Dear Fellow *Hasafran* Readers: I find it both curious and revealing that Emily Drabinski is suddenly attempting to backpedal from her own views, expressed quite overtly in a number of forums. Those of you who watched AJL's conversation with her on January 19ᵗʰ of this year may have noticed what makes it rather odd that she is saying that I “misrepresented” her views is that everything she said in response to my questions during that discussion as well as other statements she has made quite clearly demonstrate that I have depicted her views precisely as she herself presents them. If she's not putting those extremist thoughts out in her platform for ALA, that does not negate their existence.
At the aforementioned conversation around her candidacy, I posed the following to Emily: at ALA Council meetings for at least three decades, SRRT [Social Responsibilities Round Table] has been putting forward highly biased, one-sided anti-Israel resolutions, often advancing unfounded accusations such as alleged “destruction of Palestinian libraries” without evidence that such archives and libraries even existed or the context of the entire situation. These resolutions, by singling out Israel, are absolutely unbalanced, especially since the advocates completely disregard actual serious human rights violations by many of Israel's neighbors such as Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, Syria, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and terrorist organizations such ISIS or ISIL and Al Qaeda as well as the oppression and ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya in Burma and the Uighurs in China, to name just a few examples. Instead of responding to my concerns, Emily turned it into an interrogation of me as to what actions I took to try to counter these resolutions. Thus, she evaded answering the question by trying to put me on the defensive. Since she claims I “misrepresented” her position, does she deny having made the statements below in her writings and taking the stands cited below by signing petitions attacking Israel as an “apartheid” and “colonial” state and endorsing BDS as well as academic boycotts of Israel, Israeli scholars, and Israeli scholarship along with cultural exchanges? To wit: In “City University of New York Community Statement of Solidarity with the Palestinian People,” which Emily signed, she agrees with attacks Israel as “apartheid” and pledges to: Initiate, support, and amplify campaigns in solidarity with Palestinian > calls for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israeli > apartheid, at CUNY and in our wider communities. In particular, we echo > the demands of the John Jay Student Letter to Demand BDS and Solidarity > with Palestinian Resistance and stand with any and all student-led > resolutions *demanding CUNY**’**s immediate divestment from companies > that aid in Israeli colonization, occupation, and war crimes...* ...Demand that our individual campuses, and CUNY as a whole, endorse and > support the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of > Israel. CUNY SIGNATORIES: 201. Emily Drabinski, Staff, Graduate Center If you want to see more, please do a search for the following two websites: *“Jadaliyya - CUNY Community Statement of Solidarity with the Palestinian People”* echoing the above document’s calls with Emily Drabinski’s name on it as well. A similar statement, linked off of the sites above, can be found at *“Palestine and Praxis: Open Letter and Call to Action - Palestine & Praxis: Scholars for Palestinian Freedom.” * Emily Drabinski is also a signatory of *“**A call for editorial standards on Palestine/Israel” in * *#SayEthnicCleansing**,* which places the entire blame for the conflict in Israel and Palestinian Arab territories on the Jewish state with such messaging as “Don’t ‘both-sides’ a colonial power and the people resisting it.” In addition, Emily is the author of the following articles: *“Teaching the Radical Catalog,”* (see esp. pp. 2-3) and *“**Teaching Other Tongues”* in *Journal of Information Ethics* 20(2):42-55 (see p.49, last 16 lines) While I certainly do not advocate censorship, and Emily Drabinski is absolutely entitled to her views and to be able to freely express them, this is not merely an issue of free speech, which I firmly believe in. What's at stake here is that ALA and librarianship as a profession are all about finding and presenting well-supported, documented facts, not disseminating propaganda to bolster a specific political point-of-view or agenda. And, again, while I absolutely support her right to express her views openly, that doesn't mean she should now attempt to cover them up and try to distance herself from them because she's addressing a particular audience. And, therefore, if I “misrepresented” her position, is she now openly renouncing all the things she has said about Israel as in the items cited above? Has she demanded that her signature be removed from the anti-Israel petitions she signed as they no longer represent, or somehow misrepresent, her views? What is perhaps most disturbing about Emily Drabinski’s candidacy is that she makes a point of claiming that she wants to steer clear of what pulls us apart and concentrate on what we have in common, what brings us together. At the January 19ᵗʰ discussion with AJL members, Emily stated, “We need to be having conversations that build our connections to each other, rather than tearing us apart.” Laudable and noble sentiments. Yet she proudly embraces and advances contentious resolutions, petitions, and agendas not just akin to those advocated by SRRT, the Social Responsibility Round Table in ALA, of which she is a member; in fact, these views to which she gives voice above are much less subtle in their extremism. In any case, these declarations concentrate only on what Israel does to the exclusion of all of the repressive regimes surrounding Israel and the very serious human rights violations of all other countries as well as terrorist groups. This kind of politicking not only doesn’t bring people together, does not forge connections to one another based on what we share in common, but is, in fact, the source of the very divisiveness Emily Drabinski claims she wants to avoid. If you want to elect a proven leader as ALA President, a person who has built his career on working to bridge gaps between people, who bolsters, strengthens, and lifts up communities, including, most importantly in the head of a library association, library workers and users, and someone who has long been a beloved mentor to so many, I urge ALA members who haven't yet completed and submitted their ballots, to *vote for Kelvin Watson*. The deadline in which this election closes is fast approaching: *Voting ends tomorrow (or today, *depending on when your read, and/or where geographically, you see it), *Wednesday, April 6**ᵗʰ** at 11:59 AM **Pacific Time (2:59 PM Eastern/1:59 PM Central/12:59 PM Mountain).* Thanks so much! Elliot *Elliot H. Gertel* *עלע־הערש גערטל / אליהו־צבי גרטל* *Irving M. Hermelin Curator Emeritus of Judaica * *The University of Michigan * *Ann Arbor, Michigan * *eger...@umich.edu* <eger...@umich.edu> On Tue, Apr 5, 2022 at 4:42 PM Drabinski, Emily via Hasafran < hasafran@lists.osu.edu> wrote: > !-------------------------------------------------------------------| > This Message Is From an External Sender > This message came from outside your organization. > |-------------------------------------------------------------------! > > Hi all, > As a recent member of AJL who is actively preparing for the first > face-to-face Passover with my family in two years, I was surprised to see > this message from Elliot and its mis-representation of my priorities and > commitments as a librarian. I encourage members to review my candidate > platform at > https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.emilydrabinski.com__;!!KGKeukY!i45P6lXOy9Q5qzEBmtVRvCZRRZ-ffgea3T05DOiVk8ths82qCjjjzReM7M4Ipuj9x_4$ > . > > All best, > Emily > > Emily Drabinski > Interim Chief Librarian > The Graduate Center, City University of New York > 365 Fifth Avenue > New York, NY 10016 > 212-817-7068 > Meet with me: > https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://calendly.com/edrabinski__;!!KGKeukY!i45P6lXOy9Q5qzEBmtVRvCZRRZ-ffgea3T05DOiVk8ths82qCjjjzReM7M4I8XiYc-A$ > >
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