Spanish university cancels ‘Auschwitz/Gaza’ seminar comparing Holocaust to Israeli-Palestinian conflict
A flyer for the course titled “Auschwitz/Gaza: A testing ground for comparative literature. Courtesy of Wikipedia Commons
By Orge Castellano August 27, 2021
MADRID (JTA) — After taking criticism from several Holocaust scholars and Jewish organizations, a Spanish university has canceled a course titled “Auschwitz/Gaza: A Testing Ground for Comparative Literature,” according to the European Jewish Congress.
The course at the University of of Santiago of de Compostela in Galicia trivialized the Holocaust by comparing it to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Jewish groups argued. The Simon Wiesenthal Center condemned the seminar in a letter sent Monday to Spain’s minister of universities, Manuel Castells Oliván.
“This very title and expected content is not an issue of ‘freedom of expression,’ but a banalization of the Holocaust, which can incite to hatred and violence against Jews of today,” wrote Shimon Samuels, the center’s director for international relations.
The university has not commented, but the European Jewish Congress reported the cancellation on Wednesday. The course was to be taught through the Faculty of Philology in the Comparative Literature Department.
Catalan journalist Pilar Rahola called it an “antisemitic act” on Twitter.
Mario Sinay, a specialist in Holocaust education, told an Argentine Jewish radio station on Tuesday: “I am totally outraged at the trivialization of the Holocaust in its fullest form, disguised as intellectualism and presented as a rational discourse, in the framework of a Spanish public university.”
The Galician Association of Friendship with Israel organization, located in the autonomous northern Spanish region, had also issued a scathing statement on Facebook.
“There is a majority consensus in considering, as a clear form of contemporary antisemitism, the trivialization of the Holocaust and the comparison of the Jewish genocide with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” it read.
—
The post Spanish university cancels ‘Auschwitz/Gaza’ seminar comparing Holocaust to Israeli-Palestinian conflict appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
