palestinian Arabs. Making this link is absurd, morally outrageous and deeply offensive. It is also anti-Semitic, according to U.S. government standards.
Not a single administrator at the University of Pittsburgh has condemned the SJP for misappropriating Holocaust Remembrance Day and trivializing the experiences of the Jewish victims of the Nazis genocide. In fact, the University of Pittsburgh is legitimizing and endorsing this event, and encouraging students to attend, by offering them academic and financial incentives through the university’s “Outside the Classroom Curriculum” (OCC) program. If a student attends the SJP’s hateful event, he/she will earn OCC credit and become eligible for “tangible perks,” according to the university’s website. Among the perks are enhancements of the student’s academic record, getting “exclusive Honorary Society invitations,” and earning a substantial monetary grant.
The ZOA has repeatedly contacted Chancellor Patrick D. Gallagher; Patricia E. Beeson, the Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor; and Kenyon R. Bonner, the Interim Vice Provost and Dean of Students, urging them to: (1) publicly condemn the SJP’s event as hateful, anti-Semitic, and against the values of the university; and (2) ensure that the university does not offer any reward or incentive to students to attend the SJP’s event, including but not limited to offering OCC credit.
The University has not even shown the courtesy of responding.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
Contact Chancellor Gallagher, Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor Beeson, and Interim Vice Provost and Dean of Students Bonner, and let them know that you find the university’s actions appalling and unacceptable. You can write to these administrators at the University of Pittsburgh, 4200 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15260. Or call or email them:
Chancellor Patrick Gallagher: (412) 624-4200; [email protected] (Patrick Gallagher’s assistant, Mary Race)
Provost Patricia Beeson: (412) 624-4223; [email protected]
Kenyon Bonner: (412) 648-1006; [email protected]
Tell these administrators that the university should not be complicit in the SJP’s anti-Semitic event, which tars Jews and Israelis, and trivializes the crimes committed against the Jewish people during the Holocaust.