June 14, 2021

Dear Professor Davis,

Please refrain from addressing me as ”colleague”. With the PSC CUNY resolution you have chosen to support a terrorist organization, Hamas, whose goal (“From the River to the Sea”) is to destroy the state of Israel and kill all my relatives who live there. Your unbalanced motion fails to address the over 4000 rockets fired from Gaza into residential areas. You fail to address the apartheid behavior of the Palestinian government (not a single Jew is permitted to be in Gaza) while neglecting to mention that Palestinians are members of the Israeli Knesset and are now part of the ruling coalition. You equate the careful bombing by the Israeli Air Force in order to minimize any collateral damage with the actions of the Palestinians who use their own civilian women and children, hospitals, and schools as shields for their launching sites.

You have forgotten the undisputed fact that Jews have lived in Israel consistently for thousands of years even after its conquest by the Romans. During the 1800s there were significantly more Jews in Jerusalem than the Arab population. (My own great-great-grandfather lived in Jerusalem since the early 1800s.

By endorsing this resolution you have made many Jewish Faculty and Students uncomfortable with being associated with Brooklyn College and CUNY to the point of fearing for our safety. Have you and your colleagues forgotten the exponential increase in anti-Semitic attacks against Jews in the NY City area?

Where is your resolution in support of your fellow faculty and students?

Yes, anyone may criticize the State of Israel, but when you endorse such a one-sided resolution that can be nothing more than plain Anti-Semitism, disguised in the PC “woke” terminology of today as Anti-Zionism.

To see our colleagues sign on is quite upsetting. I imagine this is how the Jewish Academics in German Universities felt in 1938-9. I personally have an uncomfortable feeling interacting with these faculty, and as many students have written, feel exceedingly uncomfortable on campus.

For that reason, I have resigned from the PS-CUNY Union effective immediately, after being a member for over 40 years. I have urged my fellow faculty to immediately resign as well. You do NOT represent us and I will not be a part of an organization that supports those who who wish to destroy us.

Please make sure, that my resignation is noted by the appropriate office, and cease immediately from collecting any more of my dues.

Sincerely

Yedidyah Langsam

Professor and Chair, Department of Computer & Information Science

Chair, Faculty Council