Dan David was a remarkable man, who survived both the Nazis and the Communists in his native land of Romania. After many travails, he finally made aliyah to Israel, where he borrowed money to buy the Photo-Me (those booths where you can have your photo taken) franchise for several countries. He eventually sold his stake in Photo-Me for 210 million pounds. He then turned to philanthropy, providing 100 million pounds to create the Dan David Foundation that awards each year a half-dozen Dan David prizes, now worth $300,000 apiece, to people in academic life and in the arts. He died in 2011, but his eponymous foundation continues to award the Dan David Prize.
This year, one of those Dan David prizes was awarded to a medieval historian, Professor Matthew Champion, who teaches and does research at Melbourne University in Australia. Immediately more than a hundred Australian academics, including thirty of his colleagues at Melbourne, signed a letter demanding that Champion rescind his acceptance of the prize, an acceptance which they claimed would legitimize the “genocidal” Jewish state. Champion ignored their demand.
More on this madness can be found here: “Australian academics sign open letter calling on Dan David winner to return ‘Israel-linked’ prize,” by Esther Davis, Jerusalem Post, July 10, 2026:
Professor Matthew Champion, the Australian academic who won the Dan David Prize earlier this month, rejected calls from dozens of academics to boycott the prize due to its links to Israel.
More than 100 academics, including activist Randa Abdel-Fattah and National Museum chair Clare Wright, signed an open letter calling on University of Melbourne associate Professor Matthew Champion to rescind his acceptance of the largest history prize in the world, The Australian reported.
The open letter reportedly said that keeping the award would contribute to “the ongoing normalization of the genocide and scholasticide in Palestine.” Scholasticide is a term coined by Palestinian scholar Karma Nabulsi in 2009, meaning the systematic destruction of a society’s education system….
These hate-filed academics need once again to be wearily informed that the Jewish state has not committed “genocide” in Gaza. Genocide requires intent, and the IDF has never shown such intent. Quite the contrary. The IDF makes tremendous efforts to minimize civilian casualties, through an elaborate system that includes millions of dropped leaflets, millions of text messages sent, millions of robocalls made, all to warn civilians in Gaza away from areas soon to be targeted. This warning system, that no other army has used, led West Point Professor John Spencer, an expert in urban warfare, to conclude that “Israel has done more and implemented more measures to prevent civilian harm than any military in the history of urban warfare.”
As for the charge these academics hurled at Israel, accusing it of “scholasticide,” by which they mean the systematic destruction of a society’s education system, what can they possibly mean? The IDF has hit some school buildings in Gaza, but only because they were not being used as schools. Instead, Hamas was using most of them to hide its combatants and weapons, and its launching pads for missiles. Not Israel, but Hamas destroyed the eduction system in Gaza, that was determined to take over school buildings and use them for its own war-making purposes.
In the letter, the academics claimed that the Dan David Foundation had made “minimal” statements about that war in Gaza, and had failed to describe the conflict as a “genocide” when calling for an immediate end to the war.the war.
But the Dan David Foundation didn’t describe the war in Gaza as a “genocide” because it wasn’t, and isn’t. No matter how many times that idiotic charge is made, it will still be false. The Foundation made “minimal” statements about the war because it is not a political body. Would these same Australian academics demand that Bob Dylan, who won the Nobel Prize For Literature in 2016, now return the award because the Swedish Academy, that choses the recipient, hasn’t said anything about the war in Gaza?
In the foundation’s statement, they expressed “growing concern and alarm” about the war, and said civilian lives must be protected.
That statement from the Dan David Foundation apparently wasn’t enough for the Australian academics. Nothing short of a full-throated denunciation of the “colonial-settler apartheid genocidal state” of Israel will assuage their fury.
The open letter claimed that “the foundation’s focus on history and archaeology serves a key part of the Israeli and Zionist project of attempting to rewrite, and write over, the story of Palestinian land.”…
Israel has no “project” to rewrite the story of “Palestinian land.” The true story is this: Jews have been settled on what those academics choose tendentiously to call “Palestinian land” for the past 3500 years. The Muslim Arabs only appeared in the area some 2000 years later. The “Palestinian people” were not invented, for obvious propaganda purposes, and at the suggestion of the KGB, until the mid-1960s. It is not the Jews who have been destroying archeological evidence in the area — Jewish archeologists preserve and study, with the same care, both Jewish and Arab sites, while the Palestinian Arabs have been systematically destroying evidence of the Jewish presence in the land; they have even tried to destroy Jewish holy sites, including the Tombs of Joseph and of Rachel.
According to The Australian, Champion is thought to have received scores of messages since the academics published their call for him to rescind his acceptance of the prize.
Were these messages urging him to rescind, or instead celebrating his award, and telling him to ignore the troglodytes demanding that he give it back? The article in The Australian does not say, but I suspect there were many more urging him to keep the prize than the number demanding he rescind his acceptance.
Professor Champion, with the backing of University of Melbourne administrators, has no intention of rescinding his acceptance of the award. And these academics’ obvious inability to impose their will should madden them. Meanwhile, their wild charges flung at the Jewish state, accused of committing “genocide” and “scholasticide,” should be carefully rebutted. But let someone other than Professor Matthew Champion perform that task. He’s already been through a lot.
somehistory says
Good for the man refusing to refuse. Hope he told them which lake.
The lies will never end until all evil is brought to an end. People who value Truth and goodness will need to keep fighting the lies and denying people like the ‘open letter writers any satisfaction.
Gall, nerve, audacity….due to their arrogance. Truth chaps their hides.
Cynthia says
Congratulations to this professor on receiving the award and on his integrity. Thankfully, not everyone is caving to the mob. These raving lunatics have one goal; to destroy western civilization.
Westman says
Methinks there is two-pronged jealousy involved.
janet says
Their inbreeding has produced what they have become today.
Edmund Carey says
The courage and principle of the Professor Champions of this world are a relief to hear about. But look what’s ranged against them. For every Professor Champion there are hundreds of propaganda-sucking, hate-on-Israel poltroons, waiting to jump.
Stand fast Professor Champion. Stand fast Israel.
ploome says
more muslim antisemitism
oh……..wait
(they just can’t help it…always there)
Dave says
So, the ‘academic’ types demanded he not accept it.
Interesting. I thought those who were serious in their fields of academia and understood history tended to be more non-political than this and not duped so easily.
Just a short sojourn into history would show them the horrors of Nazi Germany and some other points in history where Israel and Jews were persecuted simply for being Jewish. The 1972 Olympics in Germany should shed just a little light on the savagery of Islam when it comes to Israel and Jews.
The fascinating thing is, throughout history the Jews and Israel have been persecuted simply for who or what they are and not for what they have done. Anytime someone has needed a scape-goat, someone to blame for all their problems, they have chosen the Jews and Israel. Why? I guess it is convenient to do that. It is easy for people to invent or twist viewpoints to denigrate Jews and Israel. It is also so easy to get others to go along with it. Why? Well, truth be told it is easy to get dumb people to believe all this because they are looking to blame ‘someone’ for their problems and face it`, they are too dumb and lazy to really research what they’ve been told.
Don’t get me wrong. I do not support Israel or Jews in everything they do or that goes on. I do, however, try to look at the whole story and not denigrate people on just the word of some malcontents or those that follow a cult/religion that tells them to hate Jews, Israel or other ‘infidels’ because they won’t convert.
That is where ‘Big Mo’ had his ‘feeling hurt’. The Jews, from his period in time, refused to convert and that hurt his feeling and vexed him. This is where the islamic hatred of Israel and the Jews started. ‘Big Mo’ had his feelings hurt because they rejected him and his religion/cult.
I am glad that Dan David had the integrity and personal fortitude to tell them, “No”.
ploome says
regarding:
“The Jews, from his period in time, refused to convert and that hurt his feeling and vexed him. This is where the islamic hatred of Israel and the Jews started. ”
and what about this? When did this begin?
.In his earlier work, That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew (1523), Martin Luther was somewhat more measured, arguing against expulsion and harsh treatment of Jews in hope that some would be converted.
He described them as “cousins and brothers of our Lord,” acknowledged past mistreatment at the hands of Christians, and conceded that had he himself been Jewish and “seen such idiots and thickheads in charge of and teaching the Christian faith” he himself would not have been converted. In its time, it was perceived by both Christians and Jews as relatively “tolerant.” Some Catholic critics even called Luther a “friend of the Jews” for writing it.
In the later years of his life,
faced with the failure of his message to win converts,
Luther viciously attacked Jews and Judaism in vulgar, defamatory language. In On the Jews and Their Lies (1543),
he called for the destruction of Jewish homes and synagogues,
forced labor,
the prohibition of the teaching and practice their religion,
raging that Christians were “at fault in not slaying them.”
In one of his last sermons, he vilifies Jews as “public enemies” and murderers, reiterating a call for their conversion and urging their expulsion from Germany if they did not. Jews were already forbidden to reside in many parts of Europe.
what they did during the Holocaust
There seems to be some strange amnesia about the vicious obsession with, and hatred of Jews in Christianity.
………this is but one example…..there are many, many more
carpediadem says
There is indeed.
When Jews say No to conversion, their enemies immediately seek to annihilate them.
Huge narcissistic tantrums!
The Romans,
Muhammad,
Luther…
Alkflaeda says
Anti-Semitism was an Imperial add-on to Christianity, which was originally a Jewish sect, after the successors of Constantine started their State church. My suspicion is that the Jews refused to have anything to do with a movement characterised by syncretism with the Babylonian religion – and, if they did, then they were completely right to eschew such idolatry. Just the fact that the 25th December is the birthday of the Babylonian god Tammuz (all the Biblical evidence suggests that Jesus was born during the Autumn Feasts), makes it clear what sort of movement the new State church really was. Any Christian who takes the Bible (which is 95-100% written by Jewish people – the only question mark is over Luke’s background) seriously cannot and will not be anti-Semitic – it is only those who buy into additional agendas who persecute Jewish people.
somehistory says
Alkflaeda,
This is true….any person claiming to be Christian, should go by the Commands of Jesus Christ, which do not include *hating* the Jews, or anyone.
“Love” is the Way of Christians who actually follow the Bible. Not that one must reach out to help and befriend those who will so easily “strike the necks”, but Christians don’t go about causing injury to their “enemies.”
The very first Christians were all Jews; and what is more, they were persecuted and many killed by other Jews who did not accept Jesus as the Messiah.
Some are mislead by preachers who take that persecution to heart, look to what the Pharisees did in regard to Jesus….tried Him and turned Him over to the Roman government to be killed…and incite hatred against the Jews of today.
Jesus said, “Love your enemies and pray for those persecuting you….Do to others what you would have them do to you.”
Mo says
“There seems to be some strange amnesia about the vicious obsession with, and hatred of Jews in Christianity.”
Provide the evidence where the Bible teaches or condones hatred/persecution of Jews by Christians.
When you’re done with that, provide the evidence of where today, there are regular instances of professing Christians abusing / persecuting Jews in any way and using biblical texts to justify it.
I’ll wait.
ploome says
The Teaching of Contempt: Christian Roots of Anti-Semitism (McGraw-Hill Paperbacks)
by Jules Isaac
Jules Isaac (1877-1963) is most well known for his tireless work after the Second World War in the field of Jewish-Christian relations, culminating in his decisive key role in the origin of the groundbreaking declaration Nostra Aetate during the Second Vatican Council.
https://julesisaacstichting.org/a-short-introduction-to-jules-isaac/
https://jcfa.org/article/the-origins-of-christian-anti-semitism/
start there
ploome says
look in the mirror to see “willful blindness”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/anti-judaism-the-western-tradition-by-david-nirenberg/2013/04/26/1088809a-8d94-11e2-9f54-f3fdd70acad2_story.html
I ‘been waiting a long time
ploome says
source:
Luther and the Jews
https://exhibitions.library.columbia.edu/exhibits/show/martin-luther/judaism
Dave says
Addendum to my comment.
I’m sorry.
I typed the wrong name.
I should have typed Matthew Champion, a Professor of medieval history.
Sorry.
Tim gallagher says
Good for champion for refusing to fall into line with trendy mob of wankers who want him to reject the prize. I imagine the leftist trendoids at the university will now treat him like a leper. I hope that he doesn’t give a damn about that. Lots of academic leftists seem to be some of the dumbest humans around. They are pathetic and seem to have shit for brains.
Desparatw-in-Germany says
Wth?!
What do we expect from Universities where the cestpool of the world’s worst ideas fester, incubate and in Frankenstein-fashion infect the entire Globe.
gravenimage says
Australian Academics Demand That Winner of ‘Israel-Linked’ Prize Refuse to Accept It
…………………………………………..
A true “Champion” for refusing!
Alkflaeda says
On the alleged genocide – the Palestine Central Bureau of Statistics states that 73,259 Gazans were killed during the recent war. We know that Hamas includes natural deaths in the their figures, and there were approx 5,500 such deaths in Gaza in 2022, so over two years, that’s 11,000. If you substract 11,000 from 73,259, you are left with 62,259. Hamas awarded military widows’ pensions to 50,000 widows after the war – although Islam allows men more than one wife, in practice most Gazan men seem to be wedded to jihad (Sinwar, for example, had only one wife) – so our figure of 62,259 is now reduced to 12,259. This gives a ratio of one civilian death to every 4-5 combatants – a nigh on miraculously low figure.