The Jewish Press first featured Chloé Simone Valdary on our site over a year ago. She is the African American Christian Zionist student founder and president of the University of New Orleans’ Allies for Israel. She helped organize and also ran a major pro-Israel event there last spring.
Valdary has only become more sophisticated and deeply devoted to Israel over the past year.
She’s been to Israel several times, attended numerous pro-Israel events, written sophisticated op-eds, articles and prose about the Middle East.
In addition to being a junior at the University of New Orleans, Valdary is also the assistant director of special programs at the Institute for Black Solidarity with Israel. She is also currently in the final stages of preparation for her second major pro-Israel event, Declare Your Freedom, to be held in New Orleans this spring.
This past week an outcry arose from New York Israel supporters when it was discovered that the Jewish Museum in New York City planned to provide a platform for Judith Butler, well-known member of the virulently anti-Israel crowd.
Butler last aroused an outcry when she spoke in favor of the BDS movement at Brooklyn College, almost a year ago. BDS is the Boycott of, Divestment from and Sanctions against Israel, which promotes economic and legal warfare against the Jewish State.
Valdary wrote a letter to Brooklyn College students last year, urging them to rise up and speak out against that anti-Israel event.
Many active in the New York City area pro-Israel community met Valdary when the college student was recently in New York. She, along with this unofficial yet effective group, was part of the emailing, phone calling and tweeting against Butler that resulted in the Jewish Museum rescinding its offer of a platform for Judith Butler at the Jewish Museum.
In a blog entry Valdary penned at the Times of Israel, she called out Butler for her anti-Semitism, and included herself in the “we” of Zionists. Her article was published on Feb. 21. This is the final paragraph:
So in this endeavor for morality and justice, we, the proud Zionist community of America, rose up. We lit up the phone lines of the Jewish Museum in New York and demanded that this event be canceled. We organized on social media, we emailed, we protested. We, this people, with a history, and a creed, and a culture, and a cause, which we intend to perpetuate with every fiber of our being, rose up and affected positive and meaningful change. And we have every intention to continue this fight for the right to be free.
Not surprisingly, those who support Butler’s view of the Middle East conflict, those who support the BDS movement and who are willing to “understand” what drives the terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah, do not agree with Valdary.
Richard Silverstein, however, a fairly well-known, member of the Israel-is-always-wrong clan but who is generally considered to be too much of a crackpot to invite a response from Israel supporters, crossed a line that shocked many, even considering Silverstein’s inglorious history.
In a tweet sent at 8:48 ET, on Feb. 21, Silverstein suggested Valdary was manipulated by Zionists, referred to her as a “Negro,” and wrote that she would be making “Uncle Tom” dance with joy, presumably because he saw her pro-Israel activities as sucking up to white folks. This is the tweet:
