Ellen Schrecker
Overview
Ellen Schrecker has supported anti-Israel activism and is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.Schrecker is aprofessor in the Department of History at Yeshiva University (YU).
Supporting Anti-Israel Activism
In May 2011, Schrecker was one of several professors who reportedly “wrote to CUNY [City University of New York] to protest and to ask how she could return her own honorary degree” after John Jay College, a campus of CUNY, vetoed an honorary degree awarded to anti-Israel activist and playwright Tony Kushner.Kushner’s name was removed from a list of individuals set to receive honorary degrees after it was reported that he was “critical of the Israeli army, supportive of a boycott of the country and of saying that Israel had been founded partly as a result of ethnic cleansing.”
Supporting BDS
Schrecker signed an open letter to United States President Barack Obama and the American Congress, dated July 31, 2014, condemning “the disproportionate harm that the Israeli military, which the United States has armed and supported for decades, is inflicting on the population of Gaza.”The letter exclusively blamed Israel for the Gaza crisis and called upon the administration “to suspend US military aid to Israel, until there is assurance that this aid will no longer be used for the commission of war crimes.”
The letter was in response to Operation Protective Edge (OPE).
The petition went on to state that “Our country has an extraordinary leverage on Israeli policy, if only our government would dare to use it. As American Jews... we call on our government to make continued aid conditional on Israeli acceptance of an internationally agreed two-state settlement.”
Demonizing Israel
Schrecker signed a controversial petition submitted to the American Historical Association (AHA) in 2016, which alleged that “Israel’s restrictions on the movement of faculty, staff and visitors in the West Bank impede instruction at Palestinian institutions of higher learning,” and that “Israel routinely refuses to allow students from Gaza to travel in order to pursue higher education abroad or at West Bank universities.”The petition went on to demand “That the AHA commits itself to monitoring Israeli actions restricting the right to education in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.”
BDS
The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement was founded by Omar Barghouti in 2005 to challenge “international support for Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism.” BDS is an allegedly “Palestinian-led movement,” although leading BDS activists have admitted [00:01:01] this is not true.
One of the demands of BDS includes [point 3] what is generally known as the “right of return,” a demand discredited as a way to eliminate Israel. Barghouti said the “right of return” is a means to “end Israel’s existence as a Jewish state.”
Barghouti has said that BDS “aims to turn Israel into a pariah state, as South Africa once was.”
In his activism, Barghouti has also said [00:05:55] regarding Israel: “Definitely, most definitely, we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine. No…rational Palestinian, not a sellout Palestinian, will ever accept a Jewish state in Palestine.”
The movement has been linked to numerous terrorist organizations and received a public endorsement from Hamas in 2017.
BDS initiatives include calling on institutions and individuals to divest from Israeli-affiliated companies, promoting academic and cultural boycotts of Israel, and organizing anti-Israel rallies, protests and campaigns.
The movement’s most notable achievement has been the infiltration of university campuses through lobbying for “BDS resolutions.” In these cases, student governments and student groups, backed by their own anti-Israel members and affiliates, have proposed resolutions on some form of boycott of, or divestment from, Israel and Israeli-affiliated entities.
Boycott resolutions, although non-binding, have been passed by student governments on numerous North American campuses.
BDS activity is often aggressive and disruptive. It has been noted that universities that pass BDS resolutions see a marked increase in anti-Semitic incidents on campus. On one campus, when the student government debated a BDS resolution, reports emerged of violent threats against those opposing it.
Social Media and Weblinks
University Website:https://www.yu.edu/faculty/pages/schrecker-ellen
- Status:
- Professor
- University:
- YU Yeshiva University
- Organizations:
- BDS
- Related Profiles:
- Last Modified:
- 05/04/2026
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