Jewish lecturer Joel Katzav slates University of Queensland on anti-Semitism
A Jewish lecturer subjected to anti-Semitic criticism from a student has complained to the Australian Human Rights Commission about the University of Queensland’s response.
A Jewish lecturer subjected to anti-Semitic criticism from a student has complained to the Australian Human Rights Commission about the University of Queensland’s “inappropriate” response to the incident.
The postdoctoral student accused senior lecturer Joel Katzav of being “professionally inappropriate” and giving biased advice because of a falsely perceived reverence in Israel for the 19th-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.
In 2019, the student, who is still studying at the university, said Dr Katzav’s apparent bias resulted in him influencing a review committee’s decision to ask the student to modify a thesis.
The student also accused Dr Katzav of “whitewashing” Nietzsche, whose views are often associated with fascism and Nazism, and said he should not be involved in any way with the oversight of the thesis project.
In a complaint lodged with the AHRC last year, Dr Katzav said the complaint was anti-Semitic and UQ’s reaction breached anti-discrimination laws and its own anti-racism policy.
He is seeking compensation, apologies, racial discrimination education for UQ staff and a review of its discrimination policy.
UQ has stood by its actions and the AHRC complaint is unlikely to reach conciliation, leaving Dr Katzav to consider lodging a claim in the Federal Court.
The student’s nine-page letter of complaint was sent in May 2019 after the School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry Higher Degree Research Milestone Committee, which Dr Katzav chaired, collectively asked the student to modify their thesis, which in part dealt with Nietzsche.
The complaint singled Dr Katzav out for criticism and alleged he interfered with the student’s right to academic freedom because of a “biased ideological position”.
“I am aware the chair was trained at the University of Tel Aviv, Israel, and I deeply sympathise with people whose families suffered such terrible and unimaginable torment, trauma and loss of life on such a scale as a result of the Nazi war machine,” the student wrote. “However, while I deeply sympathise, the comment that was made was professionally inappropriate, irrelevant and unhelpful as part of the thesis review process.”
The student claimed that “due to various agendas, Nietzsche appears to be one of the most highly revered philosophers in Israel”.
“The chair is supposed to have read my chapter in the context of my thesis question, and not in the context of someone trying to casuistically rehabilitate or whitewash what Nietzsche said for any number of agendas that some academics may have,” the student wrote.
Dr Katzav, who was born in Zimbabwe and lived in Israel from age nine to 25 and then in Britain before moving to Australia in 2017, said he was shocked by the student’s complaint.
“Because I was Jewish, I was participating in whitewashing, from this student’s perspective, Nietzsche’s fascist political philosophy,” he said.
“The student also associated me with a broader Jewish movement to support this kind of fascist philosophy, which in the thesis the student described as genocidal.
“On one hand, I’m whitewashing Nietzsche, on the other I’m associated with its promotion.”
Dr Katzav said he was unaware of any widespread reverence of Nietzsche in Israel and likened the student’s insistence that contemporary conservative politics in Israel were influenced by the philosopher as “like a conspiracy theory”.
“At best it’s unclear whether Nietzsche was anti-Semitic,” he said. “It would be odd if Nietzsche was a very popular figure in Israel.”
Dr Katzav initially agreed to withdraw as chair of the milestone committee. He later sought reinstatement but said the university was reluctant and instead formally investigated the student’s complaint, despite colleagues conceding the complaint was anti-Semitic.
“My own reading of (the student’s) letter also confirms Joel’s concern about its content,” a colleague wrote in an email to other staff.
“In my opinion, it does articulate an old racist trope (a member of an ethnic group always exhibits the stereotypes that are attributed to the group) and probably an anti-Semitic trope (Jews are not impartial because their loyalty lies elsewhere).”
Dr Katzav was unaware of any repercussions for the student. “The university said it would handle it as a case of lack of respect, but in my view anti-Semitism is more serious,” he said.
“It’s not as if he was insulting me or saying I was an idiot, which wouldn’t bother me.”
The student later sent a letter to Dr Katzav saying he didn’t hold anti-Semitic views and it was an unfortunate misunderstanding by the lecturer.
Dr Katzav said he wanted the university to apologise for its response and review its policies. “I hope they will realise it is not appropriate to expose staff to anti-Semitism or, more broadly, racism,” he said. “It is experienced by Jewish people as an attack, that is a natural consequence.”
Dr Katzav, who is still employed by UQ, now suffers from anxiety and said he was looking elsewhere for work, which would likely result in him leaving Australia.
“To be honest I don’t particularly feel I belong here,” he said.
In a statement, UQ vice-chancellor Deborah Terry said the university did not condone racism or discrimination and the matter had been taken seriously.
“Dr Joel Katzav is a highly respected member of the university community and we greatly value his ongoing contribution as a researcher and senior lecturer,” Professor Terry said.
“We are unable to respond to the specifics of the matters raised as they are currently being considered by the Australian Human Rights Commission. However, the matters Dr Katzav has raised have been taken very seriously and have been fully investigated by the university.”
Maurice Blackburn lawyer Giri Sivaraman, who is overseeing Dr Katzav’s case, said the complaint had met the AHRC’s threshold for it to oversee a conciliation process.
“They’ve made a Jewish person engage in a process that’s inherently prejudicial to them, causes them embarrassment and humiliation, because of his race,” he said.
“Considering the atrocities and the sheer horror of what Jewish people have had to suffer in the past 100 years, it is astonishing that a university would think it is fine to make a Jewish person deal with an anti-Semitic complaint.”
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