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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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Chicago Man Pleads Guilty to Battering Jewish DePaul University Students
Illustrative: Pro-Hamas protesters setting up an encampment at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois, United States, on May 5, 2024. Photo: Kyle Mazza via Reuters Connect
A Chicago-area man has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor battery charge he incurred last year for beating up Jewish pro-Israel students participating in a demonstration at DePaul University.
On Nov. 6, 2024, Adam Erkan, 20, approached Max Long and Michael Kaminsky in a ski mask while shouting antisemitic epithets and statements. He then attacked both students, fracturing Kaminsky’s wrist and inflicting a brain injury on Long, whom he pummeled into an unconscious state.
Law enforcement identified Erkan, who absconded to another location in a car, after his father came forward to confirm that it was his visage which surveillance cameras captured near the scene of the crime. According to multiple reports, the assailant avoided severer criminal penalties by agreeing to plead guilty to lesser offenses than the felony hate crime counts with which he was originally charged.
His accomplice, described as a man in his age group, remains at large.
“One attacker has now admitted guilt for brutally assaulting two Jewish students at DePaul University. That is a step toward justice, but it is nowhere near enough,” The Lawfare Project, a Jewish civil rights advocacy group which represented the Jewish students throughout the criminal proceedings, said in a statement responding to the plea deal. “The second attacker remains at large, and Max and Michael continue to experience ongoing threats. We demand — and fully expect — his swift arrest and prosecution to ensure justice for these students and for the Jewish community harmed by this antisemitic hate crime.”
Antisemitic incidents on US college campuses have exploded nationwide since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel.
Just last month, members of Toronto Metropolitan University’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter spilled blood and caused the hospitalization of at least one Jewish student after forcibly breaching a venue in which the advocacy group Students Supporting Israel had convened for an event featuring veterans of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
The former soldiers agreed to meet Students Supporting Israel (SSI) to discuss their experiences at a “private space” on campus which had to be reserved because the university denied the group a room reservation and, therefore, security personnel that would have been afforded to it. However, someone leaked the event location, leading to one of the most violent incidents of campus antisemitism in recent memory.
By the time the attack ended, three people had been rushed to a local medical facility for treatment of injuries caused by a protester’s shattering the glazing of the venue’s door with a drill bit, a witness, student Ethan Elharrar, told The Algemeiner during an interview.
“One of the individuals had a weapon he used, a drill bit. He used it to break and shatter the door,” Elharrar said. “Two individuals were transported to the hospital because of this. One was really badly cut all his arms and legs, and he had to get stitches. Another is afraid to publicly disclose her injuries because she doesn’t want anything to happen to her.”
The previous month, masked pro-Hamas activists nearly raided an event held on the campus of Pomona College, based in Claremont, California, to commemorate the victims of the Oct. 7. massacre.
Footage of the act which circulated on social media showed the group attempting to force its way into the room while screaming expletives and pro-Hamas dogma. They ultimately failed due to the prompt response of the Claremont Colleges Jewish chaplain and other attendees who formed a barrier in front of the door to repel them, a defense they mounted on their own as campus security personnel did nothing to stop the disturbance.
Pomona College, working with its sister institutions in the Claremont consortium of liberal arts colleges in California (5C), later identified and disciplined some of the perpetrators and banned them from its campus.
In Ann Arbor, Michigan, law enforcement personnel were searching for a man who trespassed the grounds of the Jewish Resource Center and kicked its door while howling antisemitic statements.
“F—k Israel, f—k the Jewish people,” the man — whom multiple reports describe as white, “college-age,” and possibly named “Jake” or “Jay” — screamed before running away. He did not damage the property, and he may have been accompanied by as many as two other people, one of whom shouted “no!” when he ran up to the building.
Around the same time, at Ohio State University, an unknown person or group tacked neo-Nazi posters across the campus which warned, “We are everywhere.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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US Lawmakers Advance Bill to Designate Muslim Brotherhood as Terrorist Organization
US Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL) talks with reporters outside a meeting of the House Republican Conference at the US Capitol on Dec. 20, 2024. Photo: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
The US House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday advanced legislation to designate the entire Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, continuing a bipartisan push in Washington to combat the global Islamist network.
Members of the committee voted to approve the bill on a bipartisan basis, with every Republican and several Democrats supporting the measure just over a week after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing his administration to determine whether to designate certain chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood as foreign terrorist organizations and specially designated global terrorists.
Notably, the legislation would require the US government to proscribe the Islamist network globally, while Trump’s order more narrowly directs Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to submit a report “on whether to designate any Muslim Brotherhood chapters, such as those in Lebanon, Egypt, and Jordan.”
The legislation considered on Wednesday was spearheaded by Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL) and Jared Moskowitz (D-FL).
“I am pleased that my bill to designate the entire Muslim Brotherhood globally as a terrorist organization has been approved by the full committee. This is a step in the right direction and further amplifies other efforts, like those of President Trump, to take decisive action against this insidious threat,” Diaz-Balart said in a statement.
“I thank Chairman [Rep. Brian Mast] for his leadership and the committee for advancing this bill to protect US national security interests and Americans by prohibiting US dollars from enabling the Muslim Brotherhood’s dangerous and pernicious activities while ensuring that MB members are blocked from entering the United States,” he continued.
Moskowitz similarly praised the committee for advancing the bill to a broader debate by the full House of Representatives.
“For decades, the Brotherhood has been tied to extremism and instability across the Middle East and around the world,” he said in a statement. “Other nations have already taken steps to investigate the Brotherhood and its affiliates, and the United States must have the authority to do the same.”
The Muslim Brotherhood, a transnational movement active in some 70 countries that preaches a vision of society governed by Sharia law, has been banned or designated as a terrorist group by several governments, including those in Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain. The Palestinian terrorist group Hamas has long been affiliated with the Brotherhood, drawing both ideological inspiration and even personnel from its ranks.
The US House version of the bill blacklisting the Muslim Brotherhood, HR 4397, was introduced in July. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) introduced the companion Senate bill, S 2293, backed by a group of Republican co-sponsors. Together, the measures aim to push the president and secretary of state to identify the Brotherhood and all its branches worldwide as terrorist entities, a move that supporters say would close longstanding gaps in US counterterrorism policy and more closely align Washington’s stance with that of key Middle Eastern allies.
The legislation would expand the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1987 to explicitly include the Muslim Brotherhood, blocking its network from operating in the United States and imposing broad visa bans on individuals tied directly or indirectly to any of its global branches. The bill would require the State Department to map out every affiliated group worldwide and assess each for formal terrorist designation, effectively placing the entire Brotherhood ecosystem under unprecedented US scrutiny.
The measure outlines a direct connection between the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideological infrastructure and the terrorist groups it has inspired, including Hamas, whose terrorist activity remains at the forefront of US, Israeli, and European security concerns. Counterterrorism experts argue that targeting the Muslim Brotherhood’s sprawling network is an overdue step to combat the roots of Islamist extremism.
A recent report by the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) found that Qatar has funneled roughly $20 billion into American schools and universities over five decades as part of a coordinated, 100-year project to embed Muslim Brotherhood ideologies in the US.
The 200-page report, unveiled in Washington, DC to members of Congress, chronicles a 50-year effort by Brotherhood-linked groups to embed themselves in American academia, civil society, and government agencies, exposing what ISGAP calls the Brotherhood’s “civilization jihad” strategy, while maintaining an agenda fundamentally at odds with liberal democratic values.
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Australia Sees Continued Surge in Antisemitic Attacks as Jewish Leaders Warn of Global Threat
Protesters gather to walk across the Sydney Harbor Bridge during the Palestine Action Group’s March for Humanity in Sydney, Australia, Aug. 3, 2025. Photo: AAP/Dean Lewins via REUTERS
Antisemitic incidents in Australia remained at “unprecedentedly high levels” over the past year, as the country’s Jewish community faced a relentless wave of hostility and targeted attacks, according to a new report released on Tuesday
The report, published by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), said the country recorded 1,654 antisemitic incidents during the 12-month period from Oct. 1, 2024, to Sept. 30, 2025.
Even though this figure marked a 20-percent drop from the previous year, it still represented about five times the annual average recorded in the decade before the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Across the country, Jews and Israelis have reported a surge of anti-Jewish hatred and antisemitic incidents — from defaced murals and vandalized businesses to physical assaults and death threats.
Community leaders have warned that the wave of attacks has shown no signs of abating, fueled by rising tensions over the war in Gaza and what they described as the Australian government’s mounting hostility toward Israel.
Over the past year, the local Jewish community has suffered firebombings of synagogues, schools, and homes; threats from two nurses who allegedly planned to kill Jewish patients; and the discovery of a trailer packed with explosives, reportedly intended for a mass-casualty attack on a Sydney synagogue.
This fraught environment has only worsened following Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s recognition of a Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly in September, further straining relations with the country’s Jewish community.
In one of the most recent controversies, the Stonnington City Council in Melbourne’s southeast delayed approval for a public menorah on Thursday, just days before Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, prompting outrage from Jewish leaders and local residents.
During a heated council debate, members voted to defer a motion to install a large public menorah — meaning it will not be set up in time for the Jewish holiday, which begins on Dec. 14 — sparking accusations of antisemitism and claims that the delay was a “ploy to shut it down.”
Following ECAJ’s newly released report, members of the J7 Large Communities’ Task Force Against Antisemitism decried the surge in antisemitic incidents, saying it reflects a global pattern that threatens Jewish communities worldwide.
The task force, which brings together major Jewish organizations from Argentina, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States, coordinates responses to rising anti‑Jewish hate.
For the first time ever, Jewish leaders from the world’s seven largest diaspora communities traveled to Sydney on Wednesday for the J7 Task Force Summit in Australia, coming together to address the rising tide of antisemitism in the country.
“What is happening in Australia is not an exception; it should be a wake-up call to communities worldwide,” Marina Rosenberg, senior vice president for International Affairs at the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), said in a statement.
“Across North America, Europe and Latin America, Jewish communities are reporting the same pattern of unprecedented harassment, threats and incitement,” she continued. “When synagogues can be firebombed in Melbourne and Jews threatened and attacked in New York, London, Paris, Berlin, Buenos Aires and Toronto, this is a threat not only to Jewish safety but to democratic stability itself.”
Among all J7 countries, Australia saw the sharpest rise in antisemitic incidents between 2021 and 2024, with the most serious attacks — including arson targeting synagogues, preschools, and other Jewish institutions — reaching record levels.
ECAJ’s report also warned of a dangerous convergence of ideological extremes, noting an “increasing ideological alignment” between neo-Nazis, the anti-Israel left, and Islamists in their “shared hatred of Jews and Zionists.”
According to the report, these groups are “more active, more emboldened” than ever in seeking to obstruct any initiative that challenges their antisemitism.
“We are now at a stage where anti-Jewish racism has left the fringes of society, where it is normalized and allowed to fester and spread, gaining ground at universities, in arts and culture spaces, in the health sector, in the workplace and elsewhere,” ECAJ President Daniel Aghion said in a statement.