Here’s an email I sent last week to nine Israeli colleagues who attended the 2025 NAFSA annual conference in San Diego, including some as representatives of the Study in Israel booth in the expo hall. Can you guess how many have responded? 😉

Albert Einstein’s estate should sue the Israeli government for misusing his image in a disgraceful attempt at honor by association. Here’s what Einstein thought of a Jewish state in his later years

In the pivotal years between the end of the war and his death in 1955, Einstein was outspoken about the Jewish state project. Invited to testify before the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine in Washington, DC in January 1946, Einstein answered unequivocally when asked about the possible State of Israel versus a cultural homeland: ‘I have never been in favor of a state.‘

In March 1947, I.Z. David, a member of the Irgun terrorist group led by Menachem Begin, sent him a questionnaire to which he responded sharply and clearly:

Question: What is your opinion about the establishment of a free National Jewish Palestine?

Einstein: Jewish National Home? Yes. Jewish National Palestine? No. I favor a free, bi-national Palestine at a later date after agreement with the Arabs.

Question: Opinion about partition of Palestine and Chaim Weizmann’s proposals re partition?

Einstein: I am against partition.

Peace, MAA

Dear Colleagues,

Greetings from Vietnam! I’m reaching out to you because you participated in the 2025 NAFSA annual conference in San Diego, including the expo. 

Many of my international education colleagues and I are deeply concerned about and outraged by the ongoing Israeli-executed genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza that is now in its final phase through the cruel and calculated use of starvation, targeted assassinations, and sustained bombing. As a fellow international educator, I’m wondering whether your institution has an official position on the genocide and what your personal opinion is.

I’m especially interested in knowing what you think of these statistics and what they say about Israeli society:

Exhibit A: 82% of Israelis want to expel Palestinians from Gaza; 47% want to kill every man, woman, and child. 

Exhibit B: 64% of Israelis believe there are ‘no innocents’ in Gaza. 

Exhibit C: 79% of Israeli Jews say they are “not so troubled at all” by the reports of famine and suffering among the Palestinians in Gaza. 

Related to the above, what do you think about the Greater Israel project and its security implications for Israel and the region? 

Finally, I highly recommend this article written by Orly Noy, an Iranian-Israeli political activist known for conducting exclusive interviews and writing human-interest stories on marginalized Palestinian and Israeli communities: Israel is waging a holocaust in Gaza. Denazification is our only remedy 

Thank you for your responses.