Salem on the Thames: Moral Panic, Anti-Zionism, and the Triumph of Hate Speech at Connecticut College

Richard Landes

Published by Academic Studies Press 2020

Salem on the Thames

Moral Panic, Anti-Zionism, and the Triumph of Hate Speech at Connecticut College

Richard Landes

In the series Antisemitism in America

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781644691007

Overview
Contents

About this book

This compelling volume focuses on the story of Andrew Pessin, a tenured philosophy professor at Connecticut College, who was accused by students and faculty of having “directly condoned the extermination of a people” based on a deliberate misreading of his 2015 Facebook post on the Israeli-Palestinian conﬂict.

Author / Editor information

Richard Landes trained as a medieval historian. He specializes in messianic and apocalyptic movements, as well as shame-honor cultures and the impact of literacy on their dynamics. He has recently completed a history of the opening years of the twenty-first century, as a turning point in relations between two millennial movements: global Jihad and post-modern progressivism.

Reviews

“Salem on the Thames is a collection of essays, but most of them, including a very helpful annotated chronology of events, are by Landes, who has also compiled an extensive archive of primary-source documents at his blog. He and his other contributors dissect each and every way Pessin was sucker punched, lied to, manipulated, and thrown under the bus.”

— Elliot Kaufman, Jewish Review of Books

“Richard Landes’ Salem on the Thames is an exhaustive, meticulously detailed account of an antisemitic vendetta at Connecticut College against Professor Andrew Pessin. If you want to understand how antisemitism disguised as ‘anti-Zionism’ has been permitted to grow and thrive on supposedly progressive college campuses, this case study is a great place to start.”

—David E. Bernstein, University Professor and Executive Director, Liberty & Law Center at Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University

“Universities and colleges in the United States were once known for stimulating new, cutting-edge ideas and for the unfettered freedom accorded students and faculty to engage in critical debate with one another on any topic within and without the classroom. Salem on the Thames describes how much has changed on American campuses where constraints on what people can say are multiplying. And no topic elicits more inspection than Israel. At a time when clear, analytical thinking is more important than ever for students and for our society, it is receding in exactly the places where we expect it to thrive—in fact, where we, as a country, have poured resources to ensure and protect that it flourish. This is an original and important book for all who care about the academy and about preserving scholarly integrity.”

—Donna Robinson Divine, Morningstar Professor Emerita of Jewish Studies, Smith College

“Richard Landes offers a sharply-drawn, no-holds-barred dissection of today’s campus politics at its worst. As a case study of the damage done to academic integrity by the intrusion of anti-Zionism into college life, his book is a must-read.”

—Alvin H. Rosenfeld, Irving M. Glazer Chair in Jewish Studies and Director, Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism, Indiana University

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Preface Richard Landes Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction Asaf Romirowsky Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Andrew Pessin’s Facebook Post during Operation Protective Edge Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	5
Condensed Timeline Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	8
Part One. WHEN CRITICIZING HAMAS BECAME A CAMPUS HATE CRIME
1. The Post: On Truth and Metaphor Richard Landes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	19
2. The Shameful Dishonesty of It All: An Annotated Chronology from the Perspective of the Victim Richard Landes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	34
3. The People: McCarthyism, New London Style Richard Landes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	72
Part Two. STUDIES IN PESSINOLOGY
4. Connecticut College Acts Out a Staged Emergency Ashley Thorne Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	99
5. “I Was Rude, You Were Evil”: Reflections on Academia, Liberalism, and the Betrayal of Andrew Pessin John Gordon Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	114
6. The Pessin Case: The Response of Jewish Colleagues Fred Baumann Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	138
Part Three. REFLECTIONS: SALEM ON THE THAMES— STAMPEDING A HERD OF CATS
7. What Connecticut College’s Andrew Pessin Affair Teaches Us Richard Landes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	173
8. Reflections on Academia and Freedom: The Case of Connecticut College, Spring 2015 Richard Landes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	186
9. Pessin, Ironic Prophet: The Liberal Emperor’s New Clothes of Humanitarian Racism Richard Landes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	195
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	201