When you’re getting flak, the saying goes, you know you are over the target.
Columbia University alum and current member of the Ivy League school’s Board of Trustees Shoshana Shendelman is taking a lot of flak — in the form of hit pieces such as the one recently published by the Intercept that might have been published by Der Stürmer, once upon a time. Der Stürmer was an anti-Semitic newspaper published by Julius Streicher, a close associate of Hitler’s.
The Intercept piece — published May 27 — characterizes Shendelman as being part of a “Jewish faction” that seeks to suppress free speech on Columbia’s campus. Substitute Black for Jewish, and the backlash would be immediate, and so severe that it would be doubtful that the author of such a piece would be able to retain his position.
But the author of the Intercept piece — Meghnad Bose — demands that Shendelman lose hers. In a May 30 post on X, Bose states that “around 100 members of Columbia’s faculty” have written to the university’s administration demanding “the immediate removal of Dr. Shoshana Shendelman” from her position on the board because she is “reportedly” a pro-Israel “hardliner.”
Well, what does that mean, exactly? And what does Bose intend to imply it means?
The distinction is important.
Superficially, it was an attempt to smear Shendelman’s integrity by accusing her (former?) company — Applied Therapeutics — of “withholding” information from the FDA. “At this precarious time,” Bose wrote on X, “when science is under attack, it’s essential that those representing CUIMC and Columbia are individuals operating at the highest ethical and professional standards,” quoting the letter signed by “around 100” Columbia faculty members. But Shendelman does not even work for Applied Therapeutics anymore. Her real offense, of course, is that she supports Israel.
And that she is Jewish.
Bose says so, explicitly.
Shendelman is part of a “Jewish faction.” Not merely a faction that hews to a certain political point of view. Like Streicher, Bose collectivizes his target — which is another way of saying he denies her individuality, and another way of denying her humanity. In his view and that of “around 100” Columbia faculty members, it is the Jews who are (supposedly) guilty of something — and they are “guilty” because they are Jews.
Interestingly, Bose may himself be guilty of some things — in addition to being an anti-Semite. Including — reportedly — several incidents of sexual misconduct dating back to the #MeToo era, circa 2018. He has been accused by multiple women of having done things such as making unwanted advances, commenting on the bra size of a colleague, and allegedly having put his finger inside the mouth of a woman who was half-asleep. He tacitly admitted to having done some of these things by stating his “unconditional regret,” without acknowledging any specific wrongdoing. But who publicly expressed “unconditional regret” for not having done execrable things?
His journalistic ethics and reporting are similarly questionable.
Back in 2022, Bose claimed in an article for The Quint that he and four Muslim reporters were detained by Delhi police at a nationalist, anti-Muslim rally, the Hindu Mahapanchayat, in India. But Delhi police immediately challenged Bose’s claims, stating that the Muslim reporters were not detained, but rather escorted by police, for their own safety.
The Deputy Commissioner of Police, North-West Delhi, stated that “some of the reporters, willingly, on their own free will, to evade the crowd which was getting agitated by their presence, sat in a (police) van stationed at the venue and opted to proceed to Police Station for security reasons. No one was detained. Due police protection was provided.”
Bose did not acknowledge the “mistake.” If it was one.
Perhaps more troubling is the clear conflict of interest that was exposed after the Columbia Journalism Review ran a profile piece about an article entitled “First They Came for Mahmoud Khalil” that was published by Drop Site News. It was written by Bose, who was also freelancing for Drop Site News at the time.
The editor of the CJR was subsequently fired.
Now, Bose demands that Shoshana Shendelman be removed from the Board of Trustees at Columbia because she formerly worked for a company that has nothing to do with any conflict of interest relating to her position on the board, nor her views on the situation in Gaza, or her position on free speech.
This is all very interesting, in that there seems to be a very clear double standard in force. One for activist journalists — which ought to be a contradiction in terms — and one for academics who do not share the same point of view as activist journalists.
Indeed, rather than being punished — or even chided for his unethical and inappropriate offenses, some of which he has admitted to — Bose has been rewarded. He was the recipient of the Ramnath Goenka Award in 2018 and 2021, after he publicly expressed his “unconditional regret” for almost certainly having done at least some of the things women in his orbit accused him of having done.
It is redolent of the “activist journalism” practiced by Julius Streicher, and it is motivated by the same ugly undertow of anti-Semitism.
Megan Barth, is an investigative journalist, columnist, conservative commentator and the former and founding editor of The Nevada Globe.
Lilly says
Given that fake Republicans are marrying Muslim women, and that fake president is taking money from Qatar Israel is threatened, but not by those few Hezbollah and Houthi rockets. But from rhino traitors who pretend to be Christians.It is a sad fact that the rhinos do not want Israeli Druze ( Ghassan Alian IDF boss and IDF hero) to protect the Syrian Druze, who are threatened by the al-Qaeda government.
The fake Republican Trump and his fake Republican congressmen fear that Ghassan Alian and Israel’s heroic Druze would protect the Syrian Druze and move the border.Ghassan Alian wants to push the border as Ante Gotovina once did.