COLUMN: Previous column in newspaper borders religious hate
We are writing this opinion column as an open letter to the editorial staff of The Utah Statesman and its university advisers.
The Utah Statesman made a terrible error of judgment on March 21, 2003. On that day, The Statesman published a bigoted, inflammatory anti-Semitic attack, written as a guest opinion column.
We, the undersigned, representing the Jewish community of Logan, are deeply disturbed that an organ of Utah State University would print this vicious slander, and we ask you to acknowledge this error, apologize, and institute policies and mechanisms at The Statesman to ensure that nothing like this happens to Jews or to other religious, ethnic, or racial groups again.
The author of the opinion column printed in The Statesman, Yasir H. Kaheil, a graduate student, defamed the Talmud and Jewish sacred literature in general by misquoting passages outside their literary and historical contexts. We doubt that Mr. Kaheil is conversant with the Talmud. Our Internet search turned up the same misquotes in the same order on an anti-Semitic hate Web site, thus revealing that Mr. Kaheil simply copied them without the slightest notion of what they were, except that they were useful for spreading his genocidal hatred of Jews. (The citations display utter ignorance, even of their correct sources.)
Some of you may be aware of the ugly, brutal history of this slanderous tactic, from the burnings of the Talmud in late medieval and early modern Europe to the Nazi burnings of even more books, and then people. This is the tradition Mr. Kaheil brings to the pages of our university newspaper, which circulates widely through the Internet and thus represents USU to the world.
Religious, racial, and ethnic bigotry is of grave concern to all Americans, not only Jewish Americans. Would you print an opinion piece calling African Americans “niggers?” Or an article deriding Asians or Latinos with similar, despicable words? Would you print a letter quoting passages of the Quran to defame Islam? Would you enable attacks on Catholics or Mormons by printing misquotations of those religions’ sacred scriptures? Attacks on any religion are unacceptable in our pluralistic society, especially in official publications representing our public institutions.
Such attacks come perilously close to being hate crimes – and sometimes provide the incitement that leads to them. It would be easy for us to cite quotations from the Quran with the intention of defaming Islam – such quotations are readily available on anti-Arab Web sites. But to do so would go against our values as Americans and as Jews. We hope that should someone react in anger to Mr. Kaheil’s bait with equivalent quotations regarding Islam, The Statesman would act responsibly and not publish such bigotry. If The Statesman were to publish anti-Catholic, anti-Mormon, anti-Hindu hate, or any other religious attacks, none of us should tolerate it for a moment.
This is not about freedom of speech – that is among the most naive of defenses of hate speech. Please understand that even though many of us have strong feelings about Israel and about the Arab-Israeli conflict, we have no objection to the voicing of all kinds of opinions regarding the conflict in The Statesman.
Quite the opposite. Indeed, members of our community have been active participants in the dialogue, and we have tried to do our part to educate the Utah State University public about the subject in a civil way.
But Mr. Kaheil’s letter goes beyond civility and basic decency and engages in religious slander, attempts to promote a dark ignorance and incites hatred.
We believe that it is incumbent upon Utah State University and especially The Utah Statesman to dissociate themselves from such inflammatory rhetoric immediately and unambiguously. The publication of this most primitive sort of anti-Semitic accusation, a relic of one of the ugliest chapters in human history, not only threatens us as a small Jewish community, but the good name of Utah State University as well. Such expressions are particularly regrettable in a university community dedicated to respect and service for all humanity.
We assume the publication of Mr. Kaheil’s hate column was an oversight, a mistake due to inadequate knowledge about the materials Mr. Kaheil falsely “quoted.” Responsible journalism obviously requires more than the simple reproduction of any letter or opinion piece that anyone submits. There have to be policies that allow for freedom of speech and yet also prevent the publication of libel, slander and hate. Members of our community would be happy to help you develop such policies.
But to try to undo the damage already done, we ask you to denounce Mr. Kaheil’s opinion piece and to apologize to The Utah Statesman’s readership, the public, and the Jewish community. We also ask you to create a policy and mechanism to insure that bigoted, racist, anti-religious hate literature is not again printed in The Statesman’s pages. We will do everything we can to work with you and the administration of the university to ensure such protection for all religious, ethnic and racial groups.
The Statesman has a policy that allows a maximum of two signatures to a letter. However, another nine members of the Jewish community of Logan read and approved this letter and wanted to sign it.
Steve Siporin is a professor of English and history, and Arthur Caplan is a professor of economics. Comments can be sent to siporin@cc.usu.edu.