The Justice

The establishment of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies on campus has received mixed reviews from the Brandeis faculty. While some professors fear that the center will promote a biased and narrow view of the country due to the pro-Israel ideology of the foundation that endowed it, others argue that the center is academically sound.

This summer, the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation established the center with a $15 million grant. The foundation, established in 1987, is "dedicated to helping the Jewish people flourish by supporting programs throughout the world that spread the joy of Jewish living, giving and learning" according to the mission statement on the Foundation's Web site.

"The principle that concerns me is that these centers are openly centers for advocacy, that is they are not there to study the country of Israel," Professor Mary Baine Campbell (ENG) said.

She said the worries the center will promote the view of the Israeli government, instead of the broader interests of the worldwide Jewish population.

"To establish a $15 million center to promote one view of the situation [is] a very unusual academic thing to do," Campbell said.

Lynn Schusterman, founder of the Schusterman Foundation, said concerns over anti-Israel sentiments and anti-Semitic tendencies on college campuses motivated her to establish several Israel Study Centers at the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Oklahoma.

"I hope [through] education will come understanding," she said. She further explained that through the center, she hoped students would become more familiar with the history of Israel.

Schusterman added that she would envision the center offering multiple perspectives on modern Israel.

Prof. Ilan Troen (NEJS), the center's director, insisted that it would study all aspects of Israel.

"The fears about it being colored by political bias are just baseless," he said.

Continued...

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