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The Hedy Epstein Lecture at U.C. Berkeley on October 19, 2004  
Hedy Epstein is an 80-year-old Holocaust survivor who tours the country giving speeches at universities and to nonprofit groups. Her scheduled appearance at UC Berkeley’s Student Union building on October 19, 2004 hardly seemed like the kind of event to stir up controversy.
But as soon as her visit was announced, waves of outrage and fears of an ideological confrontation echoed across campus. Why? In addition to her early history surviving the Holocaust, Hedy Epstein is more recently a member of the International Solidarity Movement, a group of activists who travel to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and do everything possible to „disrupt“ Israel’s activities there. ISM’s detractors claim that the group willingly takes orders from Palestinian militants dedicated to the destruction of Israel, and that ISM members who (usually illegally) infiltrate conflict areas act as enemy combatants against the Jewish state. ISM supporters claim the group merely uses nonviolent tactics to stop the Israeli Defense Forces from harassing and attacking Palestinians. Recently, ISM’s efforts have been focused on the „wall,“ the defensive barrier Israel is building to keep suicide bombers out of the country.
So, was Epstein coming to the Berkeley campus to lecture on the Holocaust — or on her ISM experiences? This is where the controversy comes in: She was to lecture on both topics simultaneously. In fact, according to a flyer advertising her appearance which had been posted around campus, she planned to compare the Israelis‘ treatment of the Palestinians with the Nazis‘ treatment of the Jews.
Jewish groups on campus were especially offended by this flyer, which juxtaposed pictures of Nazis with pictures of Israeli soldiers, along with text that implied the two were similar. I was, unfortunately, unable to obtain one of these flyers, and they are not available online, but Epstein was giving the same speech at Stanford University the following day, and the calendar listing for that event, containing the exact same inflammatory text, can be found here. The flyer read, in part, „She will describe how the situation on the ground in Palestine today very much resembles the situation in Nazi Germany in 1939 and will compare the egregious violations of human rights that are taking place in Palestine today as a result of the Israeli occupation to the Holocaust.“
The flyer had been produced by UC Berkeley’s Muslim Students Association, which sponsored the event. Epstein later disavowed any knowledge of the flyer, saying that the MSA was entirely responsible for its imagery and design.
Two days before the lecture, Epstein gave a speech at a mosque (scroll down to October 17th for the event listing) entitled „Surviving the Holocaust: Witnessing History Repeated“ that was apparently on the same theme: that the Holocaust was being „repeated“ in Palestine. And the day after her Stanford appearance, she was to head down to UC Santa Cruz to reiterate once again her accusations against Israel.