Jennifer Loewenstein

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Jennifer (Sarin) Loewenstein is a Madison, Wisconsin, political activist and Associate Director of the Middle East Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, an administrative, not an academic, appointment. [1] [2] She is a member of the board of the Israeli Coalition against House Demolitions-USA branch, founder of the Madison-Rafah Sister City Project [3] [4] and a freelance journalist. [5] Lowenstein is married to David Lowenstein, Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin. [6]

As a local political activist, Lowenstein has charged Israel with being responsible for "the dehumanization and destruction of an entire people." [7] She regularly helps organize and attends political demonstrations in Madison. On the day after Ariel Sharon's election as Prime Minister of Israel she was among the organizers of an anti-Israel demonstration at which she labeled Sharon a "war criminal " and a "thug," [8] she helped organize protests against the war in Iraq, [9] and she makes arrangements for political activists such as Robert Fisk to speak at American universities. [10]

The proposed Madison-Rafah Sister City Project occassioned an "anguished and bruising debate" in Madison. [11] [12] During the debate , Lowenstein called the executive board of the Madison Jewish Community Council "deeply racist." [13] Board Member Lester Pines alleged that Lowenstein's project was part of a "movement to delegitimize the state of Israel." [14]

Loewenstein lived in Israel in 1963 as a child when her father played first trumpet in the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. She went back in 1981 as a junior in college, and returned as an adult, living in Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut and traveling in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, where she worked for five months in 2002 at the Mezan Center for Human Rights in Gaza City [15] and writing in the Palestine Chronicle that "The Israelis are masters in the art of destruction." [16] She has returned to Gaza a number of times. [17]

The Yemen Times has praised Lowenstein's work as deserving "all the honors one can bestow on a great journalist." [18]

[edit] References

  1. ^ A Case Study: Madison, Wisconsin, U.S.A.: A Battleground for Israel's Legitimacy - Joel Fishman
  2. ^ Contact Information for the International Instiute
  3. ^ www.madisonrafah.org/
  4. ^ Midwest city feels conflict in the Mideast close to home | csmonitor.com
  5. ^ Jennifer Loewenstein: Beneath the Hideous Veneer of Security
  6. ^ David Loewenstein, English, UW-Madison
  7. ^ M. Junaid Alam: The Wolf Who Cried Wolf
  8. ^ ACTIVISTS HERE LABEL ISRAEL'S SHARON A THUG, The Capital Times (Madison, WI) February 8, 2001 by Samara Kalk
  9. ^ The Capital Times (Madison, WI) March 20, 2004
  10. ^ Pity the Nation: The Abduction of Lebanon, by Robert Fisk, 2002, p. 685
  11. ^ madison.com
  12. ^ Proposal to Adopt a Palestinian City as a 'Sister' Creates a Family Feud for Madison - New York Times
  13. ^ madison.com
  14. ^ madison.com
  15. ^ [ http://www.madison.com/archives/read.php?ref=/tct/2004/05/01/0405010174.php]
  16. ^ What the papers say | World news | guardian.co.uk
  17. ^ Democracy Now! | Casualties Mount in New Israeli Attack on Gaza
  18. ^ In praise of Ms Jennifer Lowenstein - Yemen Times

[edit] External Links