The University of Iowa Lecture Committee announced that controversial former president Jimmy Carter will be delivering the school’s Distinguished Lecture at Carver-Hawkeye Arena on April 18. Since publishing this book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, Carter has drawn intense criticism from the Jewish community. The annoucement immediately prompted both praise and criticism.

Hillel Director Jerry Sorokin said he was concerned about the UI Lecture Committee soliciting questions for Carter before the event - a request that the panel made in a university-wide e-mail announcing the lecture.

Students can submit questions via the committee’s website or at the University Box Office.

Sorokin said if the group screened the questions in advance, it makes it unlikely that controversial viewpoints would be aired.

“I just don’t think it makes anyone look good,” Sorokin said.

The eight-year director said a preferable method could involve inviting students to ask questions at a microphone for 30 seconds so they could engage in a dialogue with Carter.

Thomas acknowledged those concerns as valid. But she said the committee is pursuing organizations such as Hillel and the General Union of Palestinian students for questions, which will be reviewed by several people with an emphasis on diversity.

“They’re not screened for [Carter’s] interests,” Thomas said.

Still, Sorokin addressed qualms with Carter’s book, specifically regarding the title’s use of the word apartheid.

“It’s not only inaccurate, but it’s inflammatory,” Sorokin said.

Tickets, only two per person, can be obtained at the University Box Office from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. beginning April 2-4 for students with IDs. Tickets for UI faculty and staff will be available April 5 and for the general public on April 6.

The Ball State University Hillel sponsored a Hookah Night on Thursday night from 7 to 9 p.m. The event featured ten flavors of tobacco and the opportunity to purchase hookahs at the end of the night.

“Sometimes [the smoke] got so thick that you could cut a box out of it in the air with your fingers,” [Junior Brandon Winter] said. “The smoke and the relaxation of it made us lose track of time.”

Winter, who purchased his own hookah almost a year ago, was introduced to it in high school at Khoury’s Mediterranean Restaurant in Indianapolis and returned to that hookah bar several times the following summer.

“It was something my friends were doing, and I tagged along one night,” he said. “It’s like breathing in thick, flavored air … not like smoking cigarettes at all.”

Junior Kestrel Jones said she plans to attend Hillel’s Hookah Night this year. She has enjoyed flavored cigarettes in the past, and hookah has been something she has wanted to try since she learned about it from friends who attended Hillel’s Hookah Night last year, she said.

Khoury’s Mediterranean Restaurant employee Chris Wing said health risks associated with smoking hookah are far fewer than smoking cigarettes because the tobacco, or shisha, contains no nicotine or additives. The tobacco is stripped and covered in molasses to give it a fruit flavor when inhaled.

Brent Blackwell, Ball State Hillel adviser and associate English professor, said even though hookah has only recently become a trend in the United States, it is used for the same reasons as in the Middle East - to form social connections and to strengthen social bonds through a relaxing, communal ceremony.

Every nation between India and Egypt has a cultural tradition of social smoking, Blackwell said.

Hillel Secretary Ben Goldenberg said he hoped students will come to Hillel’s Hookah Night to socialize, but also to learn about a culture that is relatively unknown in the United States.

“It’s something almost everyone of college age in Israel does,” he said.

Rosa Blum, 78, visited Oklahoma State University this week to speak with students about her experiences in Auschwitz. She told an audience of about 500. The event was arranged by the OSU Women’s Program.

Blum, who was born in Romania in 1928, was 14 when she, along with 100,000 Jews, was taken to a wilderness 60 miles away.

She lived in pitched tents with her parents, grandparents, five brothers and sister in the mountain area, where “life became very, very difficult,” Blum said.

Soon after, her family was told to gather pots and pans for cooking for another relocation. Later, they found out that wasn’t the case.

“We didn’t need them for cooking,” Blum said. “We used the pots and pans for our waste.”

Blum was later taken to Auschwitz, where she spent two years.

“It happened to be a very beautiful day, maybe the most beautiful I’ve ever seen,” Blum said. “It was so surreal and so beautiful.

“Who would have thought that a couple blocks down the road there was a crematorium and gas chamber and everything else? Nobody would have ever dreamed anything like that existed.”

When Blum’s family got off the train, it was the last time she saw her mother. Blum was one of 400 youths taken with the working group, while the other 6,000 were sent to the crematorium.

As a worker, Blum’s long hair was cut with clippers and her belongings were taken away. She was given a dress and wooden shoes to wear.

Blum came down with infantitis, a rash that put her in the camp’s hospital. After five days, the sick people were forced into carts. Blum went with them, carrying her shoes along the way.

“You’re going to death,” she was told. “You don’t need them.”

When the sick people were gathered in a room to be sent to the crematorium, Blum managed to hide under a bed the entire night. The next morning, a nurse found her and took care of her for two weeks before helping her return to the camp.

The biggest lesson she learned from the two years at the concentration camps was the need for individuals to judge situations on their own and not rely on what they are told.

“You’re the one who has to make decisions for yourself,” she said. “This is something I wish I would have known.

“Life is a beautiful thing, but you have to make your own judgment. Don’t take somebody else’s word.”