#antisemitism on campus

[that-rad-jewish-girl]

Leftists in America heard about a music festival coming under fire and most people dying or being kidnapped. Their response was to tear down posters of those people and join protests against the victims of the massacre.

And I’m just trying to think of any other time they’ve done that in response to mass casualty shootings.

I’m trying to think if there’s been any other time they’ve blamed the victims of a mass shooting.

I’m wondering why these victims are different. And I’m gonna take a wild guess that if a mass shooter shot up a Jewish day school in America today, they would not be protesting gun violence in the wake of it.

#jewish #israel #israel 🇮🇱 #jewblr #jumblr #hamas is evil #antisemitism on the left #leftist antisemitism #leftists hide their antisemitism challenge #antisemitism on campus #antisemites #anti zionism is antisemitism #stand with israel #🟦 #pro israel

[newnitz]

Ashkenormativity

Ashkenormativity is the assumption that the default Jew is the Ashkenazi one. It is a term coined by Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews to explain our alienation from the rest of the Jewish community, from my lived experience specifically from the Diaspora Jewish community.

I'm half-Ashkenazi, but that half is pretty secular. When it comes to major Jewish holidays, I've always done them with my maternal grandparents, who, despite being secularized, still respect their cantor roots to the point of not wanting to skip on a holiday or even shorten the Seder(until one hilariously bad one). So the only minhag I've known was the Sephardi one.

In Israel, this was a non-issue.

The most I heard about differences is how Sephardim and Mizrahim emphasize table manners because unlike Ashkenazim, they actually eat on the table.

When I left Israel and moved to a place hundreds of kilometers away from the nearest Jewish community, I finally realized how much I need our community. So like everyone on lockdown, I sought it online, where Jewish cultures is bagels and casual use of Yiddish, two things completely foreign to me. I mean we have bagels in Israel, but they're not the meme they are among US Jews. They're nowhere near as popular as a pita. So when I had to look up what "davening", "shul" and "shanda" meant, I first got the sense I don't actually belong.

But the people using those terms as a day to day weren't the ones who actively made me feel unwelcome. In fact, those were more likely to acknowledge my confusion and explain. The ones who alienated me are the antizionist Jews from the Anglosphere, who ignore and revise non-Ashkenazi history and even history of Ashkenazim outside the Global North, who blame modern Hebrew for the decline of Yiddish which they frame as the traditional Jewish language, ignoring how that pushes down communities that traditionally spoke Ladino, Juddeo-Arabic, Amharic and more, and overall infantilize and dismiss families like mine who built a good life for ourselves in Israel and rose to the position to actively combat Ashkenazi hegemony, and remove the agency of my former classmates who take a stand against it, all in favor of superimposing the race politics of the Anglosphere onto Israel.

So the Columbia university definition of singling out "white Jews" is quite inaccurate. Under ashkenormativity, an Ashkenazi JoC would find themselves better represented than the white-presenting members of my Sephardi(or raised according to that half) family. It's another reductivist attempt to superimpose European guilt onto Jews by erasing half of us. Specifically, the half that lives in Israel.

Goyim, ashkenormativity doesn't belong to you. Stop using it as a shield to be antisemitic. Stop using it as anything regarding inter-community issues, it's our term to use within our community.

#antisemitism #ashkenormativity #jewish discourse #jumblr #antisemitism on campus #columbia university

[dragoneyes618]

"Last week, the presidents of Harvard, MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania were called to testify before Congress about the alarming rise of anti-Semitism on their campuses, and their tepid responses to it, in the wake of October 7.

By now, you have probably heard about the trio’s horrendous overall performance, punctuated by their smug inability to respond to the simple question of whether calling for the genocide of Jews violates their schools’ codes of conduct. Since that time, the president of UPenn has stepped down, and support for the other two is wavering.

In case you are wondering, their answer should have been an unequivocal “yes, it violates our polices.” The right to free speech is fundamental, but it does have limits: The First Amendment is not a pass to threaten, harass, intimidate or otherwise violate the rights of others.

For the record, even those pundits who (incorrectly) defended the university presidents’ testimony as being legally correct, if morally tone deaf, had to admit that it did represent a glaring double standard. Each of these universities has in recent years protected other minority groups from even “micro-aggressions” by effectively and ruthlessly shutting down speech that their leaders find offensive.

Struggling to answer whether calls for genocide against Jews constitutes bullying, after you have already officially labeled “fatphobia” as “violence” and “using the wrong pronoun” as a form of “abuse,” is pathetic, and to see these schools pretending that they are genuinely concerned about free speech all of a sudden is nothing short of laughable. In the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s 2024 College Free Speech Rankings, for example, out of 248 US campuses, Penn and Harvard were ranked 247th and 248th, respectively. If you are only concerned about shutting down speech when that speech targets Jews, well, there is a word for that.

How Free Is Free Speech?

The First Amendment does not protect trespassing, vandalism, harassment, assault, or the destruction of property. Nor does it protect speech that is not meant to inform or persuade, but to disrupt lawful endeavors —activities like going to the kosher dining hall or studying in a library. The First Amendment does not protect someone who is making true threats, nor does it protect intimidation — “a type of true threat, where a speaker directs a threat to a person or group of persons with the intent of placing the victim in fear of bodily harm or death.”

Just a few months ago, in Counterman v. Colorado (2023), the United States Supreme Court clarified that this does not necessarily mean that the person speaking actually intended to threaten the victim. Rather, the Court imposed a recklessness standard — i.e., the First Amendment does not protect a person who consciously disregards a substantial risk that his communications would be viewed as threatening violence. To be clear, calling for the genocide of Jews, as the pro-Hamas student groups on campus have consistently been doing, does create a hostile environment for Jewish people on campus, violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and is not protected by the First Amendment.

It was obvious that all three university presidents were reading off scripts written by their respective attorneys (several of whom were sitting behind them and nodding throughout the hearing). The question then becomes: What now? What is the critical error that their lawyers (and the general counsels at other universities where Jewish students are being targeted) have made in failing to stand up for Jewish people, and how should they immediately correct it?

The answer is simple, and it is exactly what students, parents, donors, and the government alike should all be demanding from these institutions: They should continue to respect the First Amendment, but they should apply the appropriate standard for speech on a campus.

From a legal perspective, it is easy to see where the university legal counsels’ confusion specifically arose. Those horrible answers were written under the assumption that the only limits a university can put on student speech are the limits contemplated in the foundational Supreme Court First Amendment case of Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969).

In that case, regarding speech at a KKK rally, the Court held that a state could only punish speech that “is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.” Brandenburg is famously a very high standard, and that is precisely where the universities are hiding: Despite the hundreds of anecdotal incidents from the last two months, and notwithstanding all of the well-known studies confirming that inflammatory discriminatory anti-Semitic rhetoric leads directly to anti-Semitic violence, officials are telling students and parents and now Congress that their hands are tied because, in most cases, there has not been direct enough incitement.

Campus Standards Are Different

Now, the truth is that even under the Brandenburg standard, schools can still impose reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions. As the Court in Grayned v. City of Rockford (1972) explained: “The crucial question is whether the manner of expression is basically incompatible with the normal activity of a particular place at a particular time.”

So even under that paradigm, any activities that disrupt the educational enterprise and functioning of a school may be restricted. Common sense dictates that rallies celebrating calls for anti-Semitic genocide disrupt the educational enterprise and functioning of a school because they leave some students genuinely fearful for their lives.

But that argument is also unnecessary, because Brandenburg is absolutely the wrong standard for schools to be using, and university presidents and lawyers need to correct that mistake as soon as possible.

In Tinker v. Des Moines (1969), the Supreme Court explained that the Constitution does allow for schools to shut down speech that will “materially and substantially interfere” with the “requirements of appropriate discipline” in the operation of the school” or that “invad[es] the rights of others.” That is the standard that these schools must now vigilantly enforce.

Of course, private colleges and universities, like Harvard, Penn, and MIT, can restrict certain speech, conduct, and demonstrations, in most cases, without triggering any constitutional issues. But even a public university is not a public street, and the rules for what speech must be allowed on each are very different.

The Supreme Court in Healy v. James (1972) cited Tinker to hold that university officials do not have to tolerate student activities that breach reasonable campus rules; interrupt the educational process; or interfere with other students’ rights to receive an education. (This is especially true when the student speech is happening in school-sponsored forums, or is reasonably perceived as somehow bearing the school’s imprimatur.)

The Court has also repeatedly held (in Bethel v. Fraser [1986] and Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier [1988]) that schools have even greater latitude to limit student expression if they can establish a “legitimate pedagogical concern.” Ensuring that all students — including Jewish students — have a safe and harassment-free environment in which to learn should be an overwhelmingly legitimate pedagogical concern.

Under the Tinker line of cases, schools do not even have to wait for a breach to actually occur; administrators can act if they can “reasonably forecast” that the expression in question would disrupt school discipline or operation, or violate the rights of other students. In Melton v. Young, for example, the Court ruled that schools could prohibit the wearing of a Confederate flag jacket because it was reasonable to assume that it would be disruptive in an environment of heightened racial tension.

Waving a Hamas flag and cheering on slaughter, as bodies are still being identified and hostages are still being held, announcing solidarity with the “resistance” and that “armed struggle” — i.e., murder —“is “legitimate,” and yes, calling for the genocide of Jews, are all behaviors that are no less likely to cause a disruption than a jacket.

Tinkering with Free Speech

Under Tinker, it is more than reasonable to forecast that there will be substantial disruptions that would violate the right of Jewish students to a non-hostile educational environment if groups are allowed to host events that glorify and celebrate the murder of Jews.

Schools can and must act now to prevent that from continuing to happen, using both common sense and the relevant case law to draw the appropriate line. The limits on the First Amendment are there to help the government with its primary responsibility —to protect all of its citizens from harm —and authorities must be constantly vigilant to enforce the law correctly.

Regardless, the answer to “what now?” then, is this: Everyone calling for change should articulate what that change is, and institutions fixing their policies should clearly explain how they will “tinker” with their free speech formulas so that the next time their leaders are asked if calling for a Jewish genocide is problematic, the answer can just be “yes.”

-Goldfeder, M. (2023g, December 13). Poison Ivies - Mishpacha Magazine. Mishpacha Magazine - The premier Magazine for the Jewish World. https://mishpacha.com/poison-ivies/

#antisemtism #colleges #campus #antisemitism on campus #harvard #mit #university of pennsylvania #jumblr

[jewish-vents]

i cant do this anymore

im a high schooler picking a college right now and i cannot find a single school that feels safe

every single place i have visited has a record of campus antisemitism and they have posters everywhere of “antizionist” messages (with immediately visible antisemitism) or free palestine stuff

and/or they dont offer kosher food or they dont have a rabbi on staff or they dont have a hillel or jewish student group

ive only found a few schools that are even somewhat jewish friendly and they are not really schools im interested in attending (its kinda my fault for being interested in a liberal arts school and the kids that go there are all political but i think i want to study jewish history and then be a rabbi maybe but im still deciding)

i feel so unsafe every campus i visit keeping an eye out for antisemitic posters asking if they have jewish student resources at multicultural centers (schools that have religious minority groups at all tend to only have muslim groups not jewish) looking at the hillel page seeing if there is food i can eat and checking out nearby synagogues to see if i could get there for services

im scared to be a jew in college and i dont know if i can do it

.

#jewish vents #antisemitism #antisemitism on campus #leftist antisemitism

[secular-jew]

This is 1936 Nazi Germany all over again, except supercharged by technology. The Nazis would be proud. And so would the Nazi's ally in Jerusalem, the leader of Islam in the period, the "Grand Mufti."

#Iran #Iranian #exiled Iranians #misogyny #Jew hatred #antisemtiam #columbia university #israel #secular-jew #jewish #judaism #israeli #jerusalem #diaspora #secular jew #secularjew #islam #muslim brotherhood #islamists #Islamic jihad #jihad #ayatollah khamenei #mullas #campus antisemitism #antisemitism on campus #mufti #grand mufti #Nazis #caliphate on campus #caliphate

[eretzyisrael]

#rep john james #antisemitism #mit #harvard #upenn #antisemitism on campus #education #Youtube

[mental-mona]

It's written as "pro-Israel/Zionist-free" zones, but in practice it amounts to the same thing as Jewish-free zones. Quick reminder: if you replace the word "Israelis/Zionists" in a statement with "Jews" and it sounds antisemitic, your statement is in fact antisemitic. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck, even if it's wearing a dog costume.

#antisemitism #antisemitic #anti israel #uc berkeley #antisemitism on campus #jumblr

[archtroop]

AMERICA YOU HAVE A PROBLEM.

#does the calling for the genocide of jews is against the code of conduct of your university? yes or no question #a fail in humanity to Penn Harvard and MIT #USA #antisemitism on campus #absolutely shameful #Youtube

[thecoffeelorian]

#news #cnn #shai davidai #antisemitism tw #antisemitism on campus #columbia university #israel hamas war #18+ account

[deaddee-anime-brownfanlady]

#antisemitism #important #signal boost #Tessa Veksler #antisemitism on colleges campuses #discrimination #I swear this shit is getting ridiculous and has gotten out of hand.... #Seriously I swear some of these Pro Palestine “ActIVists” are just using this conflict as an excuse to be pieces of shit. #While pretending to give a shit about the Middle East.... #antisemitism on campus #leftist antisemitism #antisemitism on the left

[headlinehorizon]

Harvard Alumni Demand Action Against Antisemitism on Campus

https://headlinehorizon.com/U.S./Crime/1288

A growing number of Jewish alumni and students at Harvard University are calling for the institution to crack down on antisemitism following anti-Israel protests on campus. Over 1,600 members of the Harvard College Jewish Alumni Association have signed an open letter condemning the protests and demanding recognition of their humanity. The alumni are urging Harvard to enforce its code of conduct, include antisemitism in its diversity framework, and provide training on the various manifestations of antisemitism.

#Harvard alumni #antisemitism on campus #anti-Israel protests #headline horizon #news #latest news

[that-rad-jewish-girl]

You only care about fighting antisemitism when it comes from white conservatives

#jewish #israel #pro israel #israel 🇮🇱 #jewblr #jumblr #hamas is evil #antisemites #you’re just antisemitic #antisemitism #leftist antisemitism #antisemitism on the left #antisemitism on campus #antisemitism on the right #queer antisemitism #lgbtqia antisemitism #i stand with israel #stand with israel

[fromgoy2joy]

I sat next to the protest today.

I wrote fan-fiction about two gay jewish dads raising children to the play list of the chant- "No peace on stolen land!" on an American college campus. It isn't a name brand one either, nor does it have any legitimate ties to Israel. The anger is just there- it has rotten these future doctors, nurses, teachers, and members of society.

I don't even know what to call their demonstration- it was a tizzy of a Jew hatred affair. At points, there were empathetic statements about Gazans and their suffering. Then outright support of Hamas and violent resistance against all colonizers. Then this bizarre fixation on antisemitism while explaining the globalists are behind everything.

"Antisemitism doesn't exist. Not in the modern day," A professor gloated over a microphone in front of the library. "It's a weaponized concept, that's prevents us from getting actual places- ignore anyone who tells you otherwise."

"How can we be antisemitic?" A pasty white girl wearing a red Jordanian keffiyeh gloats five minutes later. "Palestinians are the actual semites."

"there is only one solution!" The crowd of over 50 students and faculty cried, over and over.

"Been there, done that," I thought, then added a reference to a mezuza in the fourth paragraph.

Two other Jewish students passed where I was parked out, hunching and trying to be as innocuous as possible. We laughed together at my predicament, where I am willingly hearing this bullshit and feeling so amused by this.

"Am I crazy? For sitting here?" I asked them. My friends shook their heads.

"We did the same last week- it's an amazing experience, isn't it?”

We all cackled hysterically again. They left to study for finals. Two minutes later, I learned from the current speaker that “Zionism” is behind everything bad in this world.

Forty-five minutes in, a boy I recognized joined me on my lonely bench. He came from a very secular Jewish family and had joined Hillel recently to learn more about his culture. His first Seder was two nights ago.

He sat next to me, heavy like the weight of the world was on his shoulders. There was just this despondent look on his face. I couldn’t describe it anyone else, but just sheer hopelessness personified.

“They hate us. I can’t believe how much they hate us.” He said in greeting.

And for the first time all day, I had no snarky response or glib. All I could do was stare out into the crowd, and sigh.

#fromgoy2joy thoughts #jumblr #jewish #jewish convert #jewish tumblr #jewish conversion #jewblr #tw antisemtism #antisemitism #am israel chai #am yisroel chai #am yisrael chai #Jewish on campus #jewishness #judaism #antisemitism mention #leftist antisemitism #goyim don't touch

[dragoneyes618]

In a pivotal Congressional hearing last week that examined rampant anti-Semitism in some of the nation’s Ivy League universities, the presidents of Harvard, MIT and University of Pennsylvania shocked the world when they refused to affirm that calls for genocide of Jews in their respective institutions violate their schools’ code of conduct.

It was a profound moment of reckoning not only for the leaders of these elite institutions but for a society that looks to them as beacons of leadership. The hearing tore aside the veil masking spiraling anti-Semitic bigotry within these universities and the complicity of its leaders in allowing it to fester.

At the House Committee on Education hearing, Republicans showed footage of fierce anti-Israel protests at their schools, many of which included virulent hate speech toward Jews and calls for genocide.

Yet the Ivy League presidents being questioned appeared to inhabit their own bubble, disconnected from the alarming footage. They seemed to expect their defense of obscene Jew-hatred as protected “free speech” would win approval, if not in the halls of Congress then with grass-roots Americans.

Instead, “support for the presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and M.I.T. eroded quickly,” wrote the New York Times, “after they seemed to evade what seemed like a rather simple question: Would they discipline students calling for the genocide of Jews?”

Their responses “drew incredulous responses,” the Times article said, as a chorus of influential voices condemned the presidents’ failure to unequivocally denounce calls for the murder of Jews and to outlaw such conduct.

‘One Down, Two to Go’

As calls mounted for the resignation of the school presidents, including from alumni, members of Congress and billionaire donors who announced they were withdrawing their gifts, president Liz Magill of UPenn walked back her congressional testimony saying she hadn’t been “properly focusing.” The next day she announced that she was stepping down.

“One down, two to go,” commented Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-NY, who has led demands for accountability on the part of the three university administrators for their lack of “moral clarity and leadership.”

“This is only the very beginning of addressing the pervasive rot of antisemitism that has destroyed the most ‘prestigious’ higher education institutions in America,” said Stefanik. “This forced resignation of the president of UPenn is the bare minimum of what is required. These universities can anticipate a comprehensive Congressional investigation of all facets of their institutions’ perpetration of antisemitism. This includes administrative, faculty, funding, and overall leadership and governance.”

“Harvard and MIT, do the right thing. The world is watching,” she added.

Following the hearing, Rep. Stefanik announced that the House Education and Workforce Committee is “launching an official congressional investigation with the full force of subpoena power” into the three universities, among others.”

In addition, Stefanik led 73 members of Congress, from both the Republican and Democratic parties, in drafting a scathing letter to the boards of the three universities under investigation.

“I am proud to lead a bipartisan letter with Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-FL, and 72 of our colleagues to the members of the Governing Boards of Harvard, MIT, and Penn demanding that their presidents be removed after this week’s Education and Workforce Committee hearing,” Stefanik wrote.

“Testimony provided by presidents of your institutions showed a complete absence of moral clarity, and illuminated the double standards and dehumanization of the Jewish communities that your university presidents enabled,” the letter to the governing boards said.

“The leadership of top universities plays a pivotal role in shaping the moral compass of our future leaders,” the letter went on. “It is critically important that such leadership reflects a clear commitment to combating antisemitism, along with all forms of hate speech and bigotry.”

“Given this moment of crisis,” the letter said, “we demand that your boards immediately remove each of these presidents from their positions and that you provide an actionable plan to ensure that Jewish and Israeli students, teachers and faculty are safe on your campuses.”

Talk But No Action  

The hearing, “Holding Campus Leaders Accountable and Confronting Antisemitism,” began as both Republican and Democratic members of the House grilled the three female presidents, demanding to know how each has addressed the spike in antisemitism since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.

“Today, each of you will have a chance to answer, to atone for the many specific instances of vitriolic, hate-filled antisemitism on your respective campuses that have denied students the safe learning environment,” Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), chairwoman for the House Education Committee, told them in her opening statement.

Far from acknowledging that anti-Semitism had surged out of control under their watch, each president staunchly defended her record, proudly pointing to various measures she had taken to increase campus security and open investigations into anti-Semitic episodes.

Noticeably absent from these self-congratulatory remarks was any mention of actual penalties or disciplinary procedures meted out to students or faculty proven to have engaged in egregious anti-Semitic harassment. When questioned about what disciplinary measures are being employed, the presidents refused to answer.

Representative Elise Stefanik, R.-NY, zoned in on this glaring disconnect by repeatedly asking the presidents if calling for the genocide of Jews violated the code of conduct at their schools, and would they discipline a student engaged in this conduct?

Moral Imperatives Vanish When It’s About Anti-Semitism

All three danced around the question, throwing out legalistic catchphrases to avoid a direct answer. When finally cornered, the presidents insisted that everything depends on “context.” In other words, calls for violence against Jews are not inherently wrong or against school policy.

The following segment of the dialogue captures this shocking stance that sparked an intense backlash.

Rep Stefanik: President Magill, at Penn, does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Penn’s rules or code of conduct? Yes or no?”

UPenn President Liz Magill: If the speech turns into conduct, it can be harassment, yes.

Rep. Stefanik: I am asking whether specifically calling for the genocide of Jews, does that constitute bullying or harassment?”

Magill: If the speech becomes conduct, it can be harassment, yes.”

Stefanik: “Conduct” meaning committing the act of genocide?

Magill: It is a context-dependent question, congresswoman.”

Stefanik responded with shock.

“That’s your testimony today? Calling for the genocide of Jews is dependent on the context? It’s not bullying or harassment? This is the easiest question to answer yes for,” Stefanik said. She then threw the question at Harvard president Claudine Gay.

Stefanik:  And Dr. Gay, at Harvard, does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard’s rules of bullying and harassment? Yes or no?”

Gay: “It can be, depending on the context.”

Stefanik: Genocide that is targeted at Jewish students, Jewish individuals? I will ask you one more time. Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard’s rules of bullying and harassment? Yes or no?”

Gay: “Again, it depends on the context.”

“It does not depend on the context,” Stefanik shot back. “The answer is yes, and this is why you should resign. These are unacceptable answers across the board.”

Intense Backlash Against College Presidents

Stefanik, the fourth-ranking House Republican, was not the only one outraged by the moral obtuseness on display in the presidents’ responses. Their refusal to condemn calls for the murder of Jews drew fire from alumni, university donors, elected officials and influential commentators from across the political spectrum.

On a deeper level, the presidents’ response threw light on a corrosive atmosphere prevalent in leading universities today where time-honored moral and ethical principles have been eviscerated by woke and left-wing ideology.

Those immersed in this sea of indoctrination appear out of sync with the rest of the world. This might explain the bizarre disconnect in the exchanges between the Ivy League presidents and the members of congress at the hearing.

“It’s unbelievable that this needs to be said: Calls for genocide are monstrous and antithetical to everything we represent as a country,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates said. “Any statements that advocate for the systematic murder of Jews are dangerous and revolting — and we should all stand firmly against them, on the side of human dignity and the most basic values that unite us as Americans.”

“After this week’s pathetic and morally bankrupt testimony by university presidents when answering my questions, the Education and Workforce Committee is launching an official congressional investigation with the full force of subpoena power into Penn, MIT, Harvard, and others,” Rep. Elise Stefanik said in a statement.

“We will use our full congressional authority to hold these schools accountable for their failure on the global stage.”

Republican presidential candidate and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley posted the video of the interactions at the hearing online, saying such remarks by the college presidents “will end or we’ll pull their tax-exempt status.”

“Calling for genocide of Jews is no different than calling for genocide of any other ethnic, racial, or religious group. The equivocation from these college presidents is disgusting,” Haley said.

Private equity billionaire Marc Rowan wrote a message to UPenn trustees saying he heard from hundreds of alumni, parents and leaders who were shocked by the hearing. “The University is suffering tremendous reputational damage,” Rowan wrote in the message, obtained by CNN. “How much damage to our reputation are we willing to accept?”

‘The Three Behaved Like Hostile Witnesses’

Hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman called for the presidents of Harvard, MIT and the University of Pennsylvania to “resign in disgrace,” citing disgust with their testimony.

“Throughout the hearing, the three behaved like hostile witnesses,” Ackman wrote in an online post, “exhibiting a profound disdain for the Congress with their smiles and smirks, and their outright refusal to answer basic questions with a yes or no answer.”

Ackman, a Harvard graduate who has been a vocal critic of how universities have addressed antisemitism, posted a clip from the exchange at the hearing where the university leaders were asked about calls for the genocide of Jews.

“They must all resign in disgrace. If a CEO of one of our companies gave a similar answer, he or she would be toast within the hour,” Ackman said. “The answers they gave reflect the profound moral bankruptcy of Presidents Gay, Magill and Kornbluth.”

“Why has anti-Semitism exploded on campus and around the world? Because of leaders like Presidents Gay, Magill and Kornbluth who believe genocide depends on the context,” Ackman said.

The criticism of the university leaders was so strong that president Gay of Harvard and Magill of UPenn felt compelled to issue new statements attempting to “clarify” the testimony. These revamped assertions contradicted their earlier statements that threats of anti-Semitic violence did not automatically qualify as harassment.

In a brazen about face, Magill now termed calls for genocide “vile,” and vowed to hold perpetrators to account.

Gay made similar contrite retractions, saying she was “sad” that her words “had caused pain,” and affecting distress that critics were confusing her support for “the right to free expression with the idea that Harvard would condone calls for violence against Jewish students.”

Bomb Threats; Hillel and Chabad Houses Vandalized

Despite the illusions the Ivy League presidents tried to project of their administrations managing the anti-Semitic outbreaks on their campus, many Jewish students say they feel threatened daily, not just by fellow students but by faculty and staff as well, the Free Beacon reported.

“As a student, despite what my university says, I do not feel safe,” said University of Pennsylvania senior Eyal Yakoby. “Let me be clear: I do not feel safe.”

Yakoby described several incidents on campus since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks. They included “a bomb threat against Hillel; a swastika spray-painted on the Hillel building; the Chabad house vandalized; a professor posting an armed wing of Hamas’s logo on Facebook, a Jewish student accosted with hostility; and ‘Jews are Nazis’ etched adjacent to Penn’s Jewish fraternity house.”

He also referenced a Dec. 3 protest that saw participants vandalize school property with graffiti calling for an “intifada,” and chant in Arabic, “From water to water, Palestine will be Arab.”

Harvard Law School student Jonathan Frieden described the fear gripping many Jewish students. “I talk to my Jewish friends on campus every day,” he said. “They tell me how afraid they are to go to class. They share hate messages they are receiving from other students on social media, including comparing Jews to Nazis. And they ask each other for safety advice because of the lack of effective communication from the university.”

Frieden described an incident where pro-Palestinian protesters swarmed a law school building he was inside while they chanted slogans including “from the river to the sea” and “globalize the intifada.” He witnessed Jewish students take off their yarmulkes and one student hide underneath a desk, he said.

All four students also castigated their administrations, alleging that they failed to do anything meaningful to tackle the anti-Semitic climate on campus.

New Trend: Jewish High School Grads Abandon Ivy League Plans

An article in National Review, a conservative magazine, discusses a new trend among Jewish high school graduates in the wake of the anti-Semitism crisis on college campuses: a growing disenchantment with the Ivy League image.

Fueled by the specter of pervasive anti-Semitism and hostility in these schools, bright Jewish students are rethinking their Ivy League aspirations and turning to smaller, less prestigious colleges.

To take a few examples from one Ivy League school, since October 7, “Columbia has become a byword in American Jewish circles for rampant antisemitism,” the article noted. “In the past two months, an Israeli student was assaulted on campus, and people have screamed profanities at religious Jewish students.”

In another example, reports in an online paper noted that an Israeli student at Columbia, introducing himself on the first day of class, was targeted with an anti-Israel slur by a professor who asked him, “So you must know a lot about settler colonialism. How do you feel about that?”

Another academic reportedly observed to a Jewish student, “It’s such a shame that your people survived just in order to perpetuate genocide.”

Columbia’s apathy in the face of corrosive anti-Semitism has driven donors away, prompting the administration to do serious damage control to prove their concern for Jewish students’ safety, the National Review article noted. In early November, the school suspended Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a rabid pro-Palestinian group, for “threatening rhetoric and intimidation.”

Columbia graduate Anna Feldman told NR that even before October 7, she always felt she was walking around on “eggshells whenever the topic was Jewish people or Israel. I always felt like I couldn’t say what I had to say about Israel or the Middle East in general.”

She noted that the much publicized episodes of anti-Semitism at Columbia after Oct. 7 were nothing new to her. They were part of the university’s everyday landscape, driven by left-wing philosophies that target Israel—and Jews by association—as a source of evil.

Feldman said she refrained from writing essays touching on the Middle East out of fear of being branded a pro-Israel bigot or “pro-colonialism.” Conversations she’s had with Jewish students stuck in classes with professors justifying the Hamas massacres, are deeply unnerving.

“Thank G-d I’m no longer on campus,” Feldman reflected to the interviewer. “I don’t think I’d be able to sit in the same room with someone who wants me dead.”

*

American Colleges Unmasked

Columbia, Harvard University, and the University of Pennsylvania are all under investigation by the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights over complaints that their administrations have not adequately responded to rising antisemitism.

“The furor over antisemitism on campus is a rare and welcome example of accountability at American universities. But it won’t amount to much if the only result is the resignation of a couple of university presidents,” asserted a WSJ op-ed.

“The great benefit of last week’s performance by three elite-school presidents before Congress is that it tore the mask off the intellectual and political corruption of much of the American academy,” the article said.

“The world was appalled by the equivocation of the academic leaders when asked if advocating genocide against Jews violated their codes of conduct. But the episode merely revealed the value system that has become endemic at too many prestigious schools.”

*****

‘Deafening Silence’ Evokes Silent Complicity in Nazi Era

Last week’s explosive congressional hearing occurred just after an equally electrifying press conference, where House Republicans hosted Jewish students from many of the universities that have seen an alarming rise in antisemitism, The Hill reported.

“In 2023 at NYU, I hear calls to ‘gas the Jews,’ and I am told that ‘Hitler was right,’” Bella Ingber, a junior at NYU, told those in attendance.

“Since Oct. 7,” Ingber said, “the anti-Semitism I’ve experienced on campus is reminiscent of the Jew-hatred I’ve heard about from my grandparents, Holocaust survivors who experienced first-hand the deafening silence of their neighbors in Poland and Germany when the Nazis first rose to power.”

“70 percent of MIT Jewish students polled, feel forced to hide their identities and perspectives,” MIT graduate student Talia Kahn told the lawmakers. “This is not just harassment. This is our lives on the line,” added Kahn, who is also president of the MIT Israel Alliance.

She said she felt “immersed in an extremely toxic anti-Semitic atmosphere,” at MIT. “I was forced to leave my study group for my doctoral exams halfway through the semester because my group members told me that the people at the Nova music festival deserved to die because they were partying on stolen land.”

In an interview with Free Beacon, Talia Kahn shared that the school’s interfaith chaplain publicly threatened Jewish students; that DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) staff claimed Israel has no right to exist; and that faculty told students that if they are scared, they should “just go back to Israel.”

#antisemitism #jews #jumblr #antisemitism on campus #harvard #mit #columbia #university of pennsylvania

[jewish-vents]

the place I grew up is being completely overrun by antisemitism rn and it hurts so fucking much. my favorite bagel place had “Israeli baby killer” spraypainted in front of it (needless to say the owner is not even Israeli), the college my parents went to and that I dreamed of going to has had constant antisemitic protests (one of which involved the protestors calling Jewish students “pigs” and “fucking Jews” and breaking windows all because an Israeli was giving a talk) that the school’s doing apparently nothing about…even at the community college I go to I heard other students talking to each other about “those fucking Jews”. I don’t feel safe in a place I’ve always loved and wanted to be. it hurts so much.

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#jewish vents #antisemitism #leftist antisemitism #antisemitism on campus

[eretzyisrael]

#talia khan #mit #antisemitism on campus #Youtube