Oct 10

October 4, 2025

Headquartered at Tel Aviv University, the Dan David Prize is one of many Israel-based awards that attempt to legitimize the Israeli state and its policies on a world stage. Along with the Wolf Prize, awarded to "Scientists and Artists for their achievements in the interest of mankind and friendly relations amongst peoples," the Jerusalem Prize, a literary award given to writers promoting "freedom of the individual in society," and others, the Dan David Prize works to erase and normalize colonial occupation and racial apartheid by honoring, celebrating, and rewarding international academics and artists for their individual excellence.

For decades, many Palestinian scholars and scholars in solidarity with Palestine have called on colleagues to reject these awards as part of a global Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. In 2001, when Edward Said heard that Susan Sontag had agreed to accept the Jerusalem Prize, he reminded her of Israel's colonial occupation of Palestine and asked her to decline the award. He wrote: "Thus, your charismatic presence for the Prize and your acceptance of it is, for the Israeli government, a badly needed boost to its poor international standing, a symbol that the greatest talents in the end subscribe to what Israel is doing."

It is impossible to dissociate Tel Aviv University and the Dan David Prize from the colonial occupation of Palestine. Located about 40 miles from Gaza, the university was built on the ruins of a Palestinian village eviscerated by Israeli forces in 1948. Researchers and faculty at Tel Aviv University have worked closely with Israel's university-military complex, including through the Institute for National Security Studies. The Dan David Prize publicizes its affiliation with Tel Aviv University, including that "the university's President traditionally serves as the Chairperson of the Prize's Board, and the Selection Committee usually includes a faculty member."

Although individual honors and lucrative awards may be difficult to turn down, some individuals have done so as a matter of principle. In March 2025, architect Yasmeen Lari declined the Wolf Prize, citing "the unfortunate continuing genocide in Gaza." Back in 2016, historian Catherine Hall publicly refused the Dan David Prize. The Dan David Prize has had a public relations makeover since, now branding itself as "the largest history prize in the world" and limiting the award to younger scholars. Perhaps not surprisingly, among the recent awardees have been scholars of race, colonialism, and genocide—and, as of this year, Asian American history.

We find accepting the Dan David Prize especially in 2025, during the height of Israel's unrelenting bombardment and siege of Gaza, to be bewildering and unconscionable. In the ongoing genocide, the state of Israel has destroyed all twelve universities in Gaza, along with hundreds of archives, libraries, museums, and bookstores. The wholesale destruction of Palestinian academic institutions and communities of scholarship is scholasticide. Beyond killing untold numbers of Palestinian faculty and students, Israeli forces have annihilated Palestine's educational and scholarly infrastructure.

As scholars of Asian American Studies, we feel compelled to remind ourselves and the public at large of our field's anticolonial roots and aspirations and to reaffirm our field's commitment to BDS. Engaged in student and community struggles against colonialism and racism, those who helped to found Asian American Studies voiced their solidarity with the Vietnamese resisting decades of colonial occupation and genocidal warfare. Building on that legacy, in 2013, the Association for Asian American Studies became the first US-based academic organization to adopt a resolution boycotting Israeli universities.

From Jim Crow Montgomery to apartheid South Africa and beyond, boycotts have been a powerful organizing tool in movements against racism and colonialism. We view grassroots boycotts as an invitation to refuse collaboration with institutions actively causing harm and violence and to apply public pressure on states and institutions. When the anti-apartheid South African writer Nadine Gordimer agreed to attend a conference in Jerusalem, Dr. Haidar Eid of Gaza's Al-Aqsa University asked her to boycott the conference. He wrote in 2008: "My students, psychologically and emotionally traumatized and already showing early signs of malnutrition as a result of the genocidal policy of the country whose birth you intend on celebrating, demand an explanation."

We call on our colleagues in Asian American Studies and all scholars of conscience to honor the BDS movement and to refuse the appropriation of our fields of knowledge in service of Israel's campaign to legitimize its regime of genocidal warfare, colonial occupation, and racial apartheid.

Signatories (in alphabetical order)

Neel Ahuja

Evelyn Alsultany

Gina Apostol

Megan Asaka

Aimee Bahng

Crystal Mun-hye Baik

Nerissa Balce

Jody Blanco

Rick Bonus

Lucy Burns

Sylvia Chan-Malik

Derek Chang

Juliana Chang

Piya Chatterjee

Cindy I-Fen Cheng

Mark Chiang

Jennifer Jihye Chun

Chris Cynn

Monisha Das Gupta

Iyko Day

Josen Diaz

David Eng

Candace Fujikane 

Takashi Fujitani

Evyn Lê Espiritu Gandhi

Inderpal Grewal

Zareena Grewal

Ju Hui Judy Han

Christine Hong

Grace Kyungwon Hong

Madeline Y. Hsu

Juliana Hu Pegues

Emily Hue

Ren-yo Hwang

Rana Jaleel

Amira Jarmakani

Michael Jin

Moon-Ho Jung

Moon-Kie Jung

Laura Hyun Yi Kang

Ronak Kapadia

Manu Karuka

Maryam Kashani

Eunsong Kim 

Jinah Kim

Jodi Kim

Joo Ok Kim

Lili Kim

Richard S. Kim

Karlyn Koh

Dorinne Kondo

Larissa Lai

Latipa

James Kyung-Jin Lee

Sue-Im Lee

Eng-Beng Lim

Imogene Lim

Marie Lo

Lisa Lowe

Mary Ting Yi Lui

Simeon Man

Bakirathi Mani

Wendy Matsumura

Sean Metzger

Susette Min

Kit Myers

Asha Nadkarni

Nadine Naber

Mae Ngai

Nguyen Tan Hoang

Viet Thanh Nguyen

Vinh Nguyen

Jan Padios

Mark Padoongpatt

A. Naomi Paik

Susie Pak

David Palumbo-Liu

Hiram Pérez

Minh-Ha T. Pham

Smitha Radhakrishnan

Vicente Rafael

Junaid Rana

Chandan Reddy

Victoria Reyes

Dylan Rodríguez

Sharmila Rudrappa

Steven Salaita

Jeffrey Santa Ana

Dean Saranillio

Sarita See

Shalini Shankar

Nitasha Tamar Sharma

Naoko Shibusawa

Setsu Shigematsu

Caroline Chung Simpson

Davorn Sisavath

Christine So

Neferti Tadiar

Ty P. Kāwika Tengan

Stanley Thangaraj

Elda Tsou

Thuy Linh Tu

Ma Vang

Linta Varghese

Kamala Viswesaran

Janelle Wong

Lily Wong

Rita Wong

Sunny Xiang

Traise Yamamoto

Caroline Yang

Chi-ming Yang

Hentyle Yapp

Lisa Yoneyama

Mari Yoshihara

Henry Yu

Ji-Yeon Yuh

May 17

Originally posted on the UCSC Critical Race and Ethnic Studies Program website; the statement also reflects the journal.

May 15, 2021

As a program and journal committed to the study of colonialism, military occupation, and Indigenous resistance, Critical Race and Ethnic Studies stands in support of the Palestinian people as they live under multiple forms of violence imposed on them by Israel. As an academic program housed on Turtle Island, we oppose settler colonialism everywhere and we condemn the land expropriation and settler colonial violence Palestinians have experienced for more than seven decades; we also note that this violence is facilitated by unwavering U.S. financial, military, and political support, which we vehemently oppose.

As we write, the Israeli military is bombarding Gaza, densely populated and under siege for now almost fifteen years. So far, during this shelling, over 145 Palestinians, including 41 children, have been murdered in Gaza and hundreds have been wounded, and Israeli forces have murdered 13 Palestinians in the West Bank. Ethnic cleansing continues apace across Palestine, including but not limited to the displacement of Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah. In the cities of Haifa, Lydd, Akka, and Yaffa, Palestinians are under constant threat by armed Israeli mobs looking for Arabs to attack. 

As ethnic studies scholars and activists committed to anti-colonial, anti-racist, feminist, and queer organizing, situated particularly in California, we see the terrain of violence against Palestinians and censorship against Palestinians in the diaspora clearly. We see and condemn the censorship of Palestinian scholars, Palestinian studies, and Arab American Studies in our classrooms and in the U.S. academy more broadly. For this reason, we reject the language of clashes, conflict, and “both sides.” As we oppose policing and prisons, Indigenous dispossession, and racialized violence, from Turtle Island to Palestine, we refuse to use objective language that would render us silent as Palestinians continue to experience an ongoing Nakba.

We stand with the protesters across Palestine, and around the world, in solidarity with  Palestinian freedom struggles in the face of ceaseless violence. We urge other departments and programs to join us in issuing statements, alongside other forms of collective action, including worldwide protests today, Nakba Day, May 15th, to condemn ongoing Israeli state violence and express solidarity with the Palestinian people.

As ethnic studies scholars endorsing Scholars for Palestinian Freedom’s “Palestine and Praxis: Open Letter and Call to Action,” we affirm that “scholarship without action normalizes the status quo and reinforces Israel’s impunity.” And, as ethnic studies scholars in solidarity with the Palestinian Feminist Collective, we end with their affirmation of life and love in their “Love Letter to our People Struggling in Palestine:” “Your labor has taught us for generations: Palestine is a feminist issue. Love guides our methodology for liberation. We affirm life and implore feminists everywhere to speak up, organize, and join the struggle for Palestinian liberation. We call for an immediate halting of the theft of homes in Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan, and beyond, and an immediate halting to the airstrikes on Gaza.”

In solidarity,

Critical Race and Ethnic Studies Program and CES journales here