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The Supreme ruled that discrimination is protected speech. As the children of Holocaust survivors, we understand where this leads.
(JTA) — When the U.S. Supreme Court sided last month with a Colorado web designer who refuses to do work for same-sex couples because of her religious objection to same-sex marriage, it risked opening the floodgates to a host of discriminatory acts under the guise of First Amendment freedom of expression.
Most of us thought that we had made progress in eliminating government-sanctioned bigotry. Justice Neil Gorsuch’s 6-3 majority opinion in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, saying that her refusal to serve a same-sex couple is “protected speech,” reminds us, however, that discrimination endorsed by the high court remains a clear and present danger, first and foremost for the LGBTQIA+ community, but also for the rest of us.
As a daughter and son of Holocaust survivors, we tend to understand social and political events through the prism of the destruction of European Jewry. The Jews were deprived of their rights in Nazi Germany immediately after Hitler came to power in 1933. And we know that excluding Jews and others from commercial and civil life was one of the earliest stages before their eventual annihilation.
The 303 Creative case forces us to contemplate the possibility that white supremacists, antisemites, Islamaphobes and other hate-filled individuals and groups will now be allowed to recast their bigotry in First Amendment or religious freedom terms. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissent, the decision “threatens to balkanize the market and to allow the exclusion of other groups from many services.”
With this new ruling, what is to prevent a devout Christian who believes that Jews killed Jesus from selling wedding dresses only to brides who accept Jesus as their savior or from refusing to print bar mitzvah or Ramadan invitations? What about a white supremacist caterer who believes that interracial marriages violate his or her religious beliefs? Will his lawyer use this SCOTUS decision to construct a clever First Amendment or Free Exercise defense that allows him to get away with not serving such couples?
We are reminded of Gregory Peck who, masquerading as a Jew in the 1947 film “Gentleman’s Agreement,” is turned away from a “restricted” resort, as so many Jews were in real life. Jackie Robinson, Louis Armstrong and other African-Americans were denied entry into hotels, restaurants and other central institutions of American society until the civil rights revolution of the 1950s and 1960s put what we thought was an end to such nefarious practices.
A previous generation of jurists also thought that legally sanctioned discrimination was accommodating sincere religious beliefs. “Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red,” wrote County Circuit Judge Leon M. Bazile of Caroline County, Virginia, in his now notorious Jan. 6, 1959, ruling sentencing Mildred Loving, a woman of African-American and Native-American descent, and Richard Loving, a white man, to one year in jail for violating Virginia’s miscegenation laws.
Judge Bazile continued by saying that God placed the races on separate continents. “And but for the interference with his arrangements there would be no cause for such [i.e., interracial] marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.”
It was not until June 12, 1967 — more than eight years later — that the Supreme Court overturned the Lovings’ criminal conviction and declared Virginia’s prohibition of interracial marriages to be unconstitutional.
Do we now have to worry that the Court in the future might validate some version of Judge Bazile’s bigotry under the guise of the First Amendment?
Americans are witnessing the legal legitimization of an “us vs. them” society. It comes at a point when the LGBTQ+ community was just beginning to gain legal ground. Now, the community is again legally seen by many as “the other.”
We don’t believe it is alarmist to say that such delegitimization may be the beginning of a process of dehumanization. History has taught us that when we no longer see others as equal to ourselves, we grant license to bigots to treat such individuals as less than human.
Why are we compelled to speak out and feel strongly that all of us have an obligation to speak out? Because of the warning for the ages that German pastor Martin Niemoller taught us, a warning which we, present-day Americans, ignore at our peril:
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.
We are here to speak out for and stand with the LGBTQ+ community and for all who may eventually be adversely affected by this misguided ruling. For all we know, it could be us.
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The post The Supreme ruled that discrimination is protected speech. As the children of Holocaust survivors, we understand where this leads. appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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University of California, Santa Barbara Accused of Ignoring Antisemitic Bullying of Student
University of California, Santa Barbara student body president Tessa Veksler on Feb. 26, 2024. Photo: Instagram
The University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) has been accused of responding inadequately to the antisemitic harassment of its Jewish student government president, Tessa Veksler, and thus violating Title VI of the US Civil Rights Act, The Algemeiner has learned.
According to a civil rights complaint filed with the US Department of Education by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, Veksler was endlessly bullied at UCSB after Hamas’ massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7. Anti-Zionists there allegedly sent her threatening messages, called her a “Ziofascist,” and slashed pictures of her displayed around the campus.
In February, her bullies escalated their scare tactics, graffitiing over a dozen messages at the school’s Multicultural Center which called her a “neutral ass b—ch” and said “resistance is justified,” “you can run but you can’t hide Tessa Veksler,” and “get these Zionists out of office.” Additionally, someone graffitied “Zionist not welcome” on a door, just inches away from a mezuzah, a small parchment scroll containing Hebrew verses from the Torah that members of the Jewish community fix to their doorposts
Later, a faction of anti-Zionists in the student government attempted to remove Veksler from office.
The Brandeis Center alleges that UCSB did not address the problem in a way that is consistent with its obligations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which requires universities to implement robust measures that stop discriminatory behavior and prevent its recurrence.
“The harassment started online, and the university didn’t do anything to intervene despite Ms. Veksler’s pleading with them to intervene due to the negative effects on her mental health and the undermining of her ability to lead the student body,” Denise Katz-Prober, director of legal initiatives at the Brandies Center, told The Algemeiner during an interview on Friday. “The harassment only intensified and continued, moving to the physical campus.”
Katz-Prober continued, “We’d like to see the university acknowledge, recognize, and condemn the anti-Zionist form of antisemitism that motivated the harassment which targeted Ms. Veksler on the basis of her Jewish identity. A statement they issued condemning ‘all forms of hate’ is just not enough given the antisemitism students are enduring in our time.”
Veksler is a senior political science major who was elected in April 2023 as president of UCSB Associated Students (AS), making history by becoming the school’s first ever Shabbat-observant student body president. At the time, Veksler told The Algemeiner that becoming president was always her “far-distant” goal. Since then, she has become one of the most recognized leaders of the pro-Zionist student movement, traveling to colleges across the country to speak to other students about the centrality of Zionism to Jewish identity and the importance of resisting antisemitism.
On Friday she told The Algemeiner that the discrimination she endured derailed her presidency.
“The incidents of the past seven months were designed to make my life miserable,” she said. “They called me a ‘genocide supporter,’ ‘a baby killer,’ and pushed libel claims. So much of it was based on information that is completely untrue. People accused me of doxxing students, although I never did, and that’s something that people continue to hang on to. People have even commented on my complaint, saying it’s ridiculous that a white person is pursuing a civil rights case.”
She continued, “They don’t want to recognize Jews as a minority group that can experience hate, but if you look at any of the things that people said to me online, calling me a ‘Ziofascist’ and a ‘Nazi,’ it’s obvious that my identity makes me a walking target.”
College campuses across the West have become hubs of antisemitism since the Oct. 7 attacks. Both students and faculty have demonized Israel and rationalized Hamas’ terror onslaught, and incidents of harassment and even violence against Jewish students have increased. As a result, Jewish students, who in at least one instance were threatened with rape and mass murder, have reported feeling unsafe and unprotected.
Earlier this year, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) measured the rise of antisemitism on college campuses, finding a 321 percent increase in antisemitic incidents.
“What has been allowed to happen to Tessa over many months — shaming, harassing, and shunning a student until they disavow a part of their Judaism — is shameful and illegal,” Brandeis Center chairman and former US assistant education secretary Kenneth Marcus said on Thursday. “Sadly, this is not the first time we are seeing this mob behavior against a Jewish student elected by their student body to serve. It is incumbent upon UC Santa Barbara and all universities to say ‘enough is enough.’”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post University of California, Santa Barbara Accused of Ignoring Antisemitic Bullying of Student first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israeli Tourist Attacked by Mob in Belgium, Suffers Broken Jaw
People take part in pro-Hamas protest in Brussels, Belgium, Nov. 11, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Yves Herman
A 64-year-old Israel tourist was attacked by a mob in the Belgian city of Bruges and suffered a broken jaw after he and his daughter removed an anti-Israel sticker in a train station on Friday, according to the European Jewish Association and Israel’s Embassy in Belgium.
The assailants saw Amnon Ohana and his 29-year-old daughter Shira removing the sticker from a wall at a Bruges train station and proceeded to attack the father, punching and kicking him.
The Israeli tourists fled to a lower floor but were pursued by at least one of the attackers, who knocked Ohana to the ground and continued to strike him.
After the assailants left the scene, Ohana was taken to the hospital and diagnosed with a broken jaw.
BREAKING
Belgium: Jewish father and his daughter attacked by a FreePalestine mob when they were discovered to be Israelis.
The mob beat up the father and continued kicking his head when he was down. pic.twitter.com/rs5Y1av4rN
— Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig) May 17, 2024
According to several reports, passersby ignored the father and daughter’s pleas for help.
Ohana filed a complaint with local police against the assailants but reportedly said the authorities did not seem willing to prosecute them to the full extent of the law, despite the attack being filmed by his daughter and security cameras.
Israeli Ambassador to Belgium and Luxembourg Idit Rosenzweig-Abu decried the incident, calling attention to a spike in antisemitic incidents that has turned increasingly violent.
“A 64-year-old Israeli man was attacked while on a tourist visit in Bruges,” the ambassador wrote on X/Twitter. “He was kicked to the head and suffered a fracture to his jaw. What started as violent discourse has turned in past weeks to actual violence on the streets. We expect the authorities to denounce this violence in the strongest terms possible. And we expect the police to find and press charges against this man.”
A 64 year old Israeli man was attacked while on a tourist visit in @StadBrugge . He was kicked to the head and suffered a fracture to his jaw.
What started as violent discourse has turned in past weeks to actual violence on the streets.
We expect the authorities to denounce… pic.twitter.com/hlKMQb8K12
— Ambassador Idit Rosenzweig-Abu (@IditAbu) May 17, 2024
The Israeli Embassy in Belgium reportedly filed a complaint with the mayor of the city, calling on the attackers to be arrested.
The attack came amid a global surge in antisemitism following Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel and during the ensuing Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Antisemitic incidents have reached record highs in several countries, especially in the US and Europe.
Rabbi Menachem Margolin, head of the European Jewish Association, condemned the assault and the rise in antisemitism, noting that the incidents have been escalating to full-scale violence against Jews and Israelis.
“It is no longer just verbal violence or spitting but real physical attacks that can end in disaster,” Margolin said, according to Israeli media reports. “Don’t wait for us to be murdered to understand that you must act more decisively against the troublemakers. Today it is against Jews and tomorrow the incited mob will attack anyone who looks Western in their eyes.”
Margolin then called on Belgium to prosecute the assailants to the fullest extent of the law.
“It cannot be that a Western country claiming to be a state of law like Belgium will not act for the immediate arrest of the antisemitic assailants and refrain from immediate enforcement to prosecute them to the full severity of the law,” he added.
The post Israeli Tourist Attacked by Mob in Belgium, Suffers Broken Jaw first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hundreds showed up to walk a Toronto boy to school after his family said he’s been facing antisemitic harassment from other kids
About 300 people came to a suburban Toronto neighbourhood on the morning of May 17 to support a child whose family says he has been the victim of ongoing antisemitic verbal and physical harassment at school. The family, fearing for the boy’s safety, asked for the community’s support to walk with him for the one […]
The post Hundreds showed up to walk a Toronto boy to school after his family said he’s been facing antisemitic harassment from other kids appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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