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‘Lift Your Voices’: New York City Mayor Meets With Jewish Students to Discuss Campus Antisemitism
New York City Mayor Eric Adams and US Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) meeting with Jewish college students to discuss antisemitism at City Hall on Sept. 23, 2024. Photo: Dion J. Pierre/The Algemeiner
New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) and US Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) met with Jewish college students on Monday to discuss campus antisemitism at public and private universities in the five boroughs.
Held at New York City Hall, the “roundtable discussion” saw Jewish students of the City University of New York (CUNY) and other colleges in the area express their concerns about the alleged failure of school administrators to equally enforce rules proscribing ethnic and racial discrimination when they are violated by antisemitic anti-Zionists. As in other states across the country, colleges in New York have seen a rise in extreme pro-Hamas activity, ranging from the promotion of antisemitic conspiracies, hate speech, harassment, and assault. The situation, Jewish students told Adams, must be addressed as a civil rights issue.
Responding to their concerns, Adams condemned the activities of pro-Hamas students and pledged to do what he can to combat campus antisemitism within the bounds the law, citing Jewish support for African American civil rights in the 20th century. He also explained that his power to act is to some extent complicated by the multiculturalism of New York City, where a plethora of groups believe in competing and often mutually exclusive interpretations of history. Recognizing the claims of one group, he noted, could be perceived as denying those of others and squelching free speech.
“Whatever the law allows me to do, I’m going to do to ensure New Yorkers are safe,” he said. “And it’s unfortunate, but some of this speech is protected speech, and we have to be honest, this is the country that we’re in, we’re in a country that’s not like over there, where whatever you say you could be rounded up and arrested because you said it. That is not who we are as Americans. And sometimes that’s a plus. Sometimes, it’s a plus that we’re able to come together and rally in front of the UN and talk about how we felt and the anger of what happened on Oct. 7. And sometimes it’s not a plus when people are able to say they are Hamas.”
He continued, “We may hate that, but that’s protected speech in this country. And we have to find a balance of making sure that we raise our voices to counter the hate that we’re seeing, that is really becoming widespread in this country. And we all see it. And it hurts me, and I’m sure it hurts [Torres], and all of us who are pushing back against this hate, but this is the country we are in … But we should demand from those entities and institutions on our college campuses and ground that they should not be safe havens for those who are violating the policies, those who are being funded with taxpayer dollars, those who are using violence — they should not be able to exist on these campuses.”
Adams also commended Jewish students for speaking out, saying, “I take my hat off to you, because you have not decided to remain silent, and you know what has happened in previous generations when you were silent … you need to continue to lift your voices and build allies with other young people who are being misinformed. Bring them into your fold and educate them.”
Torres, who has been praised by both Democrats and Republicans for condemning antisemitic speech regardless of the speaker’s ideological affiliation, expressed his belief that the student anti-Zionist movement is antisemitic and should be judged as harshly as any white supremacist group.
“If you disagree with politics and practices of the Israeli government, then peacefully protest the Israeli consulate, but if you’re targeting a Jewish institution like Hillel simply for being Jewish, that is antisemitism. And if you’re following Jewish students to a kosher restaurant and blockading the entrance, and slamming the doors, and hurling insults at the Jewish students, that is harassment,” Torres said. “If the KKK were harassing Black students or followers of the Westboro Baptist Church were harassing LGBTQ students, or if white nationalists inspired by the Great Replacement Theory were harassing Latino students, there would be nothing but overwhelming outrage from both the political and the academic establishment. The mayor has spoken out, but there are far too many who are silent. And we should ask why the silence and difference when it comes to the safety of Jewish students.”
Earlier this month, Torres penned a letter to several New York-based universities, asking the higher educational institutions to amend their campus harassment policies to defend Zionist students.
Following the meeting’s conclusion, Jewish students and professors commended Adams’ advocacy of Jewish civil rights.
“I feel that, in the extent of his power, Mayor Adams was very receptive to our concerns and very willing to make change any way that he can,” Liora Gold, a third-year student at The New School, told The Algemeiner. “Since Oct. 7 , antisemitism has risen to the surface, and while it was apparent beforehand, it is now something that’s very public and very accepted. We are both on the board of Hillel, and we’ve had our meetings protested many times. We’ve had many security concerns because of our meetings. Our flyers have been vandalized; we’ve gotten backlash on social media. It’s a very public display of antisemitism masked as anti-Zionism.”
Michael Valdes, a theater major at The New School — where supporters of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement sitting on the student government enacted a spending freeze as an act of protest — said that anti-Zionists were creating a climate of fear and intimidation.
“As someone who is a senator on our student government, it’s been very upsetting to see that they’re supporting divestment,” Valdes said. “Also the SJP [Students for Justice in Palestine chapter] on our campus actually supported Hamas’s logo on their event flyer, and they’re currently on probation for that. The fact that they’re even still allowed to be a club on campus after promoting a US-designated terrorist organization is very upsetting and disheartening to see.”
Many other students in attendance at Monday’s meeting are currently enrolled at the City University of New York (CUNY), which recently settled half a dozen cases of antisemitic discrimination opened by the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR). One of the cases, involving Brooklyn College, prompted widespread concern for revealing that Jewish students enrolled in the college’s Mental Health Counseling (MCH) program were repeatedly pressured into saying that Jews are white people who should be excluded from discussions about social justice.
The CUNY system has produced dozens of antisemitic outrages, as The Algemeiner previously reported. In 2023, it hired anti-Israel commentator Marc Lamont Hill as the CUNY Graduate Center’s “presidential professor” of urban education despite his public friendship with Louis Farrakhan. In 2020, administrators allegedly declined to file disciplinary charges against Nerdeen Kiswani, who threatened to set her classmate on fire for wearing an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) hoodie. In 2023, CUNY again came under a shroud of criticism when student Fatima Mohammed alleged that Jewish money influences the university’s Israel policy during a CUNY Law School commencement ceremony. Despite being widely condemned by Jewish groups and local and national lawmakers — including Adams — 40 CUNY Law faculty members issued a statement supporting Mohammed’s remarks, describing them as “heartland First Amendment speech.”
Queens College physics professor Azriel Gunack told The Algemeiner that CUNY chancellor Felix Matos Rodriguez is principally responsible for eradicating antisemitism from throughout the university system.
“This is going to have to be a conversation with the chancellor. Mayor Adams can’t come in and run the university. There’s some point to having a hands-off attitude, but things really can spiral out of control,” he said. “CUNY has a chance to be a leader in the country if he takes a stand on things. It’ll take real courage. There would be a lot of backlash, but CUNY could be a great school. We could really bring in students and teach them how to deal with difficult issues. We don’t do that now. We should have some program part of the freshmen year initiative where you have people from both sides and learn to talk and understand where someone’s coming from and try to express yourself in that context. There’s a lot we could be doing to make a difference. That is what democracy is, the exchange of ideas, but that’s not really happening.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post ‘Lift Your Voices’: New York City Mayor Meets With Jewish Students to Discuss Campus Antisemitism first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Northwestern University Touts Progress on Addressing Campus Antisemitism Amid Federal Scrutiny
Signs cover the fence at a pro-Palestinian encampment at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. on April 28, 2024. Photo: Max Herman via Reuters Connect.
Northwestern University on Monday touted its progress in addressing the campus antisemitism crisis, issuing a statement containing a checklist of policies it has enacted since being censured by federal lawmakers over its handling of pro-Hamas demonstrations which convulsed its campus during the 2023-2024 academic year.
“The university administration took this criticism to heart and spent much of last summer revising our rules and policies to make our university safe for all of our students, regardless of their religion, race, national origin, sexual orientation, or political viewpoint,” the statement said. “Among the updated policies is our Demonstration Policy, which includes new requirements and guidance on how, when, and where members of the community may protest or otherwise engage in expressive activity.”
The university added that it has adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, a reference tool which aids officials in determining what constitutes antisemitism, and begun holding “mandatory antisemitism training” sessions which “all students, faculty, and staff” must attend.
“This included a live training for all new students in September and a 17-minute training module for all enrolled students, produced in collaboration with the Jewish United Fund,” it continued. “Antisemitism trainings will continue as a permanent part of our broader training in civil rights and Title IX.”
Other initiatives rolled out by the university include an Advisory Council to the President on Jewish Life, dinners for Jewish students hosted by administrative officials, and educational events which raise awareness of rising antisemitism in the US and across the world. Additionally, Northwestern said that it imposed disciplinary sanctions against several students and one staff member whose conduct violated the new “Demonstration and/or Display Policies” which regulate peaceful assembly on the campus.
“In closing, although Northwestern has made significant progress in the fight against antisemitism on campus, the university remains vigilant and will continue to do what is necessary to make our campus safe,” the statement concluded. “Importantly, the fight against antisemitism is NOT [sic] a zero-sum game. All members of our communities on campus — all religions, races, national origins, genders, sexual orientations, and political viewpoints — deserve to feel safe and know that our rules will be enforced to protect them against hate, discrimination, harassment, and intimidation. Northwestern is committed to this principle.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Northwestern University struggled for months to correct an impression that it coddled pro-Hamas protesters and acceded to their demands for a boycott of Israel in exchange for an end to their May 2024 encampment.
University president Schill denied during a US congressional hearing held that year that he had capitulated to any demand that fostered a hostile environment, but his critics noted that part of the deal to end the encampment stipulated his establishing a scholarship for Palestinian undergraduates, contacting potential employers of students who caused recent campus disruptions to insist on their being hired, creating a segregated dormitory hall that will be occupied exclusively by students of Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) and Muslim descent, and forming a new advisory committee in which anti-Zionists students and faculty may wield an outsized voice.
The status of those concessions, which a law firm representing the civil rights advocacy group StandWithUs described as “outrageous” in July 2024, were not disclosed in Monday’s statement.
Northwestern University is not the only school creating distance between itself and the anti-Zionist movement, a step many colleges have taken in response to US President Donald Trump’s vowing to cut the flow of taxpayer funds supplementing their budgets should they refuse to crackdown down on illegal protests and antisemitism. Following the Trump administration’s cancelling of over $400 million in federals contracts and grants awarded to Columbia University, former interim president Katrina Armstrong proposed a list of reforms the school would agree to undertake — in areas ranging from undergraduate admissions to campus security — to restore the funds.
Armstrong later resigned from her position, saying in a statement which explained the decision that she wishes to return to her role as executive director of the university’s Irving Medical Center, as well as several other positions she holds.
Meanwhile, Harvard University recently fired a librarian whom someone filmed ripping posters of the Bibas children, two babies murdered in captivity by Hamas, off a kiosk in Harvard Yard and denounced him as “hateful.” Additionally, it paused a partnership with a higher education institution located in the West Bank, a move for which prominent members of the Harvard community and federal lawmakers had clamored in a series of public statements. The Trump administration initiated a review of $9 billion in taxpayer funds it receives anyway, prompting interim president Alan Garber to defend Harvard’s handling of the issue.
“For the past fifteen months, we have devoted considerable effort to addressing antisemitism,” Garber said. “We have strengthened our rules and our approach to disciplining those who violate them. We have enhanced training and education on antisemitism across our campus and introduced measures to support our Jewish community and ensure student safety and security.”
Northwestern University is in the Trump administration’s crosshairs too. It is one of 60 universities being investigated by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights over its handling of campus antisemitism, a project that will serve as an early test of the administration’s ability to perform the essential functions of the agency after downsizing its workforce to increase its efficiency.
“The department is deeply disappointed that Jewish students studying on elite US campuses continue to fear for their safety amid the relentless antisemitic eruptions that have severely disrupted campus life for more than a year,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in March. “US colleges and universities benefit from enormous public investments funded by US taxpayers. That support is a privilege, and it is contingent on scrupulous adherence to federal antidiscrimination laws.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Pressure Mounts on UN Members to Block Reappointment of Controversial Anti-Israel Official
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, attends a side event during the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
The United Nations is facing growing pressure to block the reappointment of Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, who has an extensive history of using her role to denigrate Israel and seemingly rationalize the terrorist group Hamas’s attacks against the Jewish state.
The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is set to reappoint Albanese for another three-year term on Friday, despite calls from several countries and NGOs urging UN members to oppose her reappointment due to her controversial remarks and alleged pro-Hamas stance.
Since taking on the role of UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories in 2022, Albanese has been at the center of controversy due to what critics, including US and European lawmakers, have described as antisemitic and anti-Israel public remarks.
In the months following the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, atrocities, across southern Israel, Albanese accused Israel of perpetrating a “genocide” against the Palestinian people in revenge for the attacks and circulated a widely derided and heavily disputed report alleging that 186,000 people have been killed in Gaza as a result of Israeli actions.
She has also previously made comments about a “Jewish lobby” controlling America and Europe, compared Israel to Nazi Germany, and stated that Hamas’s violence against Israelis — including rape, murder, and kidnapping — needs to be “put in context.”
Last year, the United Nations launched a probe into Albanese for allegedly accepting a trip to Australia funded by pro-Hamas organizations.
In the past, she has also celebrated the anti-Israel protesters rampaging across US college campuses, saying they represent a “revolution” and that they give her “hope.”
On Monday, US Rep. Brian Mast, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, sent a letter to the president of the UNHRC, Ambassador Jürg Lauber, to express his strong opposition to Albanese’s reappointment.
In the letter, Mast claimed that Albanese has failed to act “in an independent capacity with a professional, impartial assessment, and maintain the highest standards of efficiency, competence, and integrity.”
“Ms. Albanese unapologetically uses her position as a UN special rapporteur to purvey and attempt to legitimize antisemitic tropes, while serving as a Hamas apologist,” the letter read.
“In her malicious fixation, she has even called for Israel to be removed from the United Nations while likening Israel to apartheid South Africa,” Mast wrote in a letter signed by six fellow lawmakers. “Regrettably, Ms. Albanese’s rhetoric has perverted the very institution and its foundational principles in which she was appointed to serve.”
Governments worldwide, including France, the UK, Germany, Canada, and the Netherlands, have condemned her statements as antisemitic and urged that she not be given another term in her role.
Last month, 42 members of the French Parliament publicly urged the government to oppose Albanese’s reappointment, arguing that it “would send a regrettable signal to victims, human rights defenders, and states committed to credible multilateralism.”
This week, British Labour Member of Parliament David Taylor also objected to Albanese’s reappointment, saying “there is no place for such alleged antisemitism on the international stage.”
“Albanese’s response to the largest antisemitic massacre of the 21st century was to describe it as ‘a response to Israel’s oppression,’” Taylor told the Jewish Chronicle. “She described Israel as being a ‘settler colonial conquest.’”
“Making statements of this nature in a UN capacity is abhorrent and does so much damage to communities already torn apart by horrific violence, going against everything the United Nations stands for,” Taylor said.
Human rights groups and NGOs have also campaigned to prevent the anti-Israel rapporteur from receiving a second term.
UN Watch, a Geneva-based NGO, has organized a petition against her reappointment, which has garnered over 83,000 signatures.
Last month, Maram Stern, executive vice president of the World Jewish Congress, sent a letter to the president of the UNHRC urging him to reject the renewal of Albanese’s mandate, citing what she described as the UN official’s history of anti-Israel animus and antisemitic statements.
“Ms. Albanese has repeatedly made public remarks that propagate harmful antisemitic tropes, question the legitimacy of the State of Israel, and employ rhetoric that undermines the credibility of the Human Rights Council itself,” the letter read. “Her persistent lack of objectivity and failure to uphold a balanced and impartial approach required of her as special rapporteur compromises her credibility as an independent expert.”
The American Jewish Committee (AJC) also urged UN Members to reject Albanese’s second term, saying she “has systematically demonstrated a troubling pattern of conduct and expression that is incompatible with the responsibilities, neutrality, and integrity expected of a UN special rapporteur.”
“Her actions not only betray the victims of terrorism and antisemitism but also are a stain on the credibility of the Human Rights Council itself,” the AJC wrote in a letter.
The post Pressure Mounts on UN Members to Block Reappointment of Controversial Anti-Israel Official first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Three Jewish Coaches Lead Teams in NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament Final Four
Florida Gators head coach Todd Golden and Auburn Tigers head coach Bruce Pearl talk before the game as Auburn Tigers take on Florida Gators at Neville Arena in Auburn, Ala., on Saturday, Feb. 8, 2025. Photo: USA TODAY NETWORK via Reuters Connect
The men’s 2025 NCAA Tournament Final Four bracket includes four No. 1 seed teams, three of which have Jewish coaches who will lead the way in the two national semifinals taking place on Saturday.
Auburn University Tigers head coach Bruce Pearl has contributed Auburn’s success in the NCAA in part to God and his Jewish faith. He described Israel as the “ancestral homeland for the Jewish people” and called for the release of American-Israeli Edan Alexander from Hamas captivity at a post-game conference last month. He also took the Auburn team on a trip to Israel, where they made stops at the Western Wall and Yad Vashem – The World Holocaust Remembrance Center.
The Tigers will compete on Saturday in the NCAA Tournament Final Four against the Florida Gators whose Jewish coach, Todd Golden, is an Israeli citizen who previously played two years professionally for Maccabi Haifa in Israel.
In 2009, Golden was co-captain of the USA Open Team, coached by Pearl, that won gold at the Maccabiah Games, which is an international multi-sport event for Jewish and Israeli athletes. Golden has been the coach of the Tigers for two seasons, but prior to that he was the assistant coach at Columbia, the head coach at San Francisco, and even worked under Pearl. Golden was director of basketball operations for the Auburn staff for the 2014-15 season and was promoted to assistant coach for the 2015-16 campaign.
Duke and Houston also play each other on Saturday in the Final Four. The head coach of the Duke Blue Devils, Jon Scheyer, also formerly played in Israel and holds Israeli citizenship. He played professionally for Maccabi Tel Aviv from 2011-12. In October 2023, not long after the start of the Israel-Hamas war, Scheyer commented on the conflict and said in part: “My heart breaks for the people in Israel — that have hostages, American lives that are taken, mourning loved ones.” Scheyer is leading Duke to the Final Four in only his third year as head coach.
The Houston Cougars – the fourth men’s team competing in the Final Four – do not have a Jewish coach, but they have a player who was born in Israel and played for Israel’s national youth squad. Guard Emanuel Sharp, who is the son of Derrick Sharp, was part of Israel’s under-16 national basketball team and also played for Maccabi Tel Aviv for over a decade.
This year’s Final Four have a combined record of 135-16. Since seeding began in 1979, this is only the second time in history that all four No. 1 seeds advanced to the Final Four. It previously happened in 2008. Larry Brown was the last Jewish coach to win the NCAA Tournament when he led Kansas to the victory in 1988.
The 2025 NCAA Tournament Final Four begins on Saturday, with two national semifinals taking place at the Alamodome in San Antonio, and ends on Monday with the national championship.
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