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Jewish artists in Canada turned inward during 2024—and discovered bolder identities to share for 2025

Lelala Hewak has been taking portrait photos of hundreds, if not thousands, of Jews worldwide for a project called The J-Word, which is all about challenging assumptions about appearance.

“What we like to do, where we live, how we like to live, how we like to dress, how we like to worship—everything about us is different,” she said.

Leala Hewak photographs a subject. (Credit: Jordi Nackan)

“It bothers me that people dare to make damaging generalizations, let alone slurs or attacks, and they don’t even know anything.”

She’s conscious that putting the spotlight on Jewish faces, right now, may “raise eyebrows” or encounter pushback, she says, but Hewak points to rising antisemitism as an issue on a worldwide scale.

“There’s plenty of people working on humanitarian and other political issues to do with how things are being handled by Israel in the Middle East. It’s not my area of expertise. Why would I dare go there?… Doesn’t mean I should be silent on this other problem.”

Hewak recently visited New York to take the portraits of freestyle rapper Kosha Dillz, and Rabbi Manis Friedman of Chabad Lubavitch—both of whom are familiar figures on social media. Her goal is not proving multiethnic Jews exist, she says.

“I’m not trying to say ‘Oh, look, we have different colour skin’,” but rather, that a Jew might wear, for example, anything from construction work clothes to the black suits of some religiously observant Jews.

Hewak’s playful, provocative art is one approach among many within Jewish creative circles, where artists have now contended for more than a year with a cultural world that often defaults toward overwhelming anti-Israel sentiment, and frequently poses litmus tests around it. Even artists who have refrained from commenting on the political situation post-Oct. 7 can find themselves under attack or cancelled.

Jewish arts events now tend to involve extra calculations about security for venues, audiences, and artists, causing artists to grapple with how much or in what capacity to identify Jewishly in their creative output.

For some, this new environment has meant deliberately looking inward and making art that draws more explicitly on their tradition than ever before.

Toronto-based Tamar Ilana Cohen Adams, who performs Mediterranean music and dance, was in Izmir, Turkey on Oct. 7, 2023. Following the attack, her concerts, including one at a synagogue, were moved due to safety concerns, including fears of bomb threats.

“They took down the flyers that were all over Istanbul and Izmir, and we did private house concerts. Now that was the first time I felt that kind of need to hide as a Jew,” she said.

Tamar Ilana in Nelson, B.C., in 2023. (Facebook)

Tamar Ilana, as she’s professionally known, visited the region every summer growing up, with her mother, ethnomusicologist Judith Cohen, who immersed her in folk music traditions including Ladino and Sephardic songs. Now she’s the vocalist at the front of Toronto’s Jaffa Road, a Jewish/Middle Eastern fusion band, and leads Ventanas, her Mediterranean and world music project, in which she incorporates flamenco into her performance and composes new music using or referencing traditional forms.

The apprehensions have been a new experience within a musical and cultural world that was part of Tamar Ilana’s travels and upbringing.

“My whole life, it’s always been in the background. But I had never felt it myself until I was in Turkey. All the Jewish schools closed, Jews stayed home, Jews hid, and we hid our concert.”

During concerts in Spain after Oct. 7, she felt pressure to make statements related to the war, and decided to acknowledge the possibilities for coexistence that her music demonstrates, by closing out Ventanas shows with a Moroccan Sephardic number, or, with Jaffa Road, a tune in Hebrew and Arabic.

“This is music of the Sephardic Jews, Morocco, Arabic, Hebrew… an example of peace and how people can live together,” she’ll say.

But even absent political statements, audience members disrupted Jaffa Road’s performance six months ago at the 2024 Hillside Festival in Guelph, Ont., by yelling from beside the outdoor stage.

The band had to stop the show and she addressed the protesters. 

“This isn’t how you do things. You do things through conversation,” she recalls saying.

“I was trembling… it was pretty crazy.”

Tamar Ilana was also targeted with a threatening Instagram message ahead of a live show she was producing, earlier in 2024.

“I was throwing an event for Indigenous women… We got these messages about turning it into a Palestinian fundraiser ‘or else,’ basically.” She called security. (Tamar Ilana has Cree-Salteaux ancestry from her father Robert Adams, who’s a poet and photographer.)

“This is without me saying anything at all, all year, so I can’t imagine [where the threat originated]… This is from people reading my bio and seeing I’m Jewish, is the only thing I can gather.”

Tamar Ilana, who recently released Ventanas’ latest album, says she’s feeling a shift toward “looking inwards” that Jewish friends and colleagues in particular have observed.

“Friends sort of emerged who happen to be Jewish… suddenly we were looking for solidarity in each other, and just to be in a room where we felt safe and where we felt surrounded by people who understood us.

“We heard our whole lives about Jewish history, and I’ve always felt like it was like an extended Jewish family. It’s almost… the family coming together now, when we need each other—even people who you don’t know that well, but there seems to be this cord,” she said. “It’s comforting, but it’s also a little scary that we need it.”

Aaron Lightstone, the Jaffa Road bandleader and oud player, said they were performing music based on poetry by Israel ben Moses Najara, a 15th century rabbi who lived in Gaza, Safed and Damascus, when demonstrators interrupted.

“If you’re protesting Tamar and Jaffa Road, you’re either totally ignorant because you have no business protesting; don’t know what you’re talking about; or totally antisemitic.”

Lightstone is rethinking music festival submissions for 2025, and wonders if it’s safer to focus on bookings at Jewish venues exclusively.

“As much fun as they are, should I be chasing Canadian jazz and folk festivals?”

It’s an odd question, Lightstone says, for a band centring “coexistence, [and] pushing Jewish music into [the] mainstream.”

Still, he says, “it doesn’t take a lot of people to be disruptive.”

A new brand of unity

Jewish Futures, an arts and culture salon held on Nov. 24, offered conversational spaces to foster a sense of Jewish unity in the arts. (The CJN was a promotional partner for its second year.)

Kultura Collective, an initiative by UJA Federation of Greater Toronto, organized the day, including a session on exploring Yiddish cultural expressions, where visual artist Jonah Strub discussed making artwork “as accessible as possible,” often through humour. His ultimate goal is “to provide representation to other queer and Jewish people.”

During a panel discussion titled “Jewish Infusions,” four artists shared how they’ve incorporated their Jewish identity into their creative practices and output.

Erez Zobary, a Toronto singer and songwriter, was releasing her new album, which explores her identity through connecting to her Yemeni Mizrahi background and her grandmother’s story of leaving Yemen for Israel via Operation Magic Carpet. Zobary received a Canada Council for the Arts grant to visit family in Israel as part of the personal project.

The new album is a departure from her previous work, where her songs “[talked] about getting dumped on a Thursday,” she said.

Making new music that’s so “outwardly Jewish,” with Hebrew and English song titles, plus Yemeni Jewish cultural elements, allowed her to see the process in a new way.

“Before I was making music about coming of age… breakups and living in the city and trying to figure out who I am,” said Zobary.  “With this one, it definitely feels different.”

In the months following the Oct. 7 attacks, Zobary says, her writing process for the new album shifted.

“’I [had been] so excited to write this project and to share my identity with people… and then I just became so afraid to do it, and I think it took me months and months to get to a point again when I [felt] good to share it.”

Some panellists said they braced themselves for a negative reception that thankfully never came.

Playwright and actor Jordi Mand described an unexpectedly warm reception to her own work In Seven Days from audiences in London, Ont., where her family lives. The play unfolds as a family contends with their father opting for Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID), and includes a rabbi among the play’s five characters.

“The father goes through with ending his life … [it’s about] how we say goodbye to people we love, but it’s also about MAID in the context of Judaism.”

Mand lives in Toronto but says she remains connected to her synagogue in London, and was apprehensive when her play was mounted in a city where the Jewish community is less prominent.

“I was absolutely terrified about sharing an unabashedly Jewish story there,” specifically, when the show’s run started last February at the Grand Theatre.

But the London response was “overwhelmingly positive,” she says.

“It really taught me a lot about where we are in place and time… [with] stories where there is such universality.”

Painter and jeweller Edith Barabash, who had been working as a lawyer in Victoria, B.C., started making and selling art out of a camper van two years ago. While there wasn’t much Jewish content at first, she now makes earrings of challah, babka, and matzah, and paints shofar-blowing scenes.

She lost online followers after releasing work with Jewish symbols.

“People who didn’t resonate with that, just unfollowed me immediately as soon as I started posting anything related to Judaism, Israel… a lot of the following that I built up until then was gone. And then a new following came.”

Barabash says she now feels called to bring community connections to her work—and now, she tends to stick to Jewish markets. She agrees “we’re becoming more insular.”

She also finds beauty in Jewish artists leaning into Jewish culture.

“When the world is more ready to hear those stories and see that art, we’re going to be so much stronger as a community, and our stories are going to be stronger.”

Josh Saltzman, a screenwriter whose recent short film is a horror set at a shivah, said he encounters antisemitism constantly in his industry, including social media posts from his crew members. It has led him to prepare for potential disruptions at film festival screenings.

When asked later if the antisemitism has worsened, Saltzman wrote in response: “I do believe it’s been worse since Oct. 7. Although I can’t say if antisemitism is spreading or people are just emboldened to be louder about it.”

However, he remains unapologetic about making space for Jewish culture.

“Every culture should get to share their stories… if people are going to unfollow any of us, any artists … their loss. Let them unfollow.”

While antisemitism is probably making Jewish artists more insular, that shouldn’t silence them, he says.

“I don’t want to let that stop me from making Jewish stories, because some people hate Jews. That’s the history of the world. So keep making art.”

Saltzman’s uplifting tone closed out the panel with a call for collective support.

“I feel like more than ever, I want to be more provocative with my work… I encourage any of you that are artists or have anything to say or even just how you live your life to spread [your] wings more,” said Saltzman.

“I am scared to do it, but I’m trying to and I want to… I feel like if I see other people spreading their wings, I’m more encouraged to do it as well,” he said, to a room of nodding respondents.

Jewish Futures 2024 in Toronto brought Jewish artists together. (Credit: Shay Markowitz)

In the concluding conversation at the salon, Indigenous and Jewish actor and director Jennifer Podemski called stories her bridge-building effort, including Little Bird, the TV series she co-created about a First Nations woman adopted by a Jewish family during Canada’s Sixties Scoop, who tries to reconnect with her birth family and heritage.

“I am fascinated and dedicated to sparking humanity through story… that sparks something in someone else that they connect to, that creates a bridge,” said Podemski. “And in that bridge, you can build a conversation and from that conversation, you can have a dialogue.

“As much as I really didn’t like or enjoy being Native and Jewish pretty much most of my life… I realized that it was on purpose that I was this thing at this time and doing this work… to find humanity in some way, and tell the stories that can connect people.”

Now more than ever, she said, Jewish expressions may be sparking difficult conversations.

“Nobody cared about it before. Right now people care about [Jewish identity] because they don’t like it, and they don’t want you to exercise your Jewishness anymore… so I want to exercise it more.”

Pride in the face of prejudice

Sam Mogelonsky is director of Arts, Culture and Heritage at UJA Federation of Greater Toronto and runs Kultura Collective, which has now produced two Jewish Futures conferences since Oct. 7.

“Everyone’s approaching this moment differently,” said Mogelonsky.

Pride in being Jewish might look different for each person: Self-identifying in a website bio, for instance, as a Jewish Canadian or Israeli Canadian artist, “where maybe that word Jewish wasn’t there before,” said Mogelonsky, although she notes “some people have taken that wording out of their bios.”

There’s a sense of seeking out “like-minded creatives,” she says, which runs parallel with fears about “how you are going to be perceived by the wider community… that potentially, doors might close on you if you are outward with that identity.”

It’s both a complicated moment, and a sad one, says Mogelonsky, with fears about additional security needs, or perceptions that venues aren’t interested in Jewish cultural content.

“There’s many reasons why people may not want to be as open about their connections to being Jewish,” she said. “At the same time that we’re finding so much pride and joy in sharing these Jewish stories… we’re also finding moments of complication around that.”

Jewish Futures, she hopes, offered inspiration, helped grow connections, or simply allowed artists to hear “that other people are feeling the same way that you are.”

Mogelonsky developed the cultural salon concept following discussions she and UJA colleagues were having with artists during a previous event series called Art Schmooze, where informal gatherings—usually held at art galleries—brought artists together over wine and cheese.

Now, in some pockets of Toronto, gallery events are helping Jewish artists forge new connections outside the fraught, one-sided alignment of many left-leaning elements of independent arts communities.

Gillian Lahav and Zack Rosen were booking a show at a Dundas Street West gallery when the venue declined to host a Jewish-themed show. The painter friends instead ran a cat-themed exhibition, and invited friends for an Art Shabbat evening on a Friday in November. (The gallery says it’s open to hosting more Shabbat events.)

“It’s kind of difficult to find homes for Jewish work right now,” said Rosen. “There’s a sense in the broader world that to engage with Jewish work right now is unsafe for the venue holding it.”

He says the explicitly Jewish gathering provided an important—if also informal—Jewish community space.

“The scariness… some of the heaviness of the world around us now has brought us together,” says Rosen. “And that’s not a terrible thing.”

Lahav says Jewish artists have experienced a level of fear around how they will be received in such spaces.

“[People] are very quick to jump to one side of a binary that we know is nuanced but unfortunately the broader art world forgets is nuanced,” she said.

“When [they] go out of their way to assert which side [of the] boundary they land on,” that can alienate Jewish community members.

“At the same time, it’s an opportunity to see where we are welcome.” Community-based art galleries are where she feels “everyone knows they can have a home.”

Art Shabbat was a way to gather without “the weight we carry around all week.”

Petrina Blander launched her photo exhibition at the She Said Gallery, housed inside a laundromat at 384 Roncesvalles Ave., with a Friday night candle-lighting and challah blessings.

Shabbat Shalom Toronto, which continues to Jan. 8, is not an explicitly Jewish-themed exhibition, she says, although some of the images relate to Judaism, and Blander’s artist bio references her Israeli background.

But the photos were secondary to the gathering itself, according to Blander.

Shabbat blessings kicked off Petrina Blander’s photo exhibition.

“The primary purpose was to bring people together… a safe space to break bread and connect.”

It’s a community where a nearby viaduct had been spray-painted “Fuck Zionists” in huge letters in the weeks after Oct. 7, as Israel’s military attacked Hamas in Gaza.

Blander says she isn’t religious, but found resonance in the idea expressed via the Netflix show Jewish Matchmaking, about how “‘there’s 15 million Jews and there’s 15 million different ways of being Jewish.’”

“I can’t tell you what part of this is Jewish [to me], because to me it doesn’t really matter… we all connect to it in a different way,” she said.

“There was prosciutto on the table… and two ginormous challahs, and they were blessed.”

Blander’s co-organizer Elise Kayfetz, who’s also the thrifting proprietor behind Vintage Shmatta, said Shabbat Shalom Toronto brought together “all walks of life, from Israel to down the street.”

“I haven’t been in a room with this many Jews since my bat mitzvah,” she said at the gathering.

Blander leaned over to Kayfetz: “This is my version of a shtetl in the heart of Toronto.”

The post Jewish artists in Canada turned inward during 2024—and discovered bolder identities to share for 2025 appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.

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Majority of French People Oppose Macron’s Push to Recognize a Palestinian State, New Survey Finds

French President Emmanuel Macron delivers the keynote address at the IISS Shangri-La Dialogue security summit in Singapore, May 30, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Edgar Su

Nearly 80 percent of French citizens oppose President Emmanuel Macron’s push to recognize a Palestinian state, according to a new study that underscores widespread public resistance to the controversial diplomatic initiative.

Last week, Macron announced the postponement of a United Nations conference aimed at advancing international recognition of a Palestinian state as part of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with no new date set.

The UN summit — originally scheduled for June 16–18 — was delayed after Israel launched a sweeping preemptive strike on Iran, targeting military installations and nuclear facilities in what officials said was an effort to neutralize an imminent nuclear threat.

Last month, Macron said that recognizing “Palestine” was “not only a moral duty but a political necessity.” The comments followed him saying in April that France was making plans to recognize a Palestinian state at a UN conference it would co-host with Saudi Arabia. Israeli and French Jewish leaders sharply criticized the announcement, describing the decision as a reward for terrorism and a “boost” for Hamas.

The French people largely seem to agree now is not the right time for such a move. A survey conducted by the French Institute of Public Opinion (IFOP) on behalf of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF), the main representative body of French Jews, found that 78 percent of respondents opposed a “hasty, immediate, and unconditional recognition of a Palestinian state.”

France’s initiative comes after Spain, Norway, Ireland, and Slovenia officially recognized a Palestinian state last year, claiming that such a move would contribute to fostering a two-state solution and promote lasting peace in the region.

According to IFOP’s recent survey, however, nearly half of French people (47 percent) believe that recognition of a Palestinian state should only be considered after the release of the remaining hostages captured by Hamas during the Palestinian terrorist group’s invasion of southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, while 31 percent oppose any short-term recognition regardless of future developments.

The survey also reveals deep concerns about the consequences of such a premature recognition, with 51 percent of respondents fearing a resurgence of antisemitism in France and 50 percent believing it could strengthen Hamas’s position in the Middle East.

France has experienced an ongoing record surge in antisemitic incidents, including violent assaults, following Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities, amid the ensuing war in Gaza.

According to local media reports, France’s recognition of a Palestinian state at the UN conference was expected to be contingent on several conditions, including a truce in Gaza, the release of hostages held by Hamas, reforms within the Palestinian Authority (PA) — which is expected to take control from Hamas after the war — economic recovery, and the end of Hamas’s terrorist rule in the war-torn enclave.

The PA has not only been widely accused of corruption and condemned by the international community for its “pay-for-slay” program, which rewards terrorists and their families for attacks against Israelis, but also lacks public support among Palestinians, with only 40 percent supporting its return to govern the Gaza Strip after the war.

Out of the 27 total European Union member states, Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Sweden have also recognized a Palestinian state.

Meanwhile, Germany, Portugal, and the UK have all stated that the time is not right for recognizing a Palestinian state.

The post Majority of French People Oppose Macron’s Push to Recognize a Palestinian State, New Survey Finds first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Jewish Leaders Plan ‘Emergency Mission’ to Washington, DC to Push US Gov’t for Antisemitism Protections

Thousands of participants and spectators are gathering along Fifth Avenue to express support for Israel during the 59th Annual Israel Day Parade in New York City, on June 2, 2024. Photo: Melissa Bender via Reuters Connect

Amid a record wave of antisemitic attacks and heightened geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, leaders from nearly 100 Jewish communities and over 30 national organizations across the US will descend on Washington, DC next week for an “emergency mission” aimed at pressing the federal government to bolster protections for Jewish Americans and increase support for Israel.

The meeting will be organized by the Jewish Federations of North America and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. The two-day gathering scheduled for June 25–26 will convene representatives from groups representing approximately 7.5 million American Jews. Participants plan to meet with members of Congress and the Trump administration to demand “strong and aggressive action” to thwart a surge in antisemitic violence and rhetoric, according to a press release.

“We are facing an unprecedented situation in American Jewish history where every Jewish institution and event is a potential target for antisemitic violence,” said Eric Fingerhut, president and CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America. “This is domestic terrorism, plain and simple, and defeating this campaign of terror is the responsibility of government.”

The meeting comes on the heels of a string of attacks on Jewish and pro-Israeli targets in places such as Washington, DC, and Boulder, Colorado, and amid growing fears over Iran’s role in backing groups hostile to Israel. Organizers link the current wave of antisemitism to the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, in which over 1200 people were killed and 251 hostages were abducted.

In the 20 months since the Oct. 7 massacre, the United States has seen a dramatic surge in antisemitic incidents. According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), antisemitism in the US surged to break “all previous annual records” last year, with 9,354 antisemitic incidents recorded. These outrages included violent assaults, vandalism of Jewish schools and synagogues, harassment on college campuses, and threats against Jewish community centers.

Some Jewish institutions have reported being forced to hire private security or temporarily close their doors due to safety concerns. At universities nationwide, Jewish students and faculty have described feeling unsafe amid anti-Israel and pro-Hamas protests where some demonstrators have used antisemitic slogans or glorified violence.

“American Jews are not bystanders to global terror and domestic extremism. We are deliberate targets,” said William Daroff, CEO of the Conference of Presidents. “The federal government has a mandate to act.”

The delegation plans to advocate for a six-point policy agenda that includes expanding the federal Nonprofit Security Grant Program to $1 billion annually, providing financial support for security personnel at Jewish institutions, boosting FBI resources to combat extremism, and strengthening enforcement of hate crime laws. It will also push for more robust federal aid to local law enforcement and new regulations addressing online hate speech and incitement.

In addition to urging legislation, leaders say they intend to thank lawmakers who have consistently supported Jewish communities and the state of Israel, especially in light of the recent barrage of rockets launched at Israeli cities from Iran and Iran-backed terrorist groups.

“The fight for Jewish security is not just domestic — it is global,” Daroff added. “The stakes have never been higher.”

The mission underscores growing concerns among Jewish Americans who say the dual threats of domestic extremism and rising international hostility toward Israel are converging in dangerous ways — and require a coordinated federal response.

The post Jewish Leaders Plan ‘Emergency Mission’ to Washington, DC to Push US Gov’t for Antisemitism Protections first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Columbia University Releases Campus Antisemitism Climate Survey

Pro-Hamas protesters at Columbia University on April 19, 2024. Photo: Melissa Bender via Reuters Connect

Columbia University’s Task Force on Antisemitism has released a “campus climate” survey which found that Jewish students remain exceedingly uncomfortable attending the institution.

According to the survey, 53 percent of Jewish students said they have been subjected to discrimination because of being Jewish, while another 53 percent reported that their friendships are “strained” because of how overwhelmingly anti-Zionist the student culture is. Meanwhile, 29 percent of Jewish students said they have “lost close friends,” and 59 percent, nearly two-thirds, of Jewish students sensed that they would be better off by electing to “conform their political beliefs” to those of their classmates.

Nearly 62 percent of Jewish students reported “a low feeling of acceptance at Columbia on the basis of their religious identity, and 50 percent said that the pro-Hamas encampments which capped off the 2023-2024 academic year had an “impact” on their daily routines.

Jewish students at Columbia were more likely than their peers to report these negative feelings and experiences, followed by Muslim students.

“As a proud alumna who has spent decades championing this institution, I found the results of this survey difficult to read,” acting Columbia University president Claire Shipman said in a statement. “They put the challenges we face in stark relief. The increase in horrific antisemitic violence in the US and across the globe in recent weeks and months serves as a constant, brutal reminder of the dangers of anti-Jewish bigotry, underscores the urgency with which all concerned citizens need to act in addressing it head-on, and the fact that antisemitism can and should be addressed as a unique form of hatred.”

Shipman added that university officials are “aware of the extent of the immense challenges faced by our Jewish students” and have enacted new policies which strengthen the process for reporting bias and prevent unauthorized demonstrations which upend the campus.

“I am confident we can change this painful dynamic. I know this because we share a commitment to protect all members of our community. We owe it to our students — and to each other,” she said.

Columbia University recently settled a lawsuit brought by a Jewish student at the School of Social Work (CSSW) who accused faculty of unrelenting antisemitic bullying and harassment.

According to court documents, Mackenzie “Macky” Forrest was abused by the faculty, one of whom callously denied her accommodations for sabbath observance and then held out the possibility of her attending class virtually during pro-Hamas protests, which according to several reports and first-hand accounts, made the campus unsafe for Jewish students. Her Jewishness and requests for arrangements which would allow her to complete her assignments created what the Lawfare Project described as a “pretext” for targeting Forrest and conspiring to expel her from the program, a plan that involved fabricating stories with the aim of smearing her as insubordinate.

Spurious accusations were allegedly made by one professor, Andre Ivanoff, who was the first to tell Forrest that her sabbath observance was a “problem.” Ivanoff implied that she had failed to meet standards of “behavioral performance” while administrators spread rumors that she had declined to take on key assignments, according to court documents. This snowballed into a threat: Forrest was allegedly told that she could either take an “F” in a field placement course or drop out, the only action that would prevent sullying her transcript with her failing grade.

Forrest left but has now settled the lawsuit she filed to get justice in terms that Columbia University has buried under a confidentiality agreement.

Columbia was one of the most hostile campuses for Jews employed by or enrolled in an institution of higher education. After Hamas’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the university produced several indelible examples of campus antisemitism, including a student who proclaimed that Zionist Jews deserve to be murdered and are lucky he is not doing so himself and administrative officials who, outraged at the notion that Jews organized to resist anti-Zionism, participated in a group chat in which each member took turns sharing antisemitic tropes that described Jews as privileged and grafting.

Amid these incidents, the university struggled to contain the anti-Zionist group Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), which in late January committed an act of infrastructural sabotage by flooding the toilets of the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) with concrete. Numerous reports indicate the attack may have been the premeditated result of planning sessions which took place many months ago at an event held by Alpha Delta Phi (ADP) — a literary society, according to the Washington Free Beacon. During the event, the Free Beacon reported, ADP distributed literature dedicated to “aspiring revolutionaries” who wish to commit seditious acts. Additionally, a presentation was given in which complete instructions for the exact kind of attack which struck Columbia were shared with students.

The university is reportedly restructuring itself to comply with conditions for restoring $400 million in federal funding canceled by US Education Secretary Linda McMahon in March to punish the school’s alleged failure to quell “antisemitic violence and harassment.”

In March, the university issued a memo announcing that it acceded to key demands put forth by the Trump administration as prerequisites for releasing the funds — including a review of undergraduate admissions practices that allegedly discriminate against qualified Jewish applicants, the enforcement of an “anti-mask” policy that protesters have violated to avoid being identified by law enforcement, and enhancements to the university’s security protocols that would facilitate the restoration of order when the campus is disturbed by pro-Hamas radicals and other agitators.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

The post Columbia University Releases Campus Antisemitism Climate Survey first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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