Profs: Would ‘transform our campus from a space of learning to one of advocacy for military actions’
A discussion originally scheduled for today at Wake Forest University featuring an American-born Israeli Defense Forces soldier has been canceled after some professors and left-wing students objected.
Sam Fried had been invited by the campus Office of Jewish Life, but a trio of professors “who have dedicated [their] careers to Jewish Studies” said the event demonstrated a “profound lack of consideration for the broader campus community,” the Old Gold & Black reports.
Fried (pictured), from Queens, NY, joined the IDF in 2020 according to a Jerusalem Post article from last summer. He enrolled in college after his service but rejoined after the October 7, 2023 Hamas assault against Israel: “I felt it was my obligation to be one of the fighting Jews in history,” he said.
After several additional months of service, Fried said “I came back to an America I didn’t recognize.” He began “going to debates, visiting encampments, and trying to engage in dialogue.”
Fried has faced hostility (video below) at various locales, including Boise, Idaho and his home of New York City.
“It’s very simple,” Fried said. “We are speaking the truth. We are on the right side of history […] the most common misconception about the IDF is that we want war. We do not. We are a defense force. We want peace.”
Professors Dean Franco (English), Barry Trachtenberg (history, pictured), and Mir Yarfitz (history) wrote in an Old Gold & Black op-ed that allowing Fried to speak on campus would “misrepresent the diversity of Jewish perspectives on [the Israel-Hamas] conflict.”
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“The invitation of Mr. Fried […] represents more than just a speaking engagement –– it signifies an institutional choice to amplify voices directly connected to military actions that have drawn international condemnation,” the professors said.
The professors claimed their desire to cancel Fried’s appearance “stems not from a desire to limit discourse, but rather from our commitment to meaningful academic dialogue.”
The core mission of a university is to foster critical thinking and ethical engagement with complex issues. This event threatens to transform our campus from a space of learning to one of advocacy for military actions that have resulted in well-documented civilian casualties. The invited speaker is a well-known provocateur, posting on his own social media account instances of confrontation and harassment of Muslim students. …
[W]e are especially concerned about how a Jewish Life-sponsored event will affect our students and colleagues who remain traumatized by the war in Gaza. We emphatically reject this assumption and stress that support for genocidal violence cannot and must not be conflated with Jewish identity or scholarship.
Franco, et. al. further objected to the date of Fried’s talk — the anniversary of Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza city of Rafah — saying it showed a “disturbing lack of awareness or a callous disregard for many members of our university community.”
Free Palestine WFU also lambasted the Fried event, putting a picture of him on Instagram with the title “Genocider.”
“The frivolity of [WFU’s] commitment to ‘Pro Humanitate’ becomes apparent when it concerns the humanity of Black, Brown, and Indigenous students and people,” the group wrote. “Wake Forest has chosen to invite an occupying force that is carrying out the unyielding murder and displacement of Palestinians.”
A crazed horde come at IDF paratrooper Sam Fried.
Watch how one man masterfully takes on this college mob of wild period cramps.
📺 IG samfried26 pic.twitter.com/eM5HY7WCaX
— dahlia kurtz ✡︎ דליה קורץ (@DahliaKurtz) July 22, 2024
Free Palestine WFU also said Fried had “made a decision to become an enforcer in the Zionist regime of brutality.”
WFU Chabad Student President Isabelle Laxer said Fried’s invitation was merely an “opportunity for different perspectives to be heard, so students […] are exposed to a wide variety of opinions.”
In confirming the cancellation of Fried’s appearance, Wake Forest University Chaplain Chris Donald concurred with the professors, noting the event “would not meet th[e] objectives” of “meaningful dialogue on the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
The university had previously canceled a talk by Palestinian scholar Rabab Abdulhadi last October 7, the anniversary of Hamas’ assault against Israel.
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IMAGE: Boshbell/X
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