On April 6, CAMERA Fellow Lauren Barney brought Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby to speak at a breakfast event at the University of Pittsburgh. Mr. Jacoby spoke about what Zionism really means. He also stressed that people should view the term “Zionism” as a positive term, one to be proud of. The event gathered student journalists, leaders of Israel activities on campus, and even members of the greater Pittsburgh community. Barney said that she is “proud to stand up” and call herself a Zionist. When organizing the event she said that she “wanted the attendees to understand that Zionism is not racism and should not hold back someone from claiming” that they are Zionist.
Students were very involved in the discussion, and the conversation went over the scheduled end time by an hour! Mr. Jacoby made the event more personable by talking with students both before and after his talk. During his talk, Jacoby made a parallel between the West Bank and Pittsburgh, asking whether the Pittsburgh government should segregate a specific neighborhood from the rest of the city. He continued to say that if that idea, to segregate a neighborhood in Pittsburgh, is radical, then why isn’t it a radical idea to segregate Arab areas from Israel?
According to Barney, the event is going to be used to further connect more with the UPitt community.
Contributed by CAMERA Intern Eli Cohn.
