A new low in university culture


Martial Trezzini / Keystone
In recent weeks, the Universities of Geneva and Lausanne have terminated partnership programs with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Following the Hamas massacre of October 7, 2023, and the start of the Gaza War, anti-Israel protests broke out at both universities, which were given far more space by the governing bodies than at the universities in German-speaking Switzerland.
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The protests had few, but very determined supporters, and in some cases even active drivers among the faculty and staff. The surprisingly monotonous media landscape in French-speaking Switzerland, in this respect, provided them with considerable support. There was also encouragement from prominent politicians, such as Geneva SP Council of States member Carlo Sommaruga, who paid a solidarity visit to the students who occupied rooms at the University of Lausanne in May 2024. "To claim that universities must remain neutral is to take sides," he explained at the time.
In any case, the recent measures taken by the two universities represent nothing less than a temporary low point in the decline of Swiss university culture. The now officially announced termination of cooperation with the Hebrew University, which the rectors justify with an ethical and value-based stance, is the result of an orchestrated activist exercise of power, coupled with maximum lack of transparency in the decision-making process. The Israeli institution itself had the least influence in this game, as the primary objective never seemed to be to discuss specific issues with it, but rather to establish facts.
It is not primarily about people in needThe founding of the Association for the Support and Promotion of Jewish University Members in Switzerland (JUMS) a year ago was connected to the experience of a growing number of students and faculty members of feeling exposed and marginalized. What they experienced had nothing to do with the traditional, lively culture of discussion and protest that has characterized universities in the Western world since the postwar period.
In the occupation of university buildings, which was carried out as a form of exercise of power, in the uncompromising discourse, and in the radical vocabulary of condemnation, many Jewish academics recognized not primarily solidarity with the suffering people of Gaza, but something else entirely. Something that the British publicist Jake Wallis Simons described as "Israelophobia" in a book published in 2023 (shortly before October 7). It is a hatred that, beyond the character of all other usual confrontations with fallible states, defames this one, the Jewish state, as illegitimate and a cancerous tumor.
The extent to which the discourse has already shifted away from what was once considered the Swiss culture of mutual respect in the academic milieu was evident at the Dies academicus at the University of Lausanne in May of this year. The liberal education director of the canton of Vaud, Frédéric Borloz, was pushed away from the microphone by around twenty activists during his speech; instead, the audience had to listen to their accusations against the university and the canton of being "accomplices to genocide." The media in French-speaking Switzerland noted this attack more than condemned it, and it appears to have had no legal consequences anyway. At most, it had political repercussions insofar as it was another component of the strategy that ultimately led to the University of Lausanne terminating its strategic partnership with an Israeli university a few weeks later.
Threadbare argumentsOf course, university administrations cannot publicly admit that they have succumbed to pressure from what are ultimately relatively small but extremely aggressive groups and their supporters. They either cite "experts" (like the University of Geneva) or an "ethics committee" (like the University of Lausanne) that, after careful consideration, concluded that cooperation with the Hebrew University was no longer viable. Interestingly, at no point is it revealed who these experts or committee members are, according to which criteria they were granted this authority, and on which scientific sources, information, and considerations their conclusions are based.
Martial Trezzini / Keystone
There is also a complete lack of reflection on whether universities are actually obligated to assume political responsibility for the actions of the states in which they are located. And certainly no questioning of the function of universities in Israel, and not least of the Hebrew University, is being done, which, in a hardening political climate amidst a war, provide space for voices of all political, ideological, and even ethnic persuasions—thereby, ironically, doing precisely what those who call for their boycott consistently refuse to do.
The only Swiss element, one must unfortunately say, that emerges in the nature of these universities' measures is the reticence with which they are communicated and implemented. It is emphasized, for example, that the partnership with the Hebrew University was never actually implemented in concrete projects or in the form of student exchanges – and, moreover, individual collaborations between lecturers at the respective universities are, of course, still permitted. Thus, upon inquiry, the ethically charged announcement is followed by a hasty yet surreptitious assurance that neither the consequences nor the intentions are as hot as they seem.
German-speaking Switzerland does it betterJUMS has responded to the high-profile measures taken by both universities with a press release on the University of Geneva's actions and with letters to the Grand Council and the Government Council of the Canton of Vaud regarding the University of Lausanne's actions. The association attempts to use democratic methods to persuade without disrupting university operations with self-righteous ranting. Believing in the power of good argument is consistent with the understanding of academia, as we have learned it and continue to strive to apply it in our institutions.
Georgios Kefalas / Keystone
And what about German-speaking Switzerland? There are genuine efforts to promote dialogue, particularly on the part of university leadership. For example, the Rectorate of the University of Basel encouraged the departments of Middle Eastern Studies and Jewish Studies to organize a lecture series encompassing the broadest possible spectrum of academic opinions on the topic of "Israel and Palestine," which has been gratefully received by students and the interested public. Furthermore, terminating cooperation with Israeli universities is not under discussion, as representatives of various German-speaking Swiss universities and the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology explained to the media following the events in French-speaking Switzerland.
Nevertheless, vigilance is still required here. Last December, the president of the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities was shouted down during a lecture at the University of Zurich. And anyone like me who serves as a point of contact for complaints and concerns from Jewish university members knows of further experiences that show us that we no longer live in the natural world of acceptance and plurality that seemed to us to be set in stone in Switzerland.
The loss of influence of these destructive forces is certainly in the interest not only of Jewish university members, but of Switzerland as a university location as a whole. Senseless, politically motivated boycotts of other universities, the destruction of the culture of free speech, activist infiltration, and the creation of an atmosphere in which some students or faculty no longer dare to acknowledge their identity cannot be the recipe for a successful future.
Alfred Bodenheimer is a professor of Jewish religious history and literature at the University of Basel and a crime writer. Together with Jacques Ehrenfreund of the University of Lausanne, he is co-president of the Association for the Promotion and Support of Jewish University Members in Switzerland (JUMS).
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