A Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) protest against Israel in Melbourne, Australia, on June 5, 2010. Photo: Mohamed Ouda via Wikimedia Commons.

The Washington D.C. Jewish Community Center recently canceled a concert by a Brooklyn rock group, called The Shondes, because the band’s leader has endorsed and openly supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.

Last month, New York City’s Jewish Museum canceled an appearance by Judith Butler, a supporter of the BDS movement (who has also spoken favorably of Hamas & Hezbollah).

The question remains – and must be asked – why on earth would the Jewish Museum or any Jewish Community Center even consider inviting advocates of a boycott against Israel in the first place? Why invite people to any Jewish institution who are opposed to, and enemies of, the Jewish state? These people do not represent the Jewish community, and belong nowhere near any Jewish institution. Instead, they are poisonous pariahs.

As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said, those who advocate a boycott against Israel are “classical anti-Semites in modern garb.” This is a movement, according to Netanyahu, “that’s definitely on the wrong side of the moral divide.” He said that BDS stands for “bigotry, dishonesty, and shame.”

Also at this year’s AIPAC convention, Senator Chuck Schumer rightfully noted that “It is very suspicious that those who promote boycotting Israel do not seek boycotts against any other nations in the world, particularly those nations in the Middle East whose human rights records include hanging dissenters from cranes in city squares and imprisoning and torturing critics of the government. I believe that those who call for boycotts of Israel without calling for boycotts of other neighboring nations whose human rights records are in fact reprehensible are practicing, whether they know it or not, whether they admit it or not, a modern form of what we call anti-Semitism.”

The great Zionist leader Ze’ev Jabotinsky once asked “What interest can the Jewish nation have in individuals whose supreme pride consists in the fact that they have renounced their own people? The bitter root of our shame and our suffering is that we do not give our own people the full love of a patriot. It would be better if we did not love our people at all, if we were unconcerned as to whether it existed or had disappeared, rather than that we should love it halfway, which means to despise it.”

There should be no debate or discussion amongst civilized people about the role of BDS in the Jewish community. It is simply anti-Semitism.

Ronn Torossian is a contributor to The Algemeiner.