Yehiam Soreq or Sorek is one of the most openly anti-Semitic "academics" employed in Israeli academia. He teaches at the "Beit Berl" college, associated with the kibbutz movement and the Israeli "labor movement" (the Labor Party and the Histadrut); it is named after the Zionist leader Berl Katsenelson. Sorek teaches history there. He is a vicious anti-Israel extremist, signs all the anti-Israel petitions (here is but one). He differs from the other academic anti-Zionists in Israel mainly in turning out propaganda articles that are much loopier and loonier than those of most of the others – see below. (His web site in Hebrew is here.  It says he has a PhD from South Africa.)

Sorek has now become the SECOND Israeli "academic" to endorse medieval blood libels about Jews supposedly using blood for ritual purposes in the Middle Ages. As you know, Prof. Ariel Toaff from Bar-Ilan University has been making such claims and Bar Ilan University is now under ENORMOUS attack for employing such a person. Toaff yesterday refused to appear before a Knesset committee to answer questions and he may be charged with contempt.

Over the past weeks, numerous people, including myself, have been saying that there is not a single Jew in the world who endorses Toaff's ridiculous "research".  Alas, we were wrong.  There is now one other – Yehiam Sorek. In today's Maariv, he basically endorses Toaff's claims (which Toaff himself is now trying to play down). He proclaims Toaff a brave hero and insists that just as there cannot be smoke without a fire, medieval blood libels against Jews must have some factual basis. Criticism of people like Toaff is as illegitimate, writes Sorek, as similar criticisms against pro-Palestinian propagandists in Israeli academia who write about the "Naqba", the Arab word for catastrophe, favorite nonsense word of the braindead Left when referring to Israel's creation.

Yehiam Sorek's blood libel anti-Semitic screed can be read in Hebrew here.

Ben Dror Yemini, editor of Maariv, dismisses Sorek as a vile anti-Semite and pseudo-academic, in Hebrew here. Ben Dror Yemini writes that it is only a question of time before Sorek discovers that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion also are factually correct and entitled to be taught in Israeli schools.

The director or Beit Berl is Ruthie Gavri at
Phone 972-9-7476302   ruth@beitberl.ac.il

Beit Berl's fax is 972-9-7476340
A form letter on the web for writing Beit Berl is here.

You may also wish to write to the Minister of Education, Yuli Tamir, email info@education.gov.il , make cc to mankal@education.gov.il  and owl@education.gov.il  

Here is an earlier posting of mine on Herr Sorek: 

December 15, 2006
Hannuka Among the Hellenists
By Steven Plaut

Article can be read here.   Sorek's email address is yehiam.sorek@beitberl.ac.il