Saturday, June 27, 2026
A Look Inside the Welcome Bags Planned for White South African Refugees - The New York Times
A Look Inside the Welcome Bags Planned for White South African Refugees - The New York Times
A Look Inside the Welcome Bags Planned for White South African Refugees
The United States is putting together bags with a children’s book on so-called reverse racism, and with a document that defends the country’s founding on the basis of slavery.
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Afrikaner refugees from South Africa arriving at Dulles International Airport in Virginia last May. Credit...Julia Demaree Nikhinson/Associated Press
By Hamed Aleaziz and Zolan Kanno-Youngs
Reporting from Washington
June 23, 2026
See more of our coverage in your search results.Add The New York Times on Google
In the coming weeks, the United States plans to provide a welcome gift to white South Africans entering the United States as refugees.
They will get an Android tablet, an American flag and copies of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. They will also receive a packet of literature that provides a sanitized, Trump-approved view of American and South African history, one that criticizes racial equity and civil rights laws and promotes claims of discrimination against white people.
The welcome bags include a report commissioned by Mr. Trump during his first term that downplays the role of slavery in the country’s founding, and a children’s book accusing South Africa’s government of “favoring the Black population.”
The gifts would be the latest step by the Trump administration to welcome the white minority in South Africa, even as the president maintains a ban on refugees fleeing from war and persecution everywhere else in the world.
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The proposal for the bags is still being finalized. Mr. Trump’s aides have planned to give them to a group of South African Afrikaners who enter the United States in the coming weeks, according to government documents obtained by The New York Times and an official familiar with the matter.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity to detail plans that have not been announced. It is not clear how much the bags cost, or how much of the cost was being paid by taxpayers. It is unusual for the government to provide welcome gifts of this kind to refugees.
How Trump Turned America’s Refugee Program Into a Pathway for White People
President Trump has created an exception to his refugee ban for white South Africans, reshaping a program intended for people fleeing persecution and disaster.
June 23, 2026
Alex J. Adams, who leads the Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families, a government agency that helps refugees, welcomes the Afrikaners in a letter tucked into the welcome bag.
“The Trump administration understands America’s immigration system must put the U.S. citizen first, and only welcome in those who will assimilate into the American way of life and preserve our borders, language, culture, traditions and ideals,” Mr. Adams wrote in the letter, which was obtained by The Times. “To welcome you to America and help you accustomate to our heritage, we have provided various educational resources to support your day-to-day life and expand your knowledge of American history and values.”
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The bags include several products from PragerU, which produces right-wing educational materials, such as a story about a Black South African who must protect a white rugby teammate from a Black mob.
Image
The cover of a booklet aimed at middle and high school students by Prager U that might be included in a gift bag for arriving Afrikaner refugees. Credit...Prager U
The story, “Lwazi’s Hard Lesson,” describes Nelson Mandela, the Nobel Peace Prize winner and South Africa’s first post-apartheid president, as a “South African lawyer and activist who sought to end apartheid with acts of sabotage.”
It teaches that the South African government’s current policies “favoring the Black population over everyone else have made race relations even worse.”
“Unlike South Africa’s Black population, the white population is declining in number,” according to the PragerU text. “As an easy scapegoat for a failing government, more and more white South Africans are choosing to leave the country each year.”
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The text says South Africa’s policies have led to a “brain drain,” in which “experienced, talented people” have left. It also warns of “reverse discrimination” in South Africa, and cites the accusation from the billionaire Trump ally Elon Musk that a genocide of white people is occurring.
Marissa Streit, the chief executive of PragerU, defended the materials and extended an “open invitation” to critics of the literature.
“Our content is available to everyone,” Ms. Streit said. “We only ask that it be engaged with intellectual honesty, fair perspective and a genuine commitment to truth. We have a feeling most of them might learn something new.”
“We commend the administration for taking steps to ensure that the civic onboarding process for all new Americans is substantive, dignified and worthy of this country’s founding ideals,” she added.
Nancy Jacobs, a Brown University historian of South Africa, said the story’s description of a post-apartheid South Africa was “selective in the extreme, and even inaccurate.” White South Africans still have much higher employment rates, lower poverty rates and more lucrative wages than their Black counterparts.
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The White House and the Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to requests for comment.
The administration is also planning to include in the bag a report by Mr. Trump’s 1776 Commission, which was released at the end of his first term as a part of a response to antiracism protests in 2020.
The report, written by conservative activists and intellectuals, likens progressivism to fascism, and says Americans were being indoctrinated with a false critique of the nation’s founding and identity, including the role of slavery. The report took aim at the civil rights movement, saying that it “was almost immediately turned to programs that ran counter to the lofty ideals of the founders.”
Hamed Aleaziz covers the Department of Homeland Security and immigration policy for The Times.
Zolan Kanno-Youngs is a White House correspondent for The Times, covering President Trump and his administration.
See more on: U.S. Politics, Health and Human Services Department, Donald Trump
Share full article
A Look Inside the Welcome Bags Planned for White South African Refugees
The United States is putting together bags with a children’s book on so-called reverse racism, and with a document that defends the country’s founding on the basis of slavery.
Listen · 5:19 min
Share full article
Afrikaner refugees from South Africa arriving at Dulles International Airport in Virginia last May. Credit...Julia Demaree Nikhinson/Associated PressBy Hamed Aleaziz and Zolan Kanno-Youngs
Reporting from Washington
June 23, 2026
See more of our coverage in your search results.Add The New York Times on Google
In the coming weeks, the United States plans to provide a welcome gift to white South Africans entering the United States as refugees.
They will get an Android tablet, an American flag and copies of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. They will also receive a packet of literature that provides a sanitized, Trump-approved view of American and South African history, one that criticizes racial equity and civil rights laws and promotes claims of discrimination against white people.
The welcome bags include a report commissioned by Mr. Trump during his first term that downplays the role of slavery in the country’s founding, and a children’s book accusing South Africa’s government of “favoring the Black population.”
The gifts would be the latest step by the Trump administration to welcome the white minority in South Africa, even as the president maintains a ban on refugees fleeing from war and persecution everywhere else in the world.
AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT
The proposal for the bags is still being finalized. Mr. Trump’s aides have planned to give them to a group of South African Afrikaners who enter the United States in the coming weeks, according to government documents obtained by The New York Times and an official familiar with the matter.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity to detail plans that have not been announced. It is not clear how much the bags cost, or how much of the cost was being paid by taxpayers. It is unusual for the government to provide welcome gifts of this kind to refugees.
How Trump Turned America’s Refugee Program Into a Pathway for White People
President Trump has created an exception to his refugee ban for white South Africans, reshaping a program intended for people fleeing persecution and disaster.
June 23, 2026
Alex J. Adams, who leads the Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families, a government agency that helps refugees, welcomes the Afrikaners in a letter tucked into the welcome bag.
“The Trump administration understands America’s immigration system must put the U.S. citizen first, and only welcome in those who will assimilate into the American way of life and preserve our borders, language, culture, traditions and ideals,” Mr. Adams wrote in the letter, which was obtained by The Times. “To welcome you to America and help you accustomate to our heritage, we have provided various educational resources to support your day-to-day life and expand your knowledge of American history and values.”
AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT
The bags include several products from PragerU, which produces right-wing educational materials, such as a story about a Black South African who must protect a white rugby teammate from a Black mob.
Image
The cover of a booklet aimed at middle and high school students by Prager U that might be included in a gift bag for arriving Afrikaner refugees. Credit...Prager UThe story, “Lwazi’s Hard Lesson,” describes Nelson Mandela, the Nobel Peace Prize winner and South Africa’s first post-apartheid president, as a “South African lawyer and activist who sought to end apartheid with acts of sabotage.”
It teaches that the South African government’s current policies “favoring the Black population over everyone else have made race relations even worse.”
“Unlike South Africa’s Black population, the white population is declining in number,” according to the PragerU text. “As an easy scapegoat for a failing government, more and more white South Africans are choosing to leave the country each year.”
AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT
The text says South Africa’s policies have led to a “brain drain,” in which “experienced, talented people” have left. It also warns of “reverse discrimination” in South Africa, and cites the accusation from the billionaire Trump ally Elon Musk that a genocide of white people is occurring.
Marissa Streit, the chief executive of PragerU, defended the materials and extended an “open invitation” to critics of the literature.
“Our content is available to everyone,” Ms. Streit said. “We only ask that it be engaged with intellectual honesty, fair perspective and a genuine commitment to truth. We have a feeling most of them might learn something new.”
“We commend the administration for taking steps to ensure that the civic onboarding process for all new Americans is substantive, dignified and worthy of this country’s founding ideals,” she added.
Nancy Jacobs, a Brown University historian of South Africa, said the story’s description of a post-apartheid South Africa was “selective in the extreme, and even inaccurate.” White South Africans still have much higher employment rates, lower poverty rates and more lucrative wages than their Black counterparts.
AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT
The White House and the Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to requests for comment.
The administration is also planning to include in the bag a report by Mr. Trump’s 1776 Commission, which was released at the end of his first term as a part of a response to antiracism protests in 2020.
The report, written by conservative activists and intellectuals, likens progressivism to fascism, and says Americans were being indoctrinated with a false critique of the nation’s founding and identity, including the role of slavery. The report took aim at the civil rights movement, saying that it “was almost immediately turned to programs that ran counter to the lofty ideals of the founders.”
Hamed Aleaziz covers the Department of Homeland Security and immigration policy for The Times.
Zolan Kanno-Youngs is a White House correspondent for The Times, covering President Trump and his administration.
See more on: U.S. Politics, Health and Human Services Department, Donald Trump
Share full article
Friday, June 26, 2026
Class Dismissed: An Interview with Jewish Studies Professor Jeffrey Blutinger
Class Dismissed: An Interview with Jewish Studies Professor Jeffrey Blutinger
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Class Dismissed: An Interview with Jewish Studies Professor Jeffrey Blutinger
Interview, Israel-Hamas War, Latest
By Jennifer Bardi | Feb 26, 2024
Jeffrey Blutinger is the director of Jewish Studies at Cal State University Long Beach. He received his PhD in history from UCLA in 2003 and wrote his dissertation on 19th-century Jewish historian Heinrich Graetz; his research interests lie at the intersection of Jewish intellectual and cultural history. On Monday, February 19, he was invited to give a lecture at San Jose State University (SJSU), but his talk was shut down after there was an altercation between protesters, who objected to having a “Zionist” on campus, and an SJSU faculty member. Blutinger spoke with Moment about the experience. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
You were invited to give a lecture at San Jose State University titled “Constructing a Just Solution: Where Israelis and Palestinians Go from Here.” What happened?
Apparently over the weekend, a group based in Oakland started plastering Instagram and social media with a digital flier [that incorporated the poster] for my talk, calling on people to come and shut me down: that a Zionist was speaking at San Jose City University, and Zionists weren’t welcome. And so, the SJSU campus police alerted the organizers and said there’s a problem, because my talk was scheduled to be given in a room in the library that apparently only has one door, and the police were concerned that if the protesters besieged the room, there would be no safe way to evacuate myself or anyone else in the room. So they asked that it be moved to a new location. I was speaking to a class on literature of the Holocaust. The plan was to move me to a classroom in a building that has a security system—where you need a key card to enter. They planned to tell the class where the talk would be, but no one else.
I’d never been in a police car in my life, and I was in three on Monday.
Originally, I planned to go early and work in the library, but they told me it was not safe for me to be seen on campus because my picture was circulating on social media. And it wasn’t safe for me to go out to eat for the same reason. I went to the apartment of the organizer instead, and they brought in lunch. An SJSU police car to drive me to the campus—I’d never been in a police car in my life, and I was in three on Monday.
Then on campus, they had a police escort take me to the classroom. Just as we approached the stairs to go to the second floor, I could see three people with keffiyehs coming in. The police stopped and told me, don’t go any further, and they sent an officer upstairs just to check out the situation. There were already 30 people up in the hallway, but they decided it was safe to bring me up. And so, I walked the gauntlet of protesters. And they were chanting “Intifada! Intifada!” as I went along, and then one of them stuck out a protest placard to block my way and at the last minute pulled it back. Anyhow, they put me in the classroom—not a particularly big class. The head of the Jewish Faculty & Staff Association was there, and the professor of the class, who is the head of Jewish studies and who had invited me.
Around 1:30, I said we should probably get started. They were all chanting outside the door, and I think the professor who was hosting was a little thrown by it. So, I started, and I have a very loud voice, so I could talk over the chanting. But every time the door opened to let someone in then all the chanting became very distracting for the students. There was a woman, apparently a professor who was with the protesters, who tried to enter and she was not allowed entry, and she was yelling, and the police asked her to leave.
I was told I only spoke for 15 minutes total. I had the clock behind me, you know, so I was focusing on trying to keep the students’ attention. Then a group of about four students in the class got up and left. And that was a shock. And then about three to five minutes after that a police officer came in and said to me, you’re going to have to stop, we’re evacuating you from the classroom. When an officer says that, you don’t argue with him. I would have preferred to stay; I didn’t like the image of me looking like I was running away, because I wasn’t afraid of them.
I left the classroom out a side door and then down the corridor in the opposite direction from the way I approached. I had a policeman in front of me, a policeman on my left, a policeman on my right and one behind me. I think someone must have been shoving the policeman behind me because he kept bumping into me. And then we were out of the building. They took me to the campus police headquarters, where I chatted with an officer. And then I got a ride back to the airport.
They’re not interested in the peace process, a peace treaty or a two-state solution. They’re calling for the violent elimination of the largest Jewish community in the world. And so, it’s not anti-Zionism. It’s antisemitism.
I learned later that there was a scuffle in the hallway between a Jewish professor who was recording the protests and a protester who tried to stop him from recording. And this led to the police evacuating the building. My understanding is that the head of the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion was in the classroom and is very upset with what she saw. She’s working with the class. She’s a therapist, and she’s doing a reparative justice exercise, because some of the students in the class feel betrayed by other students in the class. I really feel for the professor whose class it was. I can’t imagine what she’s going through now.
[Editor’s note: On Tuesday, SJSU President Cynthia Teniente-Matson issued a statement clarifying that the building was evacuated due to an altercation between a faculty member and protesters, some of whom were students, in the hallway outside the classroom where Blutinger was speaking. She noted that no injuries had been reported and no arrests had been made but that the faculty member had been put on administrative leave pending an investigation. The San Francisco Chronicle, the SJSU student paper and other sources that viewed video of the incident reported that a history professor, Jonathan Roth, had started filming a protester with his phone, and when she held her hand up to block her face, Roth grabbed her arm and pulled it down, and a skirmish ensued. Affirming that her campus “values the right to free speech and respects the academic freedom of our faculty and students,” Teniente-Matson stated: “I want to be clear—physical altercations or threatening behaviors that jeopardize the safety and security of any member of our university community will not be tolerated.”]
When you say some students feel betrayed, is that because they think fellow students tipped off this group from Oakland?
I don’t know. That’s a suspicion. I don’t have any knowledge. I should be clear with that. So, I know that of course, there are those four students who walked out. I don’t know what was going on with that either, because I’ve never met these students. I’ve never been at San Jose State before…[chuckling] I’ve been saying I never felt so seen or important!
And you got to ride in three different police cars, so there’s that.
They’re different than I expected. You know, in an unmarked car there’s no grill in the back that you see in the movies.
I’m curious, the class was Literature of the Holocaust, but your lecture was contemporary. How did it come about? And have you given the talk elsewhere?
I’ll answer the second question first. First of all, I basically teach this as a full semester class: Israel and Palestine. So, every slide is a slide that shows up somewhere this semester. I gave it as a talk at a JCC, I had like an hour and 15 minutes to cover a whole semester. The idea was to first look at the role of the Holocaust in creating the state, but even more broadly to look at peaceful resolutions of conflict, and how to peacefully resolve conflict.
My talk [at San Jose State] was going to look at where the conflict comes from and break down some of the myths—that it’s not from time immemorial; the actual violent conflict begins in the 20th century, a few years before World War I. I was just getting to that part, with the displacement of farmers, when all hell broke loose. I was going to talk about how the conflict begins as one between Jews and Palestinians, then morphs into the conflict between Israel and Arab states, and then, after Camp David I, it goes back to being a conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.
I talk about portfolios of issues; there are two portfolios for the conflict—the first portfolio are the 1948 issues, and the second portfolio are the 1967 issues. Between the various negotiations, the Oslo agreement and then the failure at Camp David II, importantly, negotiators kept on negotiating; at Taba [in Egypt] in January 2001, they came very, very close to resolving almost all the 1967 issues and one of the 1948 issues. Everything that you think of as a problem, like Jerusalem, Temple Mount, they actually worked most of that out.
There’s one issue that can’t be compromised, and one side will have to concede. And the issue is: what happens to the 1948 refugees and their descendants. Everything else can be compromised. But this is an either/or: Either they’re allowed to return to Israel, in which case Israel becomes a binational state, or they receive some sort of compensation and citizenship wherever they are living, whether on the West Bank, in Gaza where most of the refugees and descendants are, or in Jordan. The problem is there’s no middle ground between that; you can’t have someone partly be a citizen and partly not. So that’s the sticking point, and it has really been the hardest part of the conflict to resolve since 1948.
If we’re looking for a peace treaty and how to achieve it, I would go through all the things: the borders, the settlements, compensation for lost property, you can go through all of that. And we can go through the map showing where the border would be, which was mostly agreed to, but the problem is refugees and their descendants.
I can’t come to you and say, this is the solution that will resolve the Palestinian-Israeli crisis. I can say, these are the issues that have been tentatively resolved, at least in principle. And here’s the primary sticking point. And that’s what I would have said, and I would have talked about the need for a two-state solution, because that’s where we get to a free and independent Palestine next to a free and independent Israel, living in peace and security with one another. That was what my talk was about.
Somebody might say, oh, how ironic that if they’d only been able to hear it…
No, because the instant I say that there should be a state of Palestine next to a state of Israel, communication stops, because I’m a Zionist promoting the existence of Israel.
I hear this often from protesters on campus—they’re not interested in the peace process, a peace treaty or a two-state solution. They’re calling for the violent elimination of the largest Jewish community in the world. And so, it’s not anti-Zionism. It’s antisemitism. They’re not interested in listening, and they don’t want to allow any voices other than their own.
I had a student reporter call me at the airport on my way out. He knew I felt that protesters were going too far but wanted to know how I felt about them standing up for themselves. They weren’t, I said—they were trying to prevent other students from learning. They wanted to prevent me from teaching. Students who came to hear a lecture were denied. When you say free speech for me, but not for thee, that’s not free speech. And look, I have protested speakers before. When I was in college, we protested when Noam Chomsky came to campus at UCLA. And how did we protest? He was speaking in a classroom, and we stood outside the building with signs and distributed pamphlets saying why he was a terrible person and why his ideas were wrong and why he’s antisemitic.
On my campus, about 10-12 years ago, the founder of the Minutemen, which was an anti-migrant, anti-immigrant, rather xenophobic group, was invited by a student group to speak in the University Student Union. And a lot of people said, why can’t the university bar them as hate speech? Well, FYI, hate speech is covered by the First Amendment. What did we do? We did not go into the lecture hall where he was speaking and disrupt. We didn’t make noise. We didn’t hold up signs. We stood outside the building and handed out pamphlets about why what he was saying was wrong. That’s how you protest a speaker. You don’t stop the speaker from speaking. That violates free speech. It also, of course, violates academic freedom.
The protesters called you a Zionist. What does the term Zionist mean to you?
I teach history, I teach Zionism. And it’s an odd thing, because in some ways, political Zionism fulfilled itself in 1948, with the founding of the state. Zionism was about establishing a Jewish State. That now exists. So, like, is there Americanism with the founding of America? As an ideological movement, there are forms of Zionism that persist after the founding of the state. There’s cultural Zionism, as expressed by Ahad Ha’am, which is this idea that whatever was formed would be a new Jewish cultural center to spread a new Jewish identity, a new way of being Jewish. So, the idea of a new Jewishness coming out of Israel, that’s a form of Zionism that continues. And then, of course, there’s religious Zionism, which sees the founding of the state as part of a messianic process. I’m much less comfortable with that form of Zionism. I think Gershom Scholem said that if Zionism becomes Messianism it will be doomed, because Jewish messianic movements never succeed. But I would say that if you understand Zionism not as the idea that we should found a Jewish state, which has been done, but rather that there should be a Jewish state, then I would say, yes, I believe that to the extent that nationalism exists anywhere, the Jews are as entitled to nationalism as anyone else.
What is the name of your course?
Officially, History 420: Modern Israel—but I usually just call it Modern Israel-Palestine. At the end of class yesterday, I was talking about the Nakba, where the Palestinian refugees come from, and I started to show them part of a documentary from Al Jazeera. We’ll be looking at one tomorrow about the British evacuation of the Palestinians from Tiberius, and then what happened at Haifa. And we’ll look at the forced expulsion of Palestinians from a village called Tantura. So, it’s not like I ignore the refugees, because how can I talk about the conflict unless I explain where the refugees come from? I have to teach that.
Opening image: Hagit Shekel
Tags:
free speech, Israeli-Palestinan conflict
4 thoughts on “Class Dismissed: An Interview with Jewish Studies Professor Jeffrey Blutinger”
Judith Stitzel says:
March 12, 2024 at 7:01 pm
I am grateful for this excellent interview.
Reply
Bill Younglove says:
March 12, 2024 at 8:08 pm
Dr. Blutinger’s comments should be shared far and wide. I am VERY impressed with his analysis of the history of “how we got here” (i.e., the present, ongoing Middle East conflict), as well as his analysis of just exactly what freedom of speech should REALLY mean.
Reply
Charles Bernstein says:
April 16, 2024 at 7:21 pm
Wish I could be in this man’s class
Reply
Ambi Thompson says:
December 11, 2024 at 3:57 pm
Dr. Blutinger is one of the most inspirational professors I have had the pleasure of meeting. His courses, seminars, and compassionate advocacy continues to impact my thirst for knowledge. Dr. Blutinger encourages students to examine the complexities of war, genocide, and the fracture of identity amidst generational trauma. While such themes cam be difficult and emotional to grasp for any individual, he goes above and beyond to curate an inclusive and safe environment for every student.
Reply
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Class Dismissed: An Interview with Jewish Studies Professor Jeffrey Blutinger
Interview, Israel-Hamas War, Latest
By Jennifer Bardi | Feb 26, 2024
Jeffrey Blutinger is the director of Jewish Studies at Cal State University Long Beach. He received his PhD in history from UCLA in 2003 and wrote his dissertation on 19th-century Jewish historian Heinrich Graetz; his research interests lie at the intersection of Jewish intellectual and cultural history. On Monday, February 19, he was invited to give a lecture at San Jose State University (SJSU), but his talk was shut down after there was an altercation between protesters, who objected to having a “Zionist” on campus, and an SJSU faculty member. Blutinger spoke with Moment about the experience. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
You were invited to give a lecture at San Jose State University titled “Constructing a Just Solution: Where Israelis and Palestinians Go from Here.” What happened?
Apparently over the weekend, a group based in Oakland started plastering Instagram and social media with a digital flier [that incorporated the poster] for my talk, calling on people to come and shut me down: that a Zionist was speaking at San Jose City University, and Zionists weren’t welcome. And so, the SJSU campus police alerted the organizers and said there’s a problem, because my talk was scheduled to be given in a room in the library that apparently only has one door, and the police were concerned that if the protesters besieged the room, there would be no safe way to evacuate myself or anyone else in the room. So they asked that it be moved to a new location. I was speaking to a class on literature of the Holocaust. The plan was to move me to a classroom in a building that has a security system—where you need a key card to enter. They planned to tell the class where the talk would be, but no one else.
I’d never been in a police car in my life, and I was in three on Monday.
Originally, I planned to go early and work in the library, but they told me it was not safe for me to be seen on campus because my picture was circulating on social media. And it wasn’t safe for me to go out to eat for the same reason. I went to the apartment of the organizer instead, and they brought in lunch. An SJSU police car to drive me to the campus—I’d never been in a police car in my life, and I was in three on Monday.
Then on campus, they had a police escort take me to the classroom. Just as we approached the stairs to go to the second floor, I could see three people with keffiyehs coming in. The police stopped and told me, don’t go any further, and they sent an officer upstairs just to check out the situation. There were already 30 people up in the hallway, but they decided it was safe to bring me up. And so, I walked the gauntlet of protesters. And they were chanting “Intifada! Intifada!” as I went along, and then one of them stuck out a protest placard to block my way and at the last minute pulled it back. Anyhow, they put me in the classroom—not a particularly big class. The head of the Jewish Faculty & Staff Association was there, and the professor of the class, who is the head of Jewish studies and who had invited me.
Around 1:30, I said we should probably get started. They were all chanting outside the door, and I think the professor who was hosting was a little thrown by it. So, I started, and I have a very loud voice, so I could talk over the chanting. But every time the door opened to let someone in then all the chanting became very distracting for the students. There was a woman, apparently a professor who was with the protesters, who tried to enter and she was not allowed entry, and she was yelling, and the police asked her to leave.
I was told I only spoke for 15 minutes total. I had the clock behind me, you know, so I was focusing on trying to keep the students’ attention. Then a group of about four students in the class got up and left. And that was a shock. And then about three to five minutes after that a police officer came in and said to me, you’re going to have to stop, we’re evacuating you from the classroom. When an officer says that, you don’t argue with him. I would have preferred to stay; I didn’t like the image of me looking like I was running away, because I wasn’t afraid of them.
I left the classroom out a side door and then down the corridor in the opposite direction from the way I approached. I had a policeman in front of me, a policeman on my left, a policeman on my right and one behind me. I think someone must have been shoving the policeman behind me because he kept bumping into me. And then we were out of the building. They took me to the campus police headquarters, where I chatted with an officer. And then I got a ride back to the airport.
They’re not interested in the peace process, a peace treaty or a two-state solution. They’re calling for the violent elimination of the largest Jewish community in the world. And so, it’s not anti-Zionism. It’s antisemitism.
I learned later that there was a scuffle in the hallway between a Jewish professor who was recording the protests and a protester who tried to stop him from recording. And this led to the police evacuating the building. My understanding is that the head of the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion was in the classroom and is very upset with what she saw. She’s working with the class. She’s a therapist, and she’s doing a reparative justice exercise, because some of the students in the class feel betrayed by other students in the class. I really feel for the professor whose class it was. I can’t imagine what she’s going through now.
[Editor’s note: On Tuesday, SJSU President Cynthia Teniente-Matson issued a statement clarifying that the building was evacuated due to an altercation between a faculty member and protesters, some of whom were students, in the hallway outside the classroom where Blutinger was speaking. She noted that no injuries had been reported and no arrests had been made but that the faculty member had been put on administrative leave pending an investigation. The San Francisco Chronicle, the SJSU student paper and other sources that viewed video of the incident reported that a history professor, Jonathan Roth, had started filming a protester with his phone, and when she held her hand up to block her face, Roth grabbed her arm and pulled it down, and a skirmish ensued. Affirming that her campus “values the right to free speech and respects the academic freedom of our faculty and students,” Teniente-Matson stated: “I want to be clear—physical altercations or threatening behaviors that jeopardize the safety and security of any member of our university community will not be tolerated.”]
When you say some students feel betrayed, is that because they think fellow students tipped off this group from Oakland?
I don’t know. That’s a suspicion. I don’t have any knowledge. I should be clear with that. So, I know that of course, there are those four students who walked out. I don’t know what was going on with that either, because I’ve never met these students. I’ve never been at San Jose State before…[chuckling] I’ve been saying I never felt so seen or important!
And you got to ride in three different police cars, so there’s that.
They’re different than I expected. You know, in an unmarked car there’s no grill in the back that you see in the movies.
I’m curious, the class was Literature of the Holocaust, but your lecture was contemporary. How did it come about? And have you given the talk elsewhere?
I’ll answer the second question first. First of all, I basically teach this as a full semester class: Israel and Palestine. So, every slide is a slide that shows up somewhere this semester. I gave it as a talk at a JCC, I had like an hour and 15 minutes to cover a whole semester. The idea was to first look at the role of the Holocaust in creating the state, but even more broadly to look at peaceful resolutions of conflict, and how to peacefully resolve conflict.
My talk [at San Jose State] was going to look at where the conflict comes from and break down some of the myths—that it’s not from time immemorial; the actual violent conflict begins in the 20th century, a few years before World War I. I was just getting to that part, with the displacement of farmers, when all hell broke loose. I was going to talk about how the conflict begins as one between Jews and Palestinians, then morphs into the conflict between Israel and Arab states, and then, after Camp David I, it goes back to being a conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.
I talk about portfolios of issues; there are two portfolios for the conflict—the first portfolio are the 1948 issues, and the second portfolio are the 1967 issues. Between the various negotiations, the Oslo agreement and then the failure at Camp David II, importantly, negotiators kept on negotiating; at Taba [in Egypt] in January 2001, they came very, very close to resolving almost all the 1967 issues and one of the 1948 issues. Everything that you think of as a problem, like Jerusalem, Temple Mount, they actually worked most of that out.
There’s one issue that can’t be compromised, and one side will have to concede. And the issue is: what happens to the 1948 refugees and their descendants. Everything else can be compromised. But this is an either/or: Either they’re allowed to return to Israel, in which case Israel becomes a binational state, or they receive some sort of compensation and citizenship wherever they are living, whether on the West Bank, in Gaza where most of the refugees and descendants are, or in Jordan. The problem is there’s no middle ground between that; you can’t have someone partly be a citizen and partly not. So that’s the sticking point, and it has really been the hardest part of the conflict to resolve since 1948.
If we’re looking for a peace treaty and how to achieve it, I would go through all the things: the borders, the settlements, compensation for lost property, you can go through all of that. And we can go through the map showing where the border would be, which was mostly agreed to, but the problem is refugees and their descendants.
I can’t come to you and say, this is the solution that will resolve the Palestinian-Israeli crisis. I can say, these are the issues that have been tentatively resolved, at least in principle. And here’s the primary sticking point. And that’s what I would have said, and I would have talked about the need for a two-state solution, because that’s where we get to a free and independent Palestine next to a free and independent Israel, living in peace and security with one another. That was what my talk was about.
Somebody might say, oh, how ironic that if they’d only been able to hear it…
No, because the instant I say that there should be a state of Palestine next to a state of Israel, communication stops, because I’m a Zionist promoting the existence of Israel.
I hear this often from protesters on campus—they’re not interested in the peace process, a peace treaty or a two-state solution. They’re calling for the violent elimination of the largest Jewish community in the world. And so, it’s not anti-Zionism. It’s antisemitism. They’re not interested in listening, and they don’t want to allow any voices other than their own.
I had a student reporter call me at the airport on my way out. He knew I felt that protesters were going too far but wanted to know how I felt about them standing up for themselves. They weren’t, I said—they were trying to prevent other students from learning. They wanted to prevent me from teaching. Students who came to hear a lecture were denied. When you say free speech for me, but not for thee, that’s not free speech. And look, I have protested speakers before. When I was in college, we protested when Noam Chomsky came to campus at UCLA. And how did we protest? He was speaking in a classroom, and we stood outside the building with signs and distributed pamphlets saying why he was a terrible person and why his ideas were wrong and why he’s antisemitic.
On my campus, about 10-12 years ago, the founder of the Minutemen, which was an anti-migrant, anti-immigrant, rather xenophobic group, was invited by a student group to speak in the University Student Union. And a lot of people said, why can’t the university bar them as hate speech? Well, FYI, hate speech is covered by the First Amendment. What did we do? We did not go into the lecture hall where he was speaking and disrupt. We didn’t make noise. We didn’t hold up signs. We stood outside the building and handed out pamphlets about why what he was saying was wrong. That’s how you protest a speaker. You don’t stop the speaker from speaking. That violates free speech. It also, of course, violates academic freedom.
The protesters called you a Zionist. What does the term Zionist mean to you?
I teach history, I teach Zionism. And it’s an odd thing, because in some ways, political Zionism fulfilled itself in 1948, with the founding of the state. Zionism was about establishing a Jewish State. That now exists. So, like, is there Americanism with the founding of America? As an ideological movement, there are forms of Zionism that persist after the founding of the state. There’s cultural Zionism, as expressed by Ahad Ha’am, which is this idea that whatever was formed would be a new Jewish cultural center to spread a new Jewish identity, a new way of being Jewish. So, the idea of a new Jewishness coming out of Israel, that’s a form of Zionism that continues. And then, of course, there’s religious Zionism, which sees the founding of the state as part of a messianic process. I’m much less comfortable with that form of Zionism. I think Gershom Scholem said that if Zionism becomes Messianism it will be doomed, because Jewish messianic movements never succeed. But I would say that if you understand Zionism not as the idea that we should found a Jewish state, which has been done, but rather that there should be a Jewish state, then I would say, yes, I believe that to the extent that nationalism exists anywhere, the Jews are as entitled to nationalism as anyone else.
What is the name of your course?
Officially, History 420: Modern Israel—but I usually just call it Modern Israel-Palestine. At the end of class yesterday, I was talking about the Nakba, where the Palestinian refugees come from, and I started to show them part of a documentary from Al Jazeera. We’ll be looking at one tomorrow about the British evacuation of the Palestinians from Tiberius, and then what happened at Haifa. And we’ll look at the forced expulsion of Palestinians from a village called Tantura. So, it’s not like I ignore the refugees, because how can I talk about the conflict unless I explain where the refugees come from? I have to teach that.
Opening image: Hagit Shekel
Tags:
free speech, Israeli-Palestinan conflict
4 thoughts on “Class Dismissed: An Interview with Jewish Studies Professor Jeffrey Blutinger”
Judith Stitzel says:March 12, 2024 at 7:01 pm
I am grateful for this excellent interview.
Reply
Bill Younglove says:March 12, 2024 at 8:08 pm
Dr. Blutinger’s comments should be shared far and wide. I am VERY impressed with his analysis of the history of “how we got here” (i.e., the present, ongoing Middle East conflict), as well as his analysis of just exactly what freedom of speech should REALLY mean.
Reply
Charles Bernstein says:April 16, 2024 at 7:21 pm
Wish I could be in this man’s class
Reply
Ambi Thompson says:December 11, 2024 at 3:57 pm
Dr. Blutinger is one of the most inspirational professors I have had the pleasure of meeting. His courses, seminars, and compassionate advocacy continues to impact my thirst for knowledge. Dr. Blutinger encourages students to examine the complexities of war, genocide, and the fracture of identity amidst generational trauma. While such themes cam be difficult and emotional to grasp for any individual, he goes above and beyond to curate an inclusive and safe environment for every student.
Reply
San José State University puts professor on leave over altercation with pro-Palestine student - Yahoo News UK
San José State University puts professor on leave over altercation with pro-Palestine student - Yahoo News UK
San José State University puts professor on leave over altercation with pro-Palestine student
Noah Goldberg
Tue, 27 February 2024
San José State University history professor Jonathan Roth was put on leave after grabbing and twisting the arm of a student when she attempted to block him from recording protesters. (Paul Chinn/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)More
San José State University placed a professor on administrative leave after he got into a physical altercation with a student during a pro-Palestine protest, according to an email from the school's president and video of the incident.
History professor Jonathan Roth was put on leave Tuesday, a day after he grabbed and twisted the arm of a student when she attempted to block him from recording protesters on his phone, according to video of the incident reviewed by The Times.
"Fortunately, no serious physical injuries were reported," San José State President Cynthia Teniente-Matson wrote in a memo to the school community. "At this time, no police charges have been filed. The circumstances of Monday's incident, which led to the guest speaker and students being removed from a classroom, are still under investigation."
Roth did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Read more: Letters to the Editor: Gaza protesters and the FBI's ugly history of infiltrating antiwar groups
The incident is the latest involving protests and violence on college campuses over the war in Gaza, sparked by the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas.
Members of the group Students for Justice in Palestine were protesting Feb. 19 outside a classroom in Sweeney Hall where a guest lecturer, Jeffrey Blutinger, was speaking to a class about the war. The students had decided to protest due to Blutinger's "problematic" views, according to Sang Hea Kil, a San José State professor who is the faculty advisor for Students for Justice in Palestine.
Blutinger, a Jewish studies professor at Long Beach State University, has argued that Israel is not committing genocide in Gaza and has said that pro-Palestine protests on campuses have seemed supportive of Hamas.
While Blutinger was speaking in the classroom, Roth tried to take video of the protesters in the hallway.
Video footage shows Roth taking out his phone and holding it as if recording. A student wearing a kaffiyeh, a traditional Palestinian headdress, puts her hand up to block the recording, and Roth grabs her hand and twists it out of the way, video shows.
Students in the hallway become incensed, getting in Roth's face and yelling. "You don't touch a woman," one can be heard repeatedly yelling at Roth.
"Get him out," another screams.
Officers with the San José Police Department got between Roth and the students, then escorted the professor out of the hallway, video shows.
"They treated Jonathan Roth with kid gloves," said Kil about the police. "The look on Jonathan Roth's face about what he did was very smug. He looked very proud of himself for what he did."
Kil said Roth should have been arrested for assault.
The university, which put Roth on leave the following day, declined to comment beyond the president's memo.
Roth's attorney, Andrew Miltenberg, said it was Roth who was "assaulted" on Feb. 19.
Roth had his phone grabbed by a student and "instinctively put up his hand to protect himself," Miltenberg said. It is not clear in the video if the student grabs Roth's phone or just puts her hand up to block his video.
"We are undertaking our preliminary investigation and may be filing claims on behalf of Prof. Roth," Miltenberg said.
Roth served six years in the Army National Guard. On his university profile, he bemoans the "quasi-Marxist attitude" in research that he believes celebrates "revolutionary" violence.
"Tied to this is the idea of cultural relativism and Third Worldism, which I think has been very harmful not only to academia, but hurts the very people it purports to support," Roth wrote on his profile.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations celebrated the university's swift move to place Roth on leave.
"Such an action is not only inexcusable but also a violation of the rights and safety of students," said the group's San Francisco Bay Area office.
Kil, meanwhile, called on the university to fire Roth over the incident.
Read more: The Hamas-Israel war is dividing college campuses
The hallway scuffle led the school to cut off the talk that had been underway in the classroom. Blutinger called it a violation of academic freedom that his talk was canceled.
"Everyone is focused on Roth, but I was the one who wasn't allowed to speak," he said in an interview with The Times. "I had the administration and police stop me from speaking to a classroom. That's not permissible. They did it for issues of public safety, but it's still a violation of my rights and the students to hear me."
Blutinger said he saw the incident with Roth on video and had no comment on it.
"If we can allow people to shut down classes at the university because we don't like who's teaching it, then the public university will cease to exist," he said.
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
San José State University puts professor on leave over altercation with pro-Palestine student
Noah Goldberg
Tue, 27 February 2024
San José State University history professor Jonathan Roth was put on leave after grabbing and twisting the arm of a student when she attempted to block him from recording protesters. (Paul Chinn/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)More
San José State University placed a professor on administrative leave after he got into a physical altercation with a student during a pro-Palestine protest, according to an email from the school's president and video of the incident.
History professor Jonathan Roth was put on leave Tuesday, a day after he grabbed and twisted the arm of a student when she attempted to block him from recording protesters on his phone, according to video of the incident reviewed by The Times.
"Fortunately, no serious physical injuries were reported," San José State President Cynthia Teniente-Matson wrote in a memo to the school community. "At this time, no police charges have been filed. The circumstances of Monday's incident, which led to the guest speaker and students being removed from a classroom, are still under investigation."
Roth did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Read more: Letters to the Editor: Gaza protesters and the FBI's ugly history of infiltrating antiwar groups
The incident is the latest involving protests and violence on college campuses over the war in Gaza, sparked by the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas.
Members of the group Students for Justice in Palestine were protesting Feb. 19 outside a classroom in Sweeney Hall where a guest lecturer, Jeffrey Blutinger, was speaking to a class about the war. The students had decided to protest due to Blutinger's "problematic" views, according to Sang Hea Kil, a San José State professor who is the faculty advisor for Students for Justice in Palestine.
Blutinger, a Jewish studies professor at Long Beach State University, has argued that Israel is not committing genocide in Gaza and has said that pro-Palestine protests on campuses have seemed supportive of Hamas.
While Blutinger was speaking in the classroom, Roth tried to take video of the protesters in the hallway.
Video footage shows Roth taking out his phone and holding it as if recording. A student wearing a kaffiyeh, a traditional Palestinian headdress, puts her hand up to block the recording, and Roth grabs her hand and twists it out of the way, video shows.
Students in the hallway become incensed, getting in Roth's face and yelling. "You don't touch a woman," one can be heard repeatedly yelling at Roth.
"Get him out," another screams.
Officers with the San José Police Department got between Roth and the students, then escorted the professor out of the hallway, video shows.
"They treated Jonathan Roth with kid gloves," said Kil about the police. "The look on Jonathan Roth's face about what he did was very smug. He looked very proud of himself for what he did."
Kil said Roth should have been arrested for assault.
The university, which put Roth on leave the following day, declined to comment beyond the president's memo.
Roth's attorney, Andrew Miltenberg, said it was Roth who was "assaulted" on Feb. 19.
Roth had his phone grabbed by a student and "instinctively put up his hand to protect himself," Miltenberg said. It is not clear in the video if the student grabs Roth's phone or just puts her hand up to block his video.
"We are undertaking our preliminary investigation and may be filing claims on behalf of Prof. Roth," Miltenberg said.
Roth served six years in the Army National Guard. On his university profile, he bemoans the "quasi-Marxist attitude" in research that he believes celebrates "revolutionary" violence.
"Tied to this is the idea of cultural relativism and Third Worldism, which I think has been very harmful not only to academia, but hurts the very people it purports to support," Roth wrote on his profile.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations celebrated the university's swift move to place Roth on leave.
"Such an action is not only inexcusable but also a violation of the rights and safety of students," said the group's San Francisco Bay Area office.
Kil, meanwhile, called on the university to fire Roth over the incident.
Read more: The Hamas-Israel war is dividing college campuses
The hallway scuffle led the school to cut off the talk that had been underway in the classroom. Blutinger called it a violation of academic freedom that his talk was canceled.
"Everyone is focused on Roth, but I was the one who wasn't allowed to speak," he said in an interview with The Times. "I had the administration and police stop me from speaking to a classroom. That's not permissible. They did it for issues of public safety, but it's still a violation of my rights and the students to hear me."
Blutinger said he saw the incident with Roth on video and had no comment on it.
"If we can allow people to shut down classes at the university because we don't like who's teaching it, then the public university will cease to exist," he said.
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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Brought back with backpay. Outstanding news. Hope the god damn clowns running that university are fumming.
Good, a professor should not lose their job over their beliefs especially one as basic as Gaza deserves to exist.
Well... someone else is getting fired now.
Another "professor"
That’s too bad.
We shouldn’t have professors with a historical and antisemitic beliefs running around leading protests.
She wasn’t accused of being antisemitic. It’s a shame many have been brainwashed to not understand the distinction between supporting Palestine and not supporting Zionism.
Geez
The original reason why she was flagged to begin with was due to her inciting violence on campus by creating a hostile take over of a building during a guest lecture. While she was cleared during that investigation, she started attacking administration on social media which caused the university president to terminate her. This is not about protests, this is about enforcing university policy.
That is an extremely disingenuous description of the events that transpired. Gee I wonder why someone would give such a bad faith portrayal of what happened 🤔 what a puzzler
Zionists are, without exaggeration, making their position, "You should be willing to give up every right and freedom for Israel's right to commit genocide." and then wondering why they're incredibly unpopular.
First amendment? Look, it was fine, but someone used it to support Palestine so you can't have it anymore. And if you don't like that, that's antisemitism.
The average liberal zionist politician who goes along with this generates more antisemitism than any neonazi alive today.
Its‘s a war, 2. There is a difference between supporting Palestine and the real genocidal maniacs; Hamas.
“It’s a war.” - People that should never be believed.
😒
With all due respect, this a war. Same way we are fighting in other wars. I have lost friends in this war, I have lost family in this war. Nobody wanted a war, nobody wants any harm to civilians. We would like to end a genocidal terrorist organization that has tried to kill many Israelis, be they Jewish, Muslim, or Christian. We all want to live in peace, control of Gaza was given to HAMAS in 2008.
with all due respect (ie, none), Israel is killing more children than Hamas and Hamas is not currently committing a genocide.
Israel has Gazan civilians pinned in an open-air prison and are bombing, sniping, starving, and denying them aid. It is a genocide. October 7 was just an excuse to accelerate their plans.
Hamas is killing less children than Israel.
Hopefully the fired UCSC staff members can follow suit.
Got a link?
I’m honestly doubtful that person will see the same justice. There union (if they have one) is much weaker than CFA or CSUEU.
What a loser