During my time as a graduate student at Oxford University in the 1990’s I benefited from the highest caliber of scholarship and research in the world. Literally, at my doorstep, were some of the world’s great minds, historical resources, and an international elite student body. This was the result of centuries of open-minded and brilliant intellectual journeying and discovery.
AUT’s recent decision to boycott Israeli academics will no doubt begin the decline of the last great British Empire — The Empire of the Open Mind.
Will the world’s great intellectuals want to train in Oxford, Cambridge or London, when the AUT creates resolutions reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution, Stalinist Purges, and the Inquisition?
As long as the AUT is controlled by narrow-minded, intellectually dishonest, and ethically bankrupt individuals, England’s great tradition of intellectual exploration, and her famous universities will be in decline.
Rabbi Yonah Bookstein
Long Beach CA
Well said!!! I wrote a letter too!