Jennifer Loewenstein
Jennifer Loewenstein is the Associate Director of the Middle East Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.[1][2] She is politically active in Madison, Wisconsin, and writes as a freelance journalist. Her work has been featured in scholarly publications such as The Journal of Palestine Studies,[3] and she is a regular contributor to CounterPunch magazine. Loewenstein is a sharp critic of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians as well as American support for Israel, which has drawn accusations of being a "self-hating Jew" and anti-Semite from right-wing proponents of Israel.[4][5]
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[edit] Background
Loewenstein lived in Israel in 1963 as a child when her father played first trumpet in the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. She went back in 1981 as a junior in college, and as an adult as well. Loewenstein has lived in Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut and traveled in the Palestinian Territories, where she worked for five months in 2002 at the Mezan Center for Human Rights in Gaza City. She has returned to Gaza several times since then. Jennifer Loewenstein is married to David Loewenstein, Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin.[6]
[edit] Activism
Loewenstein is a member of the USA board of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions and founder of the Madison-Rafah Sister City Project.[7][8] As a local political activist, she regularly helps organize and attends demonstrations in Madison. On the day after Ariel Sharon's election as Prime Minister of Israel she was among the organizers of an anti-Likud demonstration.[9] She helped organize protests against the war in Iraq,[10] and she occasionally makes arrangements for political activists or journalists such as Robert Fisk to speak at American universities.[11]
The proposed Madison-Rafah Sister City Project occasioned an "anguished and bruising debate" in Madison.[12][13] During the debate, Loewenstein called the executive board of the Madison Jewish Community Council "deeply racist." [12] Board Member Lester Pines alleged that Loewenstein's project was part of a "movement to delegitimize the state of Israel." [12]
[edit] Journalism
Loewenstein traveled to the Palestinian Territories soon after the end of the Second Intifada. In July 2002, she wrote in the Palestine Chronicle; "Heaps of concrete, broken pillars with wire sticking out, people's shoes, clothes, bedding, strewn haphazardly among the rubble, dust everywhere, a hole in the landscape where a two-story apartment was just yesterday: the hardest part for me is how familiar it has all become," "The Israelis are masters in the art of destruction. And as I wander through another mass of wrecked lives I'm struck by the sense of deja vu that comes over me." [14]
Her work is strongly anticolonial and is particularly harsh on abuses of human rights. Loewenstein charges Israel with being responsible for "the dehumanization and destruction of an entire people," [15] and writes that Israel and the United States "have long since resided in the lowest circle of Hell for betraying the name of humanity...the Neo-Jewish Masters and their allies in the United States...have no intention of making a just peace with the lower forms of life in their midst."[16][17]
She has been extremely outspoken about Operation Cast Lead and American coverage of the event, stating that “The state terror unleashed from the skies and on the ground against the Gaza Strip as we speak has nothing to do with Hamas. It has nothing to do with ‘Terror.’ It has nothing to do with the long-term ‘security’ of the Jewish State… what you will find is the naked desire for hegemony...”
David Horowitz responded to this criticism by saying that "[She] ... is herself a Jew, but obviously a self-hating member of the [Jewish] tribe, with a sordid lineage going back to the 'kapos' who shoveled their companions into the ovens and collaborated with their murderers. Like many of her political comrades in the secular and religious left she has joined the forces of Islamic barbarism that are ranged against the civilized people of America and Israel."[18]
[edit] References
- ^ UW-Madison Experts Guide
- ^ The International Institute
- ^ Apr 2007, Vol. 36, No. 3: 23–35
- ^ Jews against Jews
- ^ Jenny's Jihad
- ^ David Loewenstein, English, UW-Madison
- ^ Madison-Rafah Sister City Project
- ^ Midwest city feels conflict in the Mideast close to home | csmonitor.com
- ^ Samara Kalk (February 8, 2001). "ACTIVISTS HERE LABEL ISRAEL'S SHARON A THUG". The Capital Times (Madison, WI).
- ^ . The Capital Times (Madison, WI). March 20, 2004.
- ^ Robert Fisk (2002). Pity the Nation: The Abduction of Lebanon. p. 685.
- ^ a b c Judith David (July 7, 2004). "Rafah Debate Anguished, Bruising". The Capital Times. p. 1C. http://www.madison.com/archives/read.php?ref=/tct/2004/07/07/0407070167.php.
- ^ Jo Napolitano (May 29, 2004). "Proposal to Adopt a Palestinian City as a 'Sister' Creates a Family Feud for Madison". New York Times. p. A10. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E06EEDE1E3EF93AA15756C0A9629C8B63.
- ^ Alden, Chris (July 24, 2002). "What the papers say". London: guardian.co.uk. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/jul/24/israel3.
- ^ M. Junaid Alam: The Wolf Who Cried Wolf
- ^ Jennifer Loewenstein (March 3, 2008). "The Day the Earth and Sky Traded Places - Gazan Holocaust". Counterpunch. http://www.counterpunch.org/loewenstein03042008.html.
- ^ "Casualties Mount in New Israeli Attack on Gaza". Democracy Now!. http://www.democracynow.org/2006/11/2/casualties_mount_in_new_israeli_attack.
- ^ The War Against the Jews by David Horowitz
