Christina Paxson, President, Brown University

Francis Doyle III, Provost, Brown University

January 13, 2025

Dear Colleagues,

I write this message in regard to Brown’s proposed February 2025 colloquium titled “Non-Zionist Jewish Traditions.”

 As a retired Professor and former university administrator, I would be deeply surprised if Brown were to host a conference on “Catholicism without transubstantiation, the Vatican and the Papacy”. I would be equally shocked by a colloquium focusing on “Islam without Mecca” And likewise, I would be aghast over Brown holding a scholarly conference titled “On being a Muslim in the 21century and giving up the Dome of the Rock as sacred territory”

 All of these themes would surely be manifestations of extraordinarily misguided hubris. For a university to sponsor a symposium in order to discuss what any religion, ethno-religious group or any group of believers should or shouldn’t hold as the core tenets of their belief system is just bizarre. For Brown University to do so, is truly mind-boggling.   The only thing academic freedom is protecting at this proposed event is hubris and pretension.

 Needless to say, Brown would never hold a conference on any of my invented absurdist symposia themes.  But, when it comes to Judaism, the Jewish people and the sovereign State of Israel, Brown is perfectly comfortable doing so. Why would Brown’s senior leadership believe that exploring and unpacking alternative histories to my religion and my ethno-religious identity is an appropriate topic in general and in particular at this particularly fraught moment when I and so many Jews feel under attack simply because of our ethnic and religious identity? Why might Brown choose to facilitate, host, enable and disseminate academic work that delegitimizes Judaism’s millennia-old connection to the lands of Israel and offer “alternative” narratives that sever this historic cultural, ethnic and religious connectivity between the Jewish people and the lands of Israel?   Can you truly believe that in today’s heated context of the Israeli-Palestine conflict, the choice to hold such a conference is not a “political statement”?

 I would very much like a response from Brown’s institutional leadership on this matter. Can Brown’s leadership team imagine what your responses would be if these questions were asked  of you in the context of testifying at a future congressional sub-committee hearing on antisemitism in higher education?   I for one cannot fathom what your answers will be. Perhaps you can ask Claudine Gay for some talking points.

 In short, Brown University’s choice to hold this symposium is naive and negligent at best and malevolent and immoral at worst.  The half-life of missing the point does indeed seem to be forever.

Sincerely,

Adam Drisin