Israeli Premier Golda Meir will accept an honorary doctorate at Brandeis University today, while anti-Zionist picketers--and possibly counter-demonstrators from the Jewish Defense League (JDL)--picket outside.

The university will grant Meir an LL.D. at a special 1 p.m. convocation to celebrate the 25th anniversary of both Brandeis and the State of Israel.

"We expect that everything should come off very smoothly," a Brandeis official said yesterday. As a foreign chief of state, Meir will receive Secret Service as well as police protection.

The May 15th Coalition, an association of seven local radical groups, has called for a "peaceful, legal, non-obstructive picket line" at the entrance to Brandeis in protest of what it calls Israel's "arrogance and total disregard for human life."

Larry Cohen, a Jewish Defense League spokesman, said last night that his organization was not yet certain whether to hold a counter-demonstration. Members of several radical groups said they expected a JDL counter-demonstration and perhaps an attempt to break up the picket line.

Seventeen people, including Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn and several journalists and student leaders, said yesterday that they "abhor and condemn" any such attempt "to infringe upon the constitutional rights of all those participating to publicly express their views."

JDL members attacked anti-Israel picketers outside the Israeli Consulate to the United Nations last month.

Violence

"It's my understanding that they've perpetrated violence on another occasion in New York and this represents an attempt to head it off here," David Deitch, a radical journalist fired by The Boston Globe earlier this year and one of the statement's signers, said yesterday.

The Socialist Workers Party, one of the groups in the Coalition, circulated the statement.

The Spartacist League, a Trotskyist organization which also supports today's demonstration, announced yesterday that an anonymous letter had warned it that if it interfered with the Brandeis ceremony in any way, "this demonstration will be your last."

Cohen denied Spartacist suggestions that the JDL had sent the letter. "Usually when there are anonymous letters that are attributed to us they're signed 'Never Again' or something," he added.

Meir met with President Nixon in Washington last week. Her appearance at Brandeis follows several speeches to Jewish groups in New York.