On September 11th, 2012, Judith Butler received the Adorno Prize, awarded by the city of Frankfurt each year on the anniversary of the birth of the Marxist Jewish philosopher Theodor Adorno and honouring individuals who have distinguished themselves in the fields of music, aesthetics, or philosophy to which Adorno himself had made so singular a contribution, beginning and ending with his work in the university at Frankfurt. Butler is an influential philosopher and her books have engaged questions of recognition, identities, and desire in relation to gender and sexuality. She was a worthy choice for the Adorno Prize and the press was on hand to snap her evident delight. Yet some friends of Israel thought her a controversial choice because she has accepted the request of a host of Palestinian institutions that Israel be visited with a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign similar to that which was employed against the apartheid regime of South Africa. This demand for solidarity raises complex issues and Butler has been forward in examining and clarifying them for other academics, by extending the insights reached in her earlier philosophical works.