And the 2024 Schmegegge of the Year Award Goes to… MIRA SUCHAROV!
The Jewish Studies Zionist Network is proud to announce its third annual recipient of the “Schmegegge of the Year” Award. The 2024 honoree is Dr. Mira Sucharov of Canada’s Carleton University.
In its inaugural year, JSZN bestowed this award on Peter Beinart, a professor of journalism. The following year, it was awarded to historian Dr. Omer Bartov. Demonstrating that the rot in Jewish Studies runs deep across all disciplines within the field and transcends gender and national borders, this year’s award is going to a female Canuck professor of political science.
Sucharov has been a consummate schmegegge for many years, but it was not until 2024 when her foolishness really peaked at the highest proportions.
This year, Sucharov accused Israel of a policy of mass starvation in Gaza and indiscriminate bombings of civilians, while whitewashing the evils perpetuated by Hamas. Advocating for the United States to withdraw its support for Israel's defensive actions against Hamas, she has excused and even supported violent campus protests calling for a global intifada and the exclusion of “Zionists” from university campuses.
Her only critique of these riots was that they were insufficiently disruptive. In an October 4, 2024 op-ed in Forward, Sucharov argued, “It’s more disruptive actions—like the wave of campus encampments last spring—that actually stand a chance of meaningfully changing public opinion.” She added that since the student rampages and blockades have only had minimal impact “in provoking real change in U.S. foreign policy,” the rioters will “need to consider what new routes toward disruption might be available.”
Unwilling to condemn the rallying cries for a global intifada against Jews worldwide, Sucharov obtusely claims that “intifada” does not signify violence against Jewish communities. Instead, she argues that calls for an intifada should be understood as “a call to connect anti-oppression struggles across the globe.”
What does that even mean?
This year, Sucharov continued to defend her university’s decision to employ convicted terrorist Hassan Diab, a Lebanese-Canadian sociology professor found guilty in France for planting a bomb at a Paris synagogue in 1980. In 2021, Sucharov co-authored an op-ed in Canada’s national newspaper, The Globe and Mail, opposing Diab’s extradition. She argued that it would be a “travesty” for Canada to return the convicted terrorist to France to face justice for his crime.
Sucharov has argued that France convicted the wrong person, citing “lack of due process” and “flimsy evidence” to maintain her colleague’s innocence. Despite Canada’s extradition treaty with France, Sucharov—a professor of international relations who should understand the importance of respecting diplomatic agreements—insists it is reasonable to disregard the rulings of a liberal democratic ally’s free and fair justice system simply because she disagrees with the verdict. It’s worth noting that Diab was convicted in France, not in an authoritarian state like North Korea or Iran.
Regarding last fall’s pogrom against Jews at a soccer match in Amsterdam, Sucharov refused to unequivocally condemn the anti-Semitic attacks for what they were. Instead, she shifted the blame onto the victims, suggesting they provoked the violence against them. While it is likely that a small number of Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters may have engaged in reckless and indefensible behavior during the tournament, this in no way justified the organized and possibly premeditated violence perpetrated against Israeli fans as a whole.
Sucharov has a long history of being a schmegegge. In 2022, while serving as co-editor of AJS Perspectives, the magazine of the Association for Jewish Studies, she oversaw the publication of an “art installation” featuring Ruth Sergel’s provocative Gaza Ghetto photo exhibit. This series of photographs depicts the names of Gazans who died in the ongoing Hamas-Israel conflicts, etched in ink on the artist’s arm. The exhibition not so subtly implied that Gaza was comparable to Auschwitz.
Even more astonishing was her defense of Jasbir Puar in 2016. Puar, a gender studies professor at Rutgers, made the outrageous and baseless claim that Israel was harvesting Palestinian organs. In a perplexing Haaretz op-ed, Sucharov argued in Puar’s defense that the claim, while unsubstantiated, was not antisemitic—even though it blatantly echoed the age-old blood libel charge of Jewish ritual murder.
In 2023, Sucharov hosted a screening of the film Israelism on her campus. The documentary makes the outrageous claim that for decades, Jewish youth have been indoctrinated in schools and synagogues to hate Palestinians and uncritically support any unjust policy enacted by Israel's government under the guise of defending the Jewish people. The filmmakers also deceived former ADL president Abraham Foxman into appearing in the film under false pretenses. When challenged on how such tactics would be acceptable in another context, Sucharov’s only response was, “Ummmmm.”
We believe that Sucharov has earned her way into the schmegegge pantheon. We have no doubt that she will continue to grace us with her inanity as the years unfold. We do hope that she proves us wrong in that prediction and instead develops greater clarity and wisdom.
Please watch our official award ceremony
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