Judea Pearl Calls on Cornel West to Withdraw From Talk on Abraham Heschel
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by Algemeiner Staff
Professor Cornel West is set to make keynote address at UCLA Rabbi Heschel conference. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
A UCLA professor has called on firebrand social activist Professor Cornel West to cancel a keynote address he was set to deliver at the school in honor of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel.
“I will be as blunt and straightforward as possible: You should excuse yourself from delivering this lecture,” wrote UCLA Professor and Director of the Cognitive Systems Laboratory Judea Pearl in an open letter to West, published by the Jewish Journal.
Pearl is the father is Daniel Pearl, the Wall Steet Journal reporter who was killed by the Taliban in 2002.
Pearl said West’s open support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel movement made it inappropriate for him to represent Heschel, who was active in the Civil Rights movement.
Pearl wrote, “we have come to equate promoters of BDS ideology with those who seek the destruction of Israel, hence the demise of the Jewish people.”
“Our minds will be warning us, again and again, that the person speaking before us wants our destruction,” he said.
West has delivered lectures exclusively on Rabbi Heschel, calling him a “soul mate.”
