Tamar, I wouldn't bother challenging the prof or the textbooks in class. You're on his turf, and I wouldn't be surprised if most of the class is Muslim, very left-wing non-Muslim, or both. They'd be eating this "corporate Jewish entity" garbage right up. You can't hope to win a debate in class.

What I'd suggest instead is speaking to your local Hillel director, if your campus has one, and express your concerns that anti-Semitic material is being taught. Hillel staff are trained to deal with university faculty and departments in a non-confrontational way, on such issues. (This is important, as you don't want to get the Daniel Pipes/B'nai Brith/ADL types involved; their confrontational, alarmist approach tends to do more harm than good, and makes us all look like extremist, frothing-at-the-mouth fools.)

Good luck, if you do choose to pursue this. Although professors enjoy academic freedom and, like everyone else, the right of free speech, neither should act as license for spreading the "Jews killed Jesus" myth. Which until recently I always thought was a fundamentalist Christian thing. Go figure.

I don't know which one it is or where to find it, but there must be Jewish law on this. Regardless even of Jewish law, you are simply morally obligated to speak up. I don't care whose turf it is. This professor is spreading shit memes.

And Soapbox, even if, as you say, "most of the class is Muslim, very left-wing non-Muslim, or both," and even if "You can't hope to win a debate in class" I still find sitting by morally objectionable. There is no way of knowing any of the people in that class might be swayed by Tamar's truth should she choose to spread it. And who the hell only starts debates they know they can't win? 

It's Michael Nehora.

Thank you, sir. 

This was kind of a trick question, because after the first session on City of Wrong I threw a shit fit at one of the professors (after class) and he ended up having to dedicate an entire session to anti Semitism in the book. Which made me feel better, but also made the following crystal clear: The book may be incredibly anti-Semitic, but it also manages to make a whole lot of interesting points about how Islam sees Christianity, and in general what the basis for morality is. Now, I would certainly prefer that we open a discussion of an antisemitic text with an acknowledgement of that fact, but it's hard to deny that that will have a huge influence on how everyone sees the book. Readers who might have taken some of the more interesting points to heart may just decide to drop it altogether because it's bigoted. And is that good? Should we teach people that if there's anti-Semitism in something no part of it can be taken seriously? I don't know. I mean, I wish it was that easy, but it would be hard to claim that there's nothing to gain from reading these books.

Rock::Me::Hard Place

If the professor is aware that the book contains anti-semitic material it is his duty to inform the class. While the book may have valid points to make, I find it hard to believe that there is no other text that provides the same information without the extraneous hateful bullshit.
ep

< ! -- begin damage control -- >

Y'all should know that David and I have already apologized privately to each other.

< ! -- end damage control -- >

Not in my opinion, at least! I had to have it included for the sheer joy of seeing someone's name accidentally replaced with the word "Soapbox." Along with the words "waffles," "emu," and "badger" it is a universally hilarious word. In fact, I've been considering changing my screenname to Soapbox.

I'm sadly not joking about any of this.

I think it'd be funny for a public speaker to stand on a badgerbox.  Especially if it opened while they were speaking.  Well, it'd be funny to me, anyway.  >:-)

I can't shake the feeling though, that in a non-sequitur sort of way, it would be even more funny if a public speaker was standing on a wafflebox. And then it would open, and a few waffles covered in syrup would sort of tumble out slowly, and he would look embarrassed. Yeah, that'd be sweet.