York U threatens rabbi with lawsuit over anti-Galloway e-mail

This week, York University threatened a Toronto rabbi with legal action if he continued to spread "defamatory" remarks about the university's president and did not stop encouraging non-students to protest controversial former British MP George Galloway's speech on campus Tuesday night. Last week, Rabbi Aaron Hoch sent an e-mail to 700 people on his community mailing last week informing them about Galloway's speech and asking them to "take part in protesting this outrage." In a letter to Rabbi Hoch, York U's legal counsel asked that he "remove (the message) from your web site and to direct your supporters to cease and desist the distribution of the poster." The rabbi says there was no such "poster," and that the e-mail went viral and was posted to community forums. The trigger of the university's letter was Rabbi Hoch's accusation that York U president Mamdouh Shoukri was being anti-Semitic, comments the letter calls "untrue" and harmful to the president's reputation. National Post