Richard Goldstone, chair of the advisory board of the International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life, has been at the center of controversy since he led the UN Mission that investigated allegations of Israeli and Palestinian war crimes related to the conflict in Gaza. Now, the South African Jewish community has put so much pressure on him and his family that they have effectively barred him from attending his grandson’s upcoming bar mitzvah in Johannesburg.

In an op-ed in today’s Los Angeles Times, I argue that this incident is part of a pattern of personal attacks on Jewish critics of the policies of the state of Israel.