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Alleging exclusion, Jewish faculty boycott James Madison University’s Holocaust commemoration event
(JTA) — An event that took place at a Virginia university Thursday night to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day was scheduled to feature lectures about the legacies of Auschwitz and the intersection between white supremacy and antisemitism. There was also a planned recitation of a poem and a musical performance.
Not on the docket at James Madison University: support for the event from the school’s Jewish faculty and staff.
Dozens of them announced in an open letter that they would boycott the event, titled “An Evening Conversation on the History and Legacy of the Holocaust,” citing concerns about its appropriateness. Of particular concern, according to multiple people familiar with the situation, was a planned performance by the university’s provost, a pianist, during a segment titled “Music as Refuge in the Holocaust.”
“There was no refuge for those targeted by the ‘Final Solution,’” said the open letter, which was unsigned but said it had the support of “24 of Jewish JMU Faculty, Faculty Emeriti, and Staff.”
The letter, which the school’s student newspaper The Breeze published Thursday morning, said the planning of the Holocaust event had “disrespected and disparaged Jewish individuals, dismissed Jewish participation and failed to reflect the inclusive values that JMU purports to foster.” The letter criticized the university’s decision to invite keynote speakers from other universities and the rabbi of a neighboring community to give a community address, rather than centering James Madison personnel or the local rabbi.
That rabbi, Jeffrey Kurtz-Lendner of Beth El Congregation of Harrisonburg, said the event had been planned with little to no input from Jews, and that three Jews who were added to the planning committee late in the process later resigned en masse.
In an interview, Kurtz-Lendner compared the event to “a Martin Luther King observance planned by an entire committee of white people.” He said he was joining the boycott and not encouraging his congregants, who include James Madison professors, to attend. He said the rabbi listed on the original program, from a Reform synagogue about 30 miles away in Staunton, would not attend, either.
“The program looks wholly insensitive,” he said. “Instead of being a commemoration of the Holocaust, it looks like it’s turning into an opportunity for celebration.”
That idea appeared to be rooted in the inclusion of music during the event. Maura Hametz, the Jewish chair of the university’s history department, said she had successfully argued against including instrumental music during last year’s commemoration, citing prohibitions in Jewish tradition against instrumental music in times of mourning.
“Biblically we don’t use instrumental music, as Jews,” to commemorate the Holocaust, she said. “If you use the instruments, it’s a celebration.” The proposal to include a musical interlude, she said, also had a history in “medieval church music, so that doesn’t track with what is good for us.”
The belief that Holocaust commemorations cannot include music is not universally held; some commemorations have featured music written by Jewish composers as acts of resistance or remembrance. International Holocaust Remembrance Day was created by the United Nations in 2005 as a way to mourn all victims of the Holocaust, distinct from Yom HaShoah, the Jewish holiday that takes place in April and was established by the Israeli government to commemorate specifically Jewish Holocaust victims.
Still, Hametz had made the case against music last year, so when she saw that this year’s event was again scheduled to include musical selections, she said, “It did surprise me.” She ultimately decided to boycott the event and sign the open letter.
The boycott was supported by one of the university centers sponsoring the event, the Mahatma Gandhi Center for Global Nonviolence. Its director, Taimi Castle, issued a statement to the student newspaper saying the center would “spend time reflecting on how we can support the Jewish community at JMU in addressing the harm caused by these actions.”
A James Madison University spokesperson said Thursday that the event itself was still scheduled to proceed as intended that evening. The university said it had reached out to “a spokesperson for this group” of critics and planned to hold a meeting “to gain further understanding and collectively work on a path forward.”
The episode comes amid broad questions about the role of Jews in efforts to promote diversity and inclusion in universities and workplaces. Jewish critics of the emerging field of diversity, equity and inclusion have charged that antisemitism is not always treated as similarly offensive to racism or homophobia, despite also being rooted in hatred based on identity. The Jewish open letter signers also cited a recent statewide report on antisemitism in Virginia as reason to take their concerns about Jewish representation at the university seriously.
James Madison’s Holocaust Remembrance Day event was sponsored in part by the university’s equity and inclusion office, and the associate provost for inclusive strategies and equity initiatives was scheduled to deliver opening remarks and also moderate a question-and-answer session at the event’s end.
“This event is to create an opportunity for people to learn about the lived experiences of others and honor the Holocaust Remembrance Day through educational and solemn means,” Malika Carter-Hoyt, the school’s vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion, said in a statement provided to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. The statement did not mention Jews or antisemitism.
Carter-Hoyt said she hadn’t received “any notice about these concerns” prior to the letter.
“I acknowledge the letter and express compassion toward the concerns outlined by faculty,” Carter-Hoyt said. But she also defended the planning and suggested that having Jews on the planning committee had not been a specific university priority.
“Committee members were selected based on substantive expertise and commitment to the creation of an event that properly marks the occasion,” she wrote. “No one was included or excluded explicitly based on a particular protected characteristic.”
James Madison University, located in Harrisonburg, is a public college with about 21,000 students. About 1,200 of them are Jewish, according to Hillel International, which offers some services on campus but does not have a building or rabbi there. Efforts to reach anyone affiliated with JMU Hillel were unsuccessful. The chapter’s vice president was listed as a participant on the evening’s program, scheduled to read a poem by Primo Levi, an Italian Holocaust survivor.
The school also does not have a Jewish studies department, despite what Hametz said had been extensive lobbying by faculty members to establish one. Alan Berger, who launched Jewish studies departments at Syracuse and Florida Atlantic universities, was billed as a keynote speaker at the event Thursday.
James Madison’s provost Heather Coltman, who was scheduled to play piano at the Holocaust memorial event and also previously worked at Florida Atlantic University, has an uneasy relationship with the school’s faculty. This week the faculty senate sought to condemn her for reportedly retaliating against the authors of a report on transparency at the school.
While there are courses taught on Jewish topics, the lack of a separate department means that Jewish representation on campus is limited, Hametz said.
“There is no spokesperson here for the Jewish community,” she said. “There’s no central voice to say, ‘Hey, why is this happening? How is it possible that you go ahead with a Holocaust event with no Jewish people on the committee?’”
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The post Alleging exclusion, Jewish faculty boycott James Madison University’s Holocaust commemoration event appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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The San Diego imam defended Oct. 7. His mosque still deserves our help
Jewish leaders and institutions like the ADL correctly expressed sympathy and support after Monday’s fatal shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego.
That really upset some people.
“Just remember the people who attend this mosque want us all to be killed,” Laura Loomer posted to X.
Loomer is an extremist, and it would be easy to dismiss her words as the fringe. But she does advise the president of the United States, and hundreds of social media posts echoed her opinion.
Many of them pointed out that 13 days after the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, Islamic Center Imam Taha Hassane gave a talk in which he told his congregation, “When people are occupied, then the resistance is justified — it becomes a human right.”
“We cannot accuse someone who is fighting for his life to be a terrorist,” he added. “The terrorist is the one who started the occupation, not the one who is defending himself.”
In the same sermon, Hassane said that American minds were poisoned by media influenced by “Zionist sources” to hate Islam, and that “the Zionist propaganda machine” bore some responsibility for the 2023 murder of an 8-year-old Muslim boy in Chicago at the hands of a mentally unstable, Islamophobic, non-Jewish man.
Some of them also noted that two months later, Hassane’s wife, Lallia Allali, was asked to resign from the community advisory board of The San Diego Union-Tribune and resigned from a teaching position at the University of San Diego after it came to light that she had posted an image on her Facebook account of a Star of David decapitating five babies, with the caption, “The devil is killing.”
All of this is bad. None of it justifies or excuses yesterday’s violence.
Too many of us, it seems, find it hard to understand that justifying acts of violence against those who disagree with you gives them ample reason to do the same to you.
‘We don’t need to agree’
“We do not need to agree on everything to stand firmly against violence,” Rabbi Jason Navarez of Congregation Beth Israel of San Diego posted to Instagram following Monday’s attack. “The Jewish community knows all too well the vulnerability that comes when sacred space is violated. That experience should not harden our hearts, but deepen our capacity to stand with others.”
The fact is that Jewish and Muslim Americans, despite our political differences, both face the threat of political violence and hate crimes.
Jewish and Muslim houses of worship are both disproportionately targeted for violence. Jewish congregations make up just 3.2% of all congregations nationwide, but account for 22% of the attacks against houses of worship, according to a 2023 A-Mark Foundation study. (I was CEO of the A-Mark Foundation at the time of this research.) Just 0.6% of religious congregations nationwide are Muslim, yet attacks against mosques and Islamic centers account for 17% of the attacks.
Inside the vehicles of the two teenagers believed to have opened fire on the Islamic Center, killing three people before taking their own lives, authorities found gasoline cans decorated with Nazi insignia and hate literature. Muslims and Jews in this country face a common menace in the kind of hate that appears to have influenced these teens — and there are far more useful ways of fighting it than, as Loomer would have it, blaming each other.
Work to do together
First and foremost: Stop justifying violence, period. Stop glorifying terror. Stop demonizing groups other than your own. Whether from the pulpit or on social media accounts, religious leaders need to set an example.
I get the anger, fear and distrust over the imam’s statements following Oct. 7 — that’s human. But the Jewish leaders that condemned the shooting and offered support were right to do so in spite of his words — that’s humanity.
Part of me hopes that the connections made because of that solidarity, following this tragedy, will create a new opening for mutual respect. Maybe, maybe not. What should certainly come out of it is an awareness that we have a common enemy, and a common struggle.
Here’s where to start:
•Help the victims. Attacks on houses of worship are now terrifyingly common. The A-Mark report counted 59 attacks between 2012 and 2022 — and things have gotten worse since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel, and the subsequent war in Gaza. Inevitably, society moves on. But even if there are no dead or wounded, the scars linger. “The aftermath is just devastating,” Rabbi Jen Lader of Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Mich. — which recently weathered a ramming attack — told NPR. Muslims and Jews can work together to offer lasting support for victims of such violence: volunteering and donating to help rebuild damaged buildings and supporting congregants in their physical and emotional healing.
• Secure our institutions. As the attack was unfolding, leaders of Jewish Federations of North America were in Washington. D.C. seeking $1 billion in security funding for houses of worship of all faiths. This is lobbying Jews and Muslims can do together, including standing together against the administration’s conditioning of security funding on cooperation with Immigration and Custom Enforcement activities.
• Advocate for stronger gun laws. This may be the most Pollyanna-ish of all suggestions, but safe storage and gun lock laws are common in many countries, all of which have far fewer mass shootings than the U.S. It’s a cause Muslim and Jewish clergy can join in on pushing for.
• Finally, hold tech companies responsible for hate. More than half of all Americans have experienced harassment on social media, according to the ADL. Meta and TikTok’s own whistleblowers have said the companies promote hate to increase profits. Their algorithm “maximizes profits at the expense of their audience’s wellbeing,” they told the BBC. A Muslim-Jewish campaign to crack down on tech platforms that profit off hate groups and set their algorithms to push conflict could help make us all safer.
The teenagers who opened fire on the Islamic Center of San Diego didn’t care what the imam said about Gaza. They saw Muslims, and they wanted them dead — the same way the Pittsburgh and Poway shooters saw Jews. Our enemies are not making the distinctions we make about each other. Maybe it’s time we stopped making them too.
The post The San Diego imam defended Oct. 7. His mosque still deserves our help appeared first on The Forward.
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An op-ed compared an NBA team to Israel as underdog success stories. Then the threats poured in.
With the reigning champion Oklahoma City Thunder fighting to return to the NBA Finals, one bold writer dug deep for an analogy: The Thunder, he wrote, is like the state of Israel — a former underdog now despised for its success.
The Oklahoman, a daily newspaper, published the opinion column on its website Monday morning, hours before the Thunder began their semifinal series against the San Antonio Spurs. The story was accompanied by an image of a basketball with the Israeli flag painted on it.
It did not survive to the game’s opening tip; by then, The Oklahoman had taken the article down without comment, amid waves of online ridicule that came from well beyond Oklahoma, from readers who saw Israel as unworthy of the comparison.
Amid the uproar, The Oklahoman distanced itself from the piece. Its executive editor, Ray Rivera, said in a statement sent to the Forward that the column had been “mistakenly published because our approval policies were not followed.”
“After further review, our team determined the content did not align with our opinion standards,” the statement continued. “We’re strengthening our review process to prevent future errors and deeply regret any distress this may have caused.”
The writer, a freelance contributor named Eitan Reshef, had intended to flatter. Reshef wrote that he was both Jewish and Oklahoman, and couldn’t shake the similarities in his rooting interests.
When Israel was attacked on Oct. 7, 2023, the Thunder were coming off of a season in which the team had finished with a losing record. But they have grown into one of the league’s titans since then — during which time Israel has been at war virtually without pause.
Some fans have criticized Thunder players for their penchant for earning free throws, regarding the tactic as unsportsmanlike.
Reshef wrote that he was proud of both Israel and his favorite team for persisting over the din of their critics.
“The Thunder are not hated because they somehow gamed the system,” Reshef wrote. “They are hated because they mastered it. Israel is not obsessively scrutinized because it failed, but due to its success despite deeply-rooted envy and darker historical motives.”
Many were quick to point out other reasons Israel is hated, but they weren’t the ones Reshef had in mind. “My tally has Chet Holmgren guilty of zero baby murders,” wrote one critic on Bluesky. Jeopardy! host Ken Jennings piled on, joking on the same social media platform that Reshef had suggested that “it’s antisemitic to not root for the OKC Thunder.”
Reshef told the Forward he had expected to get some blowback for the piece. But he was not prepared for the deluge of personal attacks he received.
Reshef shared screenshots of messages he received on social media and via email, calling him various profanities. “I hope you feel shame,” one wrote in a direct message, adding that he should be institutionalized. An X user, tagging Reshef in a public post, wrote, “Don’t let me find you.” The same user previously posted that “now we know why Hitler killed Jews.”
And in the comments of the Oklahoman’s Facebook post, Reshef saw one person he knew from his childhood. “‘I grew up with the guy who wrote it. He’s a moron,’” Reshef said the comment read. “This is someone I haven’t spoken to in 25 years, and actually, I would have thought he was my friend. But I guess he’s not.”
Reshef, who works in marketing, had never written an article for publication before. But after coming up with the idea, he wrote the column and submitted it to the Oklahoman via email. He received a reply from an editor he declined to name, which said that the newspaper planned to run it online Monday and in print next week. Reshef was not paid for the piece.
The Oklahoman did not consult or inform him about taking down the piece, he said, and had not replied to his email seeking explanation. And he was not sure whether he was disappointed that the newspaper had removed it, considering that perhaps its editors had been looking out for his safety.
This isn’t the first time anti-Israel sentiment has resounded among basketball fans.
The league’s most prominent Israeli player, Deni Avdija, was frequently the target of anti-Israel and even antisemitic hate from basketball fans online amid his own recent playoff success. And the Thunder itself is known as an Israel-friendly team: star Chet Holmgren was once mockingly nicknamed “Chetanyahu” for practicing in a gym where an Israeli flag hung.
The Thunder are once again the underdog, having lost Monday’s game in double-overtime.
Whether on the team’s record or on Israel’s, Reshef he had no regrets about what he had written.
“We can disagree with each other — we should disagree with each other,” he said. “I treasure that value. I’m willing to step up to the plate, talk to anybody, just talk to me. But to make personal attacks on me, as if you know me, or make threats. It’s frightening that that’s the world that we live in right now.”
The post An op-ed compared an NBA team to Israel as underdog success stories. Then the threats poured in. appeared first on The Forward.
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Trump national Shabbat divides America’s Jews ahead of National Mall prayer rally
(JTA) — As part of a 250th anniversary celebration of the United States, President Donald Trump is calling on Americans to pray together in a nine-hour marathon on the National Mall Sunday featuring a host of Christian speakers — and one rabbi.
But first, Trump is calling on Jews to mark Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest from sundown Friday to nightfall Saturday, and encouraging other Americans to consider embracing the ritual as well.
“In special honor of 250 glorious years of American independence and on the weekend of Rededicate 250 — a national jubilee of prayer, praise, and thanksgiving — Jewish Americans are encouraged to observe a national Sabbath,” Trump said in his Jewish American Heritage Month proclamation on May 4.
“From sundown on May 15 to nightfall on May 16, friends, families, and communities of all backgrounds may come together in gratitude for our great Nation,” he continued. “This day will recognize the sacred Jewish tradition of setting aside time for rest, reflection, and gratitude to the Almighty.”
The call marked the first time that an American president has formally urged the celebration of Shabbat. Trump’s daughter Ivanka, who converted to Judaism before marrying Jared Kushner, now a prominent Trump advisor, reportedly observes Shabbat according to traditional interpretations of Jewish law.
Trump’s call echoes the legacy of conservative Christian activist Charlie Kirk, who was fatally shot in September. Kirk’s book detailing his own observance of a “Jewish Sabbath” every week was published posthumously.
The exhortation has received mixed reviews from the American Jewish community. Some Jews have said they appreciate the gesture and recognition of a central tradition to Judaism, and even are promoting their own Shabbat services as part of “Shabbat 250.”
Others say Trump is appropriating Judaism to promote conservative political goals and Christian nationalism, a movement backed by a portion of Trump’s base that scholars say could push the country in a direction that is less hospitable to Jews.
Support for the initiative has been strongest among Orthodox Jews, who tend to be more politically conservative. Rabbi Josh Joseph, executive vice president of the Orthodox Union, endorsed Trump’s call soon after it was made.
“This weekend, following President Trump’s encouragement, we will mark Shabbat 250,” he said in a statement earlier this week. “We will pause to acknowledge all the blessings that the Almighty has provided American Jews through the unique devotion to liberty embedded in this nation.”
Some Orthodox synagogues, including many affiliated with the Chabad Hasidic movement, have announced “Shabbat 250” programming, such as dinners and special speakers. The group Young Jewish Conservatives, meanwhile, doled out $180 grants to conservative Jews under 35 who committed to hosting at least five people for a Shabbat dinner in their homes.
More than 7,500 people have declared on a new website, Shabbat250.org, their intention to observe Shabbat. Some Orthodox commentators tied Trump’s proclamation to the week’s Torah portion, which describes how the Israelites, having been freed from Egypt, took a census of themselves in the desert as their new nation came into focus.
“Today we celebrate the numbers, the 250th anniversary, but like a census, this milestone must also be a springboard from which to consider where America is going,” wrote Jonathan Feldstein, president of the Genesis 123 Foundation, a nonprofit that aims to build ties between Jews and Christians, on his Substack.
On the other side, Rabbi Jonah Pesner of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism is among the faith leaders scheduled to participate in a virtual event Friday morning that organizers say will “explain why so many religious Americans of diverse faiths are alarmed and alienated by attempts to use America’s 250th birthday as an opportunity to frame the US as a ‘Christian nation’ and to misrepresent the approach to religious tolerance and freedom adopted by our founders and Constitution.”
The perspective is shared widely on the Jewish left, where many leaders say it is inappropriate and harmful for Trump to involve himself in Shabbat.
“When the state meddles in our sacred affairs, blurring the already fuzzy lines between church and state, it doesn’t elevate the Sabbath; it diminishes the democracy that 250 years of history were supposed to protect,” Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie of the progressive Lab/Shul wrote in a blog post Wednesday. “I suggest we each adapt this ‘National Shabbat’ in our own unique way – not because a leader commanded it, but because our humanity demands it.”
The debate comes ahead of the prayer rally planned for the National Mall on Sunday. The event, called Rededicate 250, is organized by a nonprofit called Freedom 250, which is advertising an event lineup featuring Christian music as well as “Freedom Trucks” that provide educational material provided by the conservative advocacy group PragerU and the Christian classical school Hillsdale College.
Organizers are also promoting performances by U.S. military bands as well as participation from several Trump administration officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Trump himself is set to appear by video, and House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, will also take the stage.
Of the 33 prayer leaders set to appear, about half are of evangelical or non-denominational evangelical Christian practice. Baptist, Catholic and Seventh Day Adventist speakers will also speak.
The only non-Christian speaker on the lineup is Rabbi Meir Soloveichik, an Orthodox rabbi and senior scholar at the Tikvah Fund, a politically conservative Jewish think tank, who also sits on the Religious Liberty Commission that Trump created last year.
Rachel Laser, the Jewish CEO of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, denounced the rally as part of a rising tide of Christian nationalism.
“If President Trump and his allies truly cared about America’s legacy of religious freedom, they would be celebrating church-state separation as the unique American invention that has allowed religious diversity to flourish in our country,” she said in a statement. “Instead, they continue to threaten this foundational principle by advancing a Christian Nationalist crusade to impose one narrow version of Christianity on all Americans.”
The rally comes as Americans are growing more appreciative of religion, even if they do not necessarily practice any themselves. A new Pew Research Center report out this week shows that an increasing minority of American adults say religion is “gaining influence in American life” and more than half of Americans say religion plays a positive role in society.
The proportion of Americans who believe Christianity should be declared the official religion of the United States has grown slightly in recent years and now stands at 17%, according to the survey. A much larger proportion of Americans, 43%, said they believe Christianity should not be an official religion but that the government should promote Christian moral values.
The White House will host a reception to mark the start of Shabbat 250 late Friday afternoon.
The attention to Shabbat jolted by Trump’s proclamation has spurred a wave of non-political attention to Shabbat, too. The writer Daniella Greenbaum Davis, for example, explained rabbinic teachings in a column in the Washington Post urging non-Jews to consider adopting Shabbat as a mindfulness practice.
“Shabbat is a Jewish tradition,” Davis wrote. “But the case for a weekly day of rest, taking a formal break from worldly concerns, is universal.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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