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An Open Letter From MIT Jewish Alumni and Allies on Campus Antisemitism
Dear President Kornbluth, Provost Barnhart, Chancellor Nobles, and members of the MIT Corporation:
We are a growing group of MIT Jewish alumni and MIT allies writing to express our alarm over the Congressional testimony of President Kornbluth of December 5, 2023; the subsequent public relations fallout; and the continued failure of the MIT administration to address the growing antisemitism on MIT’s campus.
Calls for genocide of any group of people, including Jews, constitute bullying and harassment. Such calls originating from MIT’s campus should never be tolerated by the MIT administration and should instead be met with swift disciplinary consequences.
Yet, during the Congressional testimony of December 5, 2023, President Kornbluth implied that calls for genocide of Jews may not constitute bullying and harassment under MIT’s code of conduct, depending on context. Protecting violent antisemitic rhetoric on MIT’s campus, rather than Jewish victims of such rhetoric, sends a strong signal to the rest of the world that violent words of hate are acceptable, at least as they relate to the Jewish people. Understandably, President Kornbluth’s testimony was met with a public uproar.
However, even in view of the disastrous Congressional testimony by President Kornbluth, the executive board of the MIT Corporation chose to extend its full support to the President in its public statement made on December 7, 2023. This is in contrast to the decision by the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, who, in their efforts to limit reputational damage from the Congressional hearings, accepted the resignation of President Elizabeth Magill and the Chair of the Board of Trustees Scott Bok on December 9, 2023. Notably, President Kornbluth was the only university president that did not issue any apology or clarification in response to the intense backlash to her Congressional testimony.
Further, President Kornbluth’s testimony was initially met with shock and subsequently widespread public criticism from across the entire spectrum of American opinion including the Biden administration, Professor Laurence Tribe, Governor Kathy Hochul (D-NY), Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff, William Kristol, Representative Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) (MIT MBA ‘16), Representative Seth Moulton (D-MA), and Representative Elise Stefanik (R-NY). We defy the MIT Corporation to find any other point of common agreement amongst these diverse public figures, or indeed any prominent public figure who found President Kornbluth’s testimony from December 5, 2023, to be acceptable.
We are therefore perplexed as to why, at the very same moment that other public figures were distancing themselves from President Kornbluth’s testimony before Congress, the MIT Corporation declared its “full and unreserved support” for President Kornbluth. Exactly what kind of message was the MIT Corporation trying to send to the MIT community, and especially its Jewish members, with such a statement so at odds with the overwhelming majority of the public?
Growing antisemitism on MIT’s campus, and the resulting publicity; President Kornbluth’s Cngressional testimony; and the resulting backlash and Congress-ordered investigation, have been damaging to MIT’s reputation worldwide. President Kornbluth’s failure to control antisemitism on MIT’s campus has distracted MIT’s students and administration from MIT’s core mission. We are alarmed to observe MIT earning a national reputation for antisemitism on President Kornbluth’s watch, rather than for academic excellence, and joining a group of ignominious universities currently struggling with antisemitism on their campuses. MIT’s public reputation affects its ability to attract the best students, faculty candidates, and corporate research partners for its scientific work.
We call for immediate and concrete actions by the MIT administration to combat antisemitism on campus and to demonstrate zero tolerance for calls for genocide of Jews irrespective of the “context”:
Enforce meaningful consequences for the individuals who violate MIT’s rules
Students have disrupted classes, protested in areas that MIT has explicitly said were off-limits for protests (such as 77 Mass Ave steps), and occupied Lobby 7 for an entire day after being repeatedly warned that this does violate MIT policy. These events happened over one month ago with no meaningful consequences to date. We call on the MIT administration to discipline those responsible for violating MIT’s rules.
Create an antisemitism-specific task force on campus
We call on the MIT administration to implement concrete solutions to address the rise of antisemitic rhetoric and harassment in the immediate term through an antisemitism-focused task force to work on ensuring the physical safety of Jewish students and combating the root causes of antisemitism’s spread on campus. MIT has a responsibility to clarify that public calls for violence against civilians are grounds for expulsion, and amend the MIT Code of Conduct to include this if necessary.
Publicly announce that calls for violence against civilians is grounds for expulsion and amend the MIT Code of Conduct to include this if necessary
The MIT code of conduct cannot allow for the calls for murder of any minority group. It does not. It is not asking for that much courage or moral clarity to announce this publicly without comments about “context,” “public statements vs. individuals,” or other such equivocation.
We look forward to hearing about concrete actions that the MIT administration is taking to right this flailing ship and create a protected, supported, and safe environment for the entire MIT community without exception, and to reassure Jewish students that calls for their genocide are considered harassment at MIT and will be met with swift and meaningful disciplinary action.
A full list of signatories can be found here.
The post An Open Letter From MIT Jewish Alumni and Allies on Campus Antisemitism first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Watch: Washington Post Columnist Karen Attiah Confronted Over Pro-Hamas Social Media Posts, Called a ‘Terrorist’
Karen Attiah of the Washington Post. Photo: YouTube screenshot
An event celebrating anti-Israel writer Peter Beinart’s new book, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning, went off the rails on Monday night after a woman confronted the moderator, Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah, for her social media posts made in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas terrorist group’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.
On Monday night, a packed room of attendees huddled inside the Politics & Prose bookstore in northwest Washington, DC to listen to the duo chat about Beinart’s book, which details his thoughts about the ongoing war in Gaza and its impact on the American Jewish community. During the question-and-answer session following the discussion, Nyah Molineaux, an employee of the DC Department of Health, repudiated Attiah for liking a social media post which minimized Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities in Israel.
“I want to ask you a question,” Molineaux said. “How do you correspond or reconcile your Christianity when on October the 7th you [liked a retweet] that said, ‘What do you think decolonization meant? Vibes? Papers? Essays? Losers.’ You liked that retweet!” Molineaux yelled.
On Oct. 7, 2023, immediately following the slaughter of 1,200 people in southern Israel and abduction of 251 hostages, Attiah incited outrage after sharing a series of posts seemingly justifying the terrorist attacks. She reposted a tweet that stated, “Settlers are not the victims here and never will be.” On Oct. 8, the journalist also posted tweets defending the utility of “armed struggle” against oppression.
I just got out of the Peter Beinart/Karen Attiah anti-Israel book event in DC. A woman confronted Attiah for retweeting a post supporting the Oct. 7 attacks. Attiah said she does not regret it and blamed racism for the backlash, though the woman screaming at her was also black pic.twitter.com/MjkeS0dv5v
— Corey Walker (@CoreyWriting) February 25, 2025
The scene quickly descended into chaos as Attiah tried and failed to interject.
“I can answer your question,” Attiah said.
“No, no, no. I will explain to you what happened, so we can be very clear,” Molineaux continued, before referencing the systematic sexual violence perpetrated against Israeli women and girls by Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists during their Oct. 7 rampage.
“Rape happened,” Molineaux said. “How do you reconcile that with rape? How the hell do you reconcile that with a woman being raped? She was Shani Louk. Her body was taken apart. Is rape OK with you?”
“OK, that’s enough,” Attiah retorted, trying to deescalate the scene.
“No, rape is OK with you, you damn jihadi. It is OK with you to rape a Jewish woman,” Molineaux added.
A visibly uncomfortable Attiah requested the employees of the bookstore mute Molineaux’s microphone. An employee from the bookstore intervened and requested that the irate Molineaux leave the venue.
While being escorted out, Molineaux called Attiah a “terrorist” and a “coward” and said she deserves “every goddamn thing that happens to you.”
“You’re a jihadi, and you’re a f—king terrorist. That’s who the f—k you are. The state of Israel will stand, and if you want to f—king play around and play like Bin Laden, you will be treated as such,” Molineaux added.
Following the explosive confrontation, Attiah clarified that she has “no apologies” for her anti-Israel commentary following the Oct. 7 massacre and suggested that her critics harbor anti-black racial bias.
Attiah said she hoped the incident would serve as “an example of how violent the social media discourse is” regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, “particularly if you are black.”
The Washington Post columnist did not mention that Molineaux was also black.
Beinart, the featured guest, silently grinned while sitting next to Attiah.
Earlier in the evening, Beinart, one of the most prominent critics of Israel in the West, suggested that the Jewish state might be committing a “genocide” in Gaza as revenge for the Oct. 7 slaughters. Although he clarified that he does not support the mass murder of Israelis that occurred, Beinart suggested that the Jewish state’s alleged record of anti-Palestinian oppression incited it.
The left-wing intellectual also asserted, without evidence, that the recognized death toll in Gaza is “far too low,” and that Israel has caused a famine in the war-torn enclave. He also unfavorably compared the Jewish state to apartheid South Africa, arguing that Israelis speak about Palestinians comparably to how Afrikaners spoke about black people.
On Tuesday, Beinart appeared to attack The Algemeiner on social media for covering the event and posting video from it, falsely accusing the publication without evidence of following the extremist movement of Kahanism.
At my book event last night, a Kahanite publication tried to create the impression that I justify Oct 7, even though I condemn it at length in my book. What they left out of their video is me condemning Oct 7 in that very exchange, as I have literally thousands of times.
— Peter Beinart (@PeterBeinart) February 25, 2025
As for Attiah, over the past 16 months she has launched an unrelenting barrage of criticism opposing Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. Attiah criticized 2024 Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris for adopting what she described as a pro-Israel stance during her campaign. The journalist also accused Israel of implementing “permanent occupation and apartheid” against the Palestinians and stated that it is “justified, moral, and necessary to be outraged at Israel’s behavior.”
Although Molineaux told The Algemeiner she is not Jewish, she said she felt inspired to defend Israel because she has Jewish first cousins. Molineaux also defended calling Attiah a “jihadist,” arguing that the Washington Post columnist has displayed hypocrisy by sympathizing with Hamas while simultaneously condemning extremist movements within Africa.
“As a Black woman it is abhorrent to me she is saying she is against Boko Haram in Nigeria but for Hamas in Israel. A jihadist is a jihadist,” Molineaux said.
The post Watch: Washington Post Columnist Karen Attiah Confronted Over Pro-Hamas Social Media Posts, Called a ‘Terrorist’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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World’s Oldest Known Holocaust Survivor Rose Girone Dies at Age 113 in New York
Rose Girone. Photo: Screenshot
Rose Girone, the world’s oldest known Holocaust survivor, died at the age of 113 years old on Monday in New York.
Israel’s Government Press Office (GPO) announced the news on social media. The New Yorker celebrated her 113th birthday on Jan. 13. She reportedly died of old age, according to her daughter.
“Girone was always particularly outspoken about her experiences before and during the war,” Israel’s GPO said. “Today, and every day, we honor her memory and the memory of millions of other victims and survivors of the Holocaust. Never again.”
Girone was born in Poland in 1912, and then moved to Hamburg, Germany. In 1939, Girone’s husband was arrested by the Nazis and sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp. However, Girone, who was eight months pregnant at the time, managed to obtain visas to China for herself and her husband, and they escaped to Shanghai. She began knitting for a living during her time in Shanghai and when she eventually moved to New York, she opened her own knitting shop in Forrest Hills in Queens that was called Rose’s Knitting Studio. Girone sold knitting supplies and also taught knitting classes. She successfully ran the shop for 40 years, until selling it in 1980.
Girone lived in the Belair Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in North Bellmore since she was 109, according to the Long Island Herald. She was the oldest person living in New York, the fifth oldest in the US, and the 28th oldest in the world, the local publication noted.
Girone provided a testimony about her experience during World War II to The USC Shoah Foundation in 1996 and the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of Nassau County in 2022.
The post World’s Oldest Known Holocaust Survivor Rose Girone Dies at Age 113 in New York first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel’s Top Diplomat Says Little Hope for Real Change in Syria as Hamas, Islamic Jihad Open New Front
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar speaks next to High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission Kaja Kallas, and EU commissioner for the Mediterranean Dubravka Suica as they hold a press conference on the day of an EU-Israel Association Council with European Union foreign ministers in Brussels, Belgium, Feb. 24, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Yves Herman
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar has dismissed any hope for real change in Syria despite the formation of a new government, calling for “realistic expectations” in Europe and labeling talks of regime transition as “ridiculous.”
During a meeting in Brussels of the EU-Israel Association Council, which oversees the European bloc’s relationship with the Jewish state, Sa’ar described the recently formed Syrian government of Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former Al Qaeda terrorist known also as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani who led the overthrow of the Assad regime, as “a jihadist Islamist terror group from Idlib that took Damascus by force.”
“We are all happy that Assad is out. But we must have realistic expectations,” Sa’ar said during a press conference with EU officials on Monday, referring to long-time Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad. “The Islamists speak softly. Just check how Iran spoke in 1979.”
Last month, Sharaa became Damascus’s transitional president after leading a rebel campaign that ousted Assad, whose brutal and authoritarian Iran-backed rule had strained ties with the Arab world during the nearly 14-year Syrian war.
The collapse of Assad’s regime was the result of an offensive spearheaded by Sharaa’s Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group, a former al Qaeda affiliate.
According to an announcement made by the military command which led the offensive against Assad, Sharaa was empowered to form a temporary legislative council for a transitional period and the Syrian constitution was suspended.
“But everyone knows who al-Sharaa is. Not only are they [Syria’s new government] not inclusive, they are exacting vengeance on Alawites. They are harming the Kurds,” Sa’ar said on Monday, warning of the threat posed to not only Syria’s minority groups but also Israel, which shares a border with Syria.
“We will not compromise the security on our border. Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad are acting in Syria to create another front against Israel there,” Israel’s top diplomat continued, referring to the two main Iran-backed terrorist groups in Gaza.
Following Assad’s fall in December, Israel moved troops into a buffer zone along the Syrian border to secure a military position to prevent terrorists from launching attacks against the Jewish state. The previously demilitarized zone in the Golan Heights was established under the 1974 Disengagement of Forces Agreement between Damascus and Jerusalem that ended the Yom Kippur War.
Syria’s new government and UN officials have called for Israel to withdraw its forces.
On Sunday, however, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would not tolerate the presence of HTS or any forces affiliated with Syria’s new rulers south of Damascus and demanded the area be demilitarized.
“Take note: We will not allow HTS forces or the new Syrian army to enter the area south of Damascus,” Netanyahu said.
On Monday, Sa’ar also stated that Israel’s weakening of the Iran-backed Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah played a key role in Assad’s removal from power in Syria, presenting “an opportunity for positive change in Lebanon.”
“There is an opportunity for the transformation of Lebanon from Iranian occupation to the pragmatic Arab camp,” Sa’ar said. However, he warned that “money from Iran is being moved to Lebanon with the aid of Turkey, through Istanbul.”
The Association Council convened for the first time since its last meeting in 2022 amid ongoing tensions between the EU and Israel over the status of Jerusalem and the West Bank. The EU views Israel’s presence in these areas as illegal, a position Israel has opposed, while also advocating for Palestinian statehood, which the Israeli government rejects at this time.
During the meeting, Sa’ar referred to these tensions in EU-Israel relations, arguing that they should not affect the Association Council’s work.
“We proved over the past 16 months Israel is a pillar of strength and stability in the turbulent Middle East. We are the only democracy in the Middle East … We must work together to safeguard democracy, world order and stability,” Israeli foreign minister said.
“Our relations should not be held hostage to the bitter conflict we have with our Palestinian neighbors.”
The post Israel’s Top Diplomat Says Little Hope for Real Change in Syria as Hamas, Islamic Jihad Open New Front first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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