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U. of Vermont agrees to improve antisemitism training, ending federal case and capping a tumultuous year
(JTA) – A year of strained relations between the University of Vermont and its Jewish community has led to the school resolving a federal antisemitism complaint and pledging to do more to protect its Jewish students — including from anti-Zionist rhetoric.
The university and the U.S. Department of Education announced Monday that they had reached a resolution to the complaint, which the department took up last fall after it was filed by students and pro-Israel groups. The complaint alleged that the institution had not properly responded to Jewish students’ allegations of antisemitic discrimination. Investigators determined that the university “received notice, but did not investigate” several claims of antisemitic behavior on campus, and that the steps it ultimately took did not adequately address students’ concerns.
Notably, the department’s office of civil rights determined that one of the ways the university’s Jewish students had been discriminated against was through “national origin harassment on the basis of shared ancestry,” reflecting a controversial argument promoted by pro-Israel groups that anti-Zionist rhetoric is harmful to all Jews because the Jewish people share Israel as an ancestral homeland. The resolution of the complaint also reflects a sharp change in course for the school, which had initially denied wrongdoing and blamed the accusations on an orchestrated external campaign — a response that upset the campus Jewish community.
“This complaint was overwhelmingly dealing with the antisemitism that masks as anti-Zionism, and what the resolution demonstrates is how seriously [the office] is taking that kind of antisemitism,” Alyza Lewin, president of the Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency after the ruling. A pro-Israel legal group that often involves itself in campus disputes, the Brandeis Center was one of the organizations that filed the initial complaint on behalf of mostly anonymous students.
The Department of Education responded to a JTA request for comment by pointing to its letter of resolution with the university. Its civil rights office has fielded several challenges to anti-Zionist rhetoric since the Donald Trump administration expanded the department’s mandate around antisemitism in 2019 under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. The office of civil rights is fast becoming a favorite tool for pro-Israel activists: It also announced this week it would open an investigation into allegations of a professor’s antisemitic behavior at George Washington University, a week after the university’s own investigation cleared the faculty member of charges brought by another pro-Israel group.
In the agreement, the University of Vermont pledged to revise its policies for reporting discrimination and to train its staff on how to specifically respond to discrimination complaints. The Department of Education will also review the university’s records regarding its response to last year’s allegations of antisemitism. One of the areas in which the university said it would train staff is on how to recognize “the Title VI prohibition against harassment based on national origin, including shared ancestry.”
Among the allegations: cases of unofficial student groups denying admission to “Zionist” students (including a support group for sexual-assault survivors); one graduate teaching assistant who had mused on social media about lowering the grades of Zionist students; and a group of students who’d reportedly thrown an object at the campus Hillel building (the complaint claimed it was a rock; Hillel staff told JTA it was a puffball mushroom). More than 20% of the university’s student body is Jewish, according to Hillel International.
Evan Siegel, a Jewish junior at the University of Vermont, poses in his off-campus housing in Burlington, October 13, 2022. Siegel was initially critical of his school for its handling of a federal antisemitism investigation, but praised its eventual resolution. (Andrew Lapin/Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
The agreement marked a sharp change from how the university first responded when the government announced its intent to investigate the complaint last fall. Back then, the university’s president, Suresh Garimella, issued a combative statement in which he said the university “vigorously denies the false allegation of an insufficient response to complaints of threats and discrimination.” He also issued a point-by-point refutation of the allegations in the complaint.
Garimella further charged that the complaint had been orchestrated by “an anonymous third party” that had “painted our community in a patently false light.” In addition to the Brandeis Center, the complaint was filed on behalf of students by the watchdog group Jewish On Campus, whose antisemitism-tracking methodology has been criticized by other groups.
Garimella’s combativeness at the time was an unusual move for the leader of a university accused of violating Title VI law, which prohibits discriminatory behavior at federally-funded programs or institutions, such as public universities. Groups like the Brandeis Center have increasingly leaned on Title VI in federal complaints to argue that pro-Israel students face discrimination. Title VI cases have become a central component of litigating multiple kinds of Israel discourse on campus, ranging from a pro-Israel student body president being targeted at the University of Southern California to a resolution passed by pro-Palestinian law student groups at the University of California, Berkeley.
In Burlington, where the university is located, some liberal Jews were initially dubious of the complaint. Felicia Kornbluh, a history professor on campus who often teaches American Jewish history, told JTA she was concerned about “playing into the narrative” of a conservative, pro-Israel agenda set by the Brandeis Center, whom she described as “allies of the Trump wing of the Republican party.” (The center’s founder, Kenneth Marcus, served as assistant secretary of education for civil rights under Trump.)
But the complaint also landed in the aftermath of a contentious Burlington city council meeting at which, Kornbluh and others said, pro-Palestinian protesters became hostile to Jews. The meeting featured a council resolution to endorse the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions campaign against Israel, and resulted in a raucous scene where pro-Palestinian groups shouted down Jewish students singing prayers for peace. Kornbluh described the atmosphere there as “really scary,” and “a little like Nuremberg.” Vermonters for Justice in Palestine, a local activist group, held multiple rallies on campus in support of the administration after the antisemitism complaint was publicized.
Against this backdrop, Garimella’s dismissiveness left the university’s Jewish community frustrated and angry. During a Jewish Telegraphic Agency visit to Burlington after the president’s initial statement, Jewish students and faculty said they felt like university administration was not taking their concerns seriously.
“I feel like we’re not being supported here,” Evan Siegel, a Jewish junior who is involved with student government, told JTA while sitting in off-campus housing adorned with Jewish summer camp memorabilia. “And that sucks.”
Employed as a campus tour guide, Siegel wondered, “How am I supposed to give tours and be like, ‘UVM is the best,’ when my president is being an ass?”
Other Jewish students told JTA at the time they had no intention of supporting the university financially or otherwise after they graduated, and wouldn’t advertise the fact that they were alums.
Matt Vogel, executive director of Hillel at the University of Vermont, where one of the alleged antisemitic incidents had taken place, also reluctantly played a role in the drama of the last year, after hoping he would be able to keep his focus on Hillel’s student programming. As the fall semester was starting, he sent an email home to parents reading, “Antisemitism keeps me awake at night.” Throughout the semester, Hillel also became more active in calling out antisemitism on social media.
“Just by default, we’re at the center of it,” Vogel told JTA last fall in the Hillel building, as student volunteers chopped vegetables for that evening’s Shabbat dinner in the next room. “I’ve overheard a student saying, like, a Hillel sticker on their water bottle might turn into a political conversation about Zionism in the first two seconds.”
Matt Vogel, executive director of Hillel at the University of Vermont, prepares for Shabbat in his Burlington office, October 14, 2022. Vogel praised the university for ultimately resolving its federal antisemitism complaint in April 2023 after months of tension. (Andrew Lapin/Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
Soon, Kornbluh decided that the administration’s response to the allegations was unacceptable, and penned a local op-ed opposing it that was later shared by her faculty union in a show of solidarity.
“I was stunned by the tone and content” of Garimella’s letter, Kornbluh wrote in the piece. Accusing the university of “gaslighting,” she added, “I do know that one persistent rhetorical strategy of antisemites in Europe and the United States has been to say that there is no antisemitism.”
Garimella reversed course following weeks of criticism, a strongly worded letter from more than a dozen Jewish groups including the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee and news of several high-profile antisemitic incidents nationally. In October, the university published a website intended to support Jewish students — accompanied by a new statement from Garimella, who now condemned antisemitism unequivocally.
“I have listened to members of our campus community who experience a sense of risk in fully expressing their Jewish identity,” he wrote. ”I want my message to be clear to the entire campus community: antisemitism, in any form, will not be tolerated at UVM.”
This time, Garimella pledged not only to investigate individual reports of antisemitism, but also to work to change the campus community’s approach to the issue. He committed to further anti-bias training and building a streamlined bias reporting system for students, and said the university’s diversity office would work to build and maintain “meaningful actions that ensure our Jewish students and community members feel support and care.”
After Monday’s resolution, Garimella was fully supportive of the findings of the Department of Education’s investigation.
“The resolution reflects an important step in UVM’s engagement with our students, faculty, staff, alumni, and the surrounding community,” he wrote in a message to the campus. “It also reflects numerous conversations we have had with our campus Jewish community and important local and national voices on the consequential and complex issue of antisemitism.”
In response to a JTA request for comment, a university spokesperson sent copies of the letters from the president and provost. (Throughout the year, the president’s office had declined multiple JTA interview requests.)
Jewish groups, including the university Hillel, celebrated the resolution. “The President and senior leadership’s new statements today represent tangible and accountable steps forward,” Vogel told JTA in a statement. “We hope this ensures that no Jewish student or any student at UVM experiences discrimination or harassment because of their identity.”
The Hillel building at the University of Vermont in Burlington, October 14, 2022. Hillel found itself at the center of a federal antisemitism complaint against the university. (Andrew Lapin/Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
Also celebrating the ruling was Jewish on Campus, a subsidiary of the World Jewish Congress and one of the groups that brought the initial complaint. “Today’s announcement is a victory for the safety and security of Jewish students,” Julia Jassey, the group’s CEO and a University of Chicago undergraduate, said in a statement.
Avi Zatz, the only University of Vermont student on the initial complaint who has made their identity public, is himself an employee of Jewish on Campus. Citing antisemitism in Vermont, Zatz recently transferred to the University of Florida — in a state that may soon pass legislation that, critics say, could harm Jewish studies on all its public campuses.
“I can’t have hoped for a better resolution,” Zatz, a junior, told JTA from his new school in Gainesville, Florida. While he said he was still glad to have left Vermont, he added, “I finally feel a sense of closure.”
Kornbluh, for her part, said the resolution was “a start,” but criticized the university for not voicing a stronger commitment to Jewish studies or meeting with Jewish faculty.
Reached by phone from Madrid, where he is studying abroad this semester, Siegel said he was “proud, determined, ready for more” following the university’s agreement.
“This resolution was really, in a respectful way, a slap in the face to the university to do better,” he said. “I, for one, am ready to get back on campus and continue my work as hard as I can.”
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The post U. of Vermont agrees to improve antisemitism training, ending federal case and capping a tumultuous year appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Trump may endorse Netanyahu. But loving Israel is not the same as loving Bibi.
President Donald Trump has raised the possibility of endorsing a candidate in Israel’s Oct. 27 election.
“I may be doing something,” he said when asked about it this week.
He did not say whom he might support, although his history with Benjamin Netanyahu makes the prime minister seemingly the likely possibility. I am here to urge him to think again, because the distinction between supporting Netanyahu and supporting Israel is no longer possible to ignore.
Trump is remarkably popular in Israel, where many believe he genuinely loves their country and its people. His recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, his support for Israeli security, his willingness to go to war against Iran and his manifest indifference to the global Palestinian propaganda machine have persuaded many that he is personally invested in Israel’s future. Netanyahu has turned that into a political asset, encouraging the impression that his personal relationship with Trump is the reason.
And it works. Some Israelis see Netanyahu more favorably because they believe Trump does. An endorsement would matter, and so would its absence. On March 25, 2019, Trump recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, two weeks before an Israeli election. Widely interpreted as a political gift, it reinforced Netanyahu’s claim that he alone could deliver extraordinary concessions from Washington. It helped Netanyahu cling to power (barely), and he returned the favor, all-but-directly endorsing Trump’s reelection a year later.
In principle, American presidents should stay out of other democracies’ elections. But such niceties, alas, belong to another era. Trump has interfered openly in elections in Hungary and Poland, attempting to elevate local right-wing populists. Expecting diplomatic restraint now is absurd. So a better question is simply whether he can be pried loose of Netanyahu, for the sake of Israel.
The election could hardly be more crucial. I believe it will determine whether Israel remains a prosperous, functioning democracy or continues down a path of institutional deterioration, international isolation and economic decline.
Netanyahu’s supporters credit him with confronting Iran’s Islamic Republic regime, Hezbollah and Hamas. But he has eliminated none of them, and his record includes the catastrophic security failure of Oct. 7, years of political polarization, attempts to weaken judicial independence and a coalition elevating some of the country’s most extreme political forces.
Netanyahu remains on trial for corruption, charges he denies. Critics point also to extravagant public spending associated with his personal lifestyle. The larger indictment, however, is not personal: his dependence on narrow coalition interests has made essential national reforms virtually impossible.
Any Netanyahu-led coalition – unless the opposition joins him – would depend again on far-right parties insisting on settlement activity deep in the West Bank – an issue causing considerable agitation in the United States — and protecting Jewish radicals who terrorize Palestinians there. That already led to deaths and risks sparking a third Palestinian intifada, according to Israel security officials. Trump, who prides himself on supposedly having ended eight wars, cannot be very happy with that.
No less consequential is Netanyahu’s dependence on ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, parties.
Israel has long tolerated an arrangement under which the vast majority of Haredi men avoid military service, while many receive state support for religious study and emerge from schools that do not teach the mathematics, English and science required for a modern economy. This is unsustainable in a country whose security depends on a heavily burdened military and whose prosperity depends on a highly educated workforce.
The demographic implications are staggering. Haredim already constitute roughly one-sixth of Israel’s population, and their share is projected to grow dramatically, with birthrates approaching six children per family and sustained heavily by welfare. Unless employment, education and military-service patterns change, a shrinking proportion of Israelis will shoulder an ever-growing share of the tax burden, military service and economic productivity.
Even during three years of war – as other Israeli reservists served hundreds of days a year in Gaza and Lebanon – Haredi youth demonstrated with signs declaring: “We’d rather die than serve.” Outrage over this arrangement is boiling over across Israel and badly hurting Netanyahu, who is far behind in the polls.
Netanyahu cannot seriously reform the system because his survival depends on Haredi parties that make military exemptions, religious-school funding and sectarian privileges conditions of coalition participation.
The explosive growth of this community, absent reforms, will turn Israel into a hyper-religious country, risking the departure of the educated, modern and secular classes that account, overwhelmingly, for its prosperity. Internationally mobile, many are already disillusioned by the country’s political direction, repeated military service and an ever-heavier economic burden. It is a national emergency.
Israel must restore confidence in democratic institutions, address the consequences of the Gaza war, confront violent extremism in the West Bank, repair international relationships and establish a sustainable regional strategy. Another Netanyahu government would deepen the crisis in all of them.
Trump, if he loves Israel, cannot possibly love this direction of travel. His son-in-law Jared Kushner most assuredly would not.
There is a serious alternative. Gadi Eisenkot, a former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, has emerged as a leading opposition figure. He lost his son Gal in combat in Gaza in December 2023 and has a reputation for personal integrity, seriousness and directness. His party is called Yashar, meaning straight or upright, a pointed contrast with the political culture of Netanyahu’s rule.
Sure, replacing Netanyahu would not automatically solve Israel’s problems. But an opposition government not dependent on Haredi parties could introduce universal service obligations, require a genuine core curriculum in publicly funded schools, restructure subsidies and redirect resources toward education, infrastructure and economic participation.
There is a chance that Netanyahu’s opponents may win more seats collectively without a comfortable governing majority. A narrow coalition could depend on parties with conflicting positions; Arab parties are legitimate democratic participants, but agreement on security and national policy would be challenging.
A Trump assist that enables Bibi to cut into his opponents’ lead would make that scenario more likely and diminish the chances for a more stable majority that could act decisively to save the country.
Trump likes to point to everything he has done for Israel: Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, the Abraham Accords and regional diplomacy. Many Israelis appreciate those achievements. But the country’s greatest danger may lie not only in the enemies surrounding it, but in the structural weaknesses accumulating within.
The question is whether Trump can distinguish the country’s long-term interests from the fortunes of a man he has repeatedly supported.
And there is one more thing. Trump likes winners. So much so that he once impugned Sen. John McCain’s Vietnam-era record of heroics, by actually saying: “I like people that weren’t captured.” Well, Netanyahu is so far behind in the polls, and with such overpoweringly good reason, that he is looking like a loser.
Continued association will not help the brand.
The post Trump may endorse Netanyahu. But loving Israel is not the same as loving Bibi. appeared first on The Forward.
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‘Sefer Elijah’ — probably the oldest proto-Ashkenazi text
ס׳איז מעגלעך, אַז מיר האָט זיך אײַנגעגעבן צו אַנטדעקן דעם עלטסטן פּראָטאָ־אַשכּנזישן טעקסט, אָנגעשריבן אינעם פֿריִיִקן 9טן יאָרהונדערט. דאָס איז דער אוראַלטער אַפּאָקאַליפּטישער מדרש „ספֿר אליהו‟, אַ ספֿר וואָס איז מיר שוין לאַנג גוט באַקאַנט.
געשען איז עס אַזוי: ווען איך בין ערשט אָנגעקומען קיין אַמעריקע אין 1998 — אין וויליאַמסבורג — האָב איך זיך אַ דריי געטאָן אין די אָרטיקע ביכער־קראָמען און געקויפֿט די גאָר אינטערעסאַנטע מדרש־זאַמלונג „ילקוט הרועים‟, באַגלייט מיט גלענצנדיקע הסכּמות (רבנישע באַשטעטיקונגען), אַז דער ספֿר איז אָנגענומען ווי אַ הייליקער, אַרײַנגערעכנט אַ רעקאָמענדאַציע פֿון דעם דעמאָלטיקן סאַטמאַרער רבין משה טייטלבוים זצ״ל.
די זאַמלונג באַשטייט על־פּי־רובֿ פֿון טיפֿע קבלה־טעקסטן און עטלעכע אַפּאָקאַליפּטישע מדרשים וועגן דעם קץ־הימים — דעם סוף פֿון די טעג, די צײַט וואָס משיח דאַרף קומען — בתוכם דעם „ספֿר אליהו‟. אָט דער ספֿר און נאָך עטלעכע אין דער דאָזיקער זאַמלונג שילדערן די ביאת־המשיח נישט ווי אַ פּלוצעמדיקן גליקלעכן סוף פֿון אַלע ליידן אין דער וועלט, נאָר ווי אַ שרעקלעכן פּראָצעס, באַגלייט מיט חורבֿות און שוידערס. נישט נאָר בײַ די קריסטן איז פֿאַראַן אַזאַ מין ליטעראַטור. בקיצור, שטייט אינעם „ספֿר אליהו‟ געשריבן, אַז ווען משיח וועט קומען, וועט ער צונויפֿברענגען אַלע צדיקים — בסך־הכּל 30 טויזנט — אין אַ הימליש אָרט ווײַט פֿון אונדזער ערד, וועלכע וועט פֿאַרברענט ווערן מיט אַלע אירע איבעריקע זינדיקע תּושבֿים.
די אמונה, אַז דער נײַער משיחישער צוקונפֿטיקער ירושלים וועט אַראָפּקומען פֿונעם הימל און אַז די שטאָט האָט ווייניק צו טאָן מיט דער הײַנטיקער ירשולים, איז אַמאָל געווען אַבסאָלוט נאָרמאַל בײַ ייִדן, בפֿרט אין דער אַשכּנזישער וועלט. רש״י האָט, למשל, אויך אַזוי געגלייבט. אין דער שפּעטערדיקער צײַט האָט הרבֿ צבֿי־הירש קײַדאַנאָווער, דער מחבר פֿונעם פּאָפּולערן מוסר־ספֿר „קבֿ הישר‟, וועלכן ער האָט אַליין איבערגעזעצט פֿון לשון־קודש אויף ייִדיש, אַזוי געשריבן אינעם פֿריִיִקן 18טן יאָרהונדערט.
דער „ספֿר אליהו‟ בלײַבט כּמעט אומגעפֿאָרשט. הלל ניומאַן, אַ היסטאָריקער פֿונעם חיפֿהר אוניווערסיטעט, האָט באַמערקט, אַז דער דאָזיקער מדרש קלינגט ענלעך אויף דער קריסטלעכער אַפּאָקאַליפּטישער ליטעראַטור. עטלעכע אַנדערע פֿאָרשער האַלטן, אַז ס׳איז אָנגעשריבן געוואָרן בײַם אָנהייב פֿון דער איסלאַמישער תּקופֿה. לאָמיר זיך אָבער אַרײַנקוקן אין געוויסע פּרטים, וואָס די פֿאָרשער האָבן פֿאַרקוקט — און וואָס איך האָב אַליין ערשט באַמערקט נישט לאַנג צוריק.
אין אַ סך מדרשים ווערט דערמאָנט דער אַנטי־משיח מיטן נאָמען אַרמילוס. אין „ספֿר אליהו‟ ווערט אָבער זײַן נאָמען אויסגעלייגט ווי „הרמלת‟. ווײַזט אויס, אַז בײַ דעם מחבר האָט אַ תוו געקלונגען ווי אַ סמך, און דער הא איז בײַ אים געווען שטום. דעם נאָמען פֿונעם פּערסישן מלך אַרתּחשסתּא שרײַבט ער אויך ווי „הרתּחשסתּא‟. עס ווערט דערמאָנט עפּעס אַ ים־מאָנסטער — „גיגית‟; ווײַזט אויס, מיינט עס gigas אויף לאַטײַניש, אַ ריז. אַזאַ אַרויסרייד האָט געקאָנט נאָר זײַן בײַ פּראָטאָ־אַשכּנזים, וועלכע האָבן גערעדט אויף אַלט־פֿראַנצויזיש (צי, מעגלעך, אויף עפּעס אַ געמישטן דיאַלעקט, וווּ קיין הא־קלאַנג איז נישט געווען).
אינעם דאָזיקן מדרש שטייט געשריבן, אין געוויסע ווערסיעס, אַז די מלחמות פֿאַר דער ביאת־המשיח וועלן אָנהייבן די מלכים קוסטנטנוס און קרטילוס. אַזוי שטייט אין יהודה אבֿן־שמואלס (יהודה קויפֿמאַנס) זאַמלונג „מדרשי גאולה‟. אינעם חסידישן ספֿר, וואָס איך האָב, ווערט דערמאָנט נאָר „קירטלוס‟. ס׳איז קלאָר, מיין איך, אַז דאָ גייט די רייד וועגן דעם ביזאַנטישן מלך קאָנסטאַנטין דעם זעקסטן, מיט וועלכן קאַרל דער גרויסער האָט געוואָלט זיך מזווג זײַן, כּדי צו שאַפֿן אַ פֿאַראייניקט וועלט־מלכות, דורכן זיווג מיט קאָנסטאַנטיס מאַמע אירענע. קאָנסטאַנטינען האָט מען געשדכנט מיט קאַרלס טאָכטער ראָטרודע. אויב די דאָזיקע שידוכים וואָלטן געלונגען, וואָלט דעמאָלט אויפֿגעשטאַנען אַ נײַע גלאָבאַלע רוימישע אימפּעריע. קאַרל דער גרויסער האָט זיך אָבער סײַ־ווי־סײַ געהאַלטן פֿאַר אַ נײַעם רוימישן אימפּעראַטאָר. דער פּויפּסט לעאָן דער דריטער האָט אים געקרוינט מיט אַזאַ טיטל אין יאָר 800.
הגם קאַרל דער גרויסער האָט דערלויבט ייִדן צו וווינען אין זײַן קיניגרײַך און פֿאַרפֿלאַנצט דערמיט דאָס קערנדל פֿון דער אַשכּנזישער ציוויליזאַציע, ווערט אין אַ סך אַלטע מדרשים פֿאָרויסגעזאָגט, אַז די חבֿלי־המשיח, די צרות פֿאַר משיחס קומען, וועלן זײַן פֿאַרבונדן מיט רוים; דערפֿאַר האָבן ייִדן אויפֿגענומען זײַן אימפּעריע ווי אַ סימן פֿון אַפּאָקאַליפּטיש־משיחישע געשעענישן.
קאָנסטאַנטין דער זעקסטער איז געשטאָרבן בערך אין 805 (לויט אַנדערע קוואַלן אין 797) און קאַרל דער גרויסער — אין 814. באַקומט זיך, אַז דער „ספֿר־אליהו‟ מוז געהערן צו דער תּקופֿה, ווען זיי האָבן ביידע נאָך געלעבט.
וואָס עפּעס „קרטילוס‟? פֿאַרוואָס איז קאַרלס נאָמען אין אונדזער ספֿר אַזוי פֿאַרקריפּלט געוואָרן? ס׳קען זײַן, אַז אין זײַן אייגן לאַנד וואָלט געווען וויכטיק אויסצובאַהאַלטן זײַן נאָמען, די קריסטן זאָלן נישט וויסן, אַז בײַ ייִדן גייט אַרום אַזאַ געהיימער קלאַנג, אַז דער קיניג וועט מיט זײַנע מלחמות גורם זײַן די ייִדישע גאולה. מע קען זיך אַפֿילו משער זײַן, פֿאַרוואָס מע האָט אויסגענוצט אַזאַ שיפֿער: די אותיות טית און יוד קאָנען זײַן ראָשי־תּיבֿות פֿון זײַן טיטל imperator terrae.
ס’איז וויכטיק צוצוגעבן, אַז געוויסע קריסטלעכע שרײַבער האָבן געגלייבט, אַז קאַרל דער גרויסער וועט זיך אומקערן איידער יעזוס וועט זיך באַווײַזן צום צווייטן מאָל. אַזוי האָט געשריבן אינעם 11טן יאָרהונדערט דער מאָנאַך אַדעמאַר פֿון לימאָזש, פֿראַנקרײַך. אויב אַ טייל ייִדן האָבן געגלייבט אין עפּעס ענלעכס, וואָלט מען געקאָנט פֿאַרשרײַבן דעם „ספֿר אליהו‟ נאָכן טויט פֿון קאַרל דעם גרויסן.
ואַחרון אַחרון חבֿיבֿ, דער סטיל פֿונעם „ספֿר אליהו‟ איז וווּנדערלעך ענלעך אויף דער אַלט־בײַערישער אַפּאָקאַליפּטישער פּאָעמע Muspilli, פֿונעם 9טן יאָרהונדערט, וווּ דער הויפּטהעלד איז אויך אליהו הנבֿיא. עטלעכע שטיקלעך פֿון ביידע טעקסטן קלינגען כּמעט אידענטיש. ווײַזט אויס, אַז אונדזער מדרש געהערט טאַקע צו דער תּקופֿה פֿון קאַרל דעם גרויסן — צי, אפֿשר, מיט אַ דור־צוויי שפּעטער — ווען אַפּאָקאַליפּטישע געדאַנקען זענען געווען פֿאַרשפּרייט אויך בײַ די קריסטן.
דער אימאַזש, אַז דער אייבערשטער וועט אַוועקטראָגן די צדיקים אין עפּעס אַ הימלישער וועלט, ווען די גאַנצע ערד וועט ברענען, קלינגט ממש ווי דער גערמאַנישער מיטאָס וועגן דעם ראַגנאַריאָק, דעם סוף פֿון דער וועלט, אָפּגעשפּיגלט אויך אין Muspilli.
באַקומט זיך, אַז ייִדן אין דײַטשלאַנד האָבן נאָך מיט 1200 יאָר צוריק אַרויסגערעדט דעם תוו ווי „ס‟. צי האָבן אַ טייל פֿון זיי דעמאָלט שוין גערעדט אויף דײַטשיש, נישט אַלט־פֿראַנצויזיש? אין 838 האָט דער פֿראַנקישער גלח באָדאָ זיך מגייר געווען; זײַן ייִדישער נאָמען איז געווען אליעזר. ער האָט געדינט אינעם הויף פֿון קאַרלס זון לויִס דעם ערלעכן. ווײַזט אויס, אַז אַרום יענעם דײַטשיש־רעדנדיקן גלח איז שוין געווען בנימצא אַ גענוג גרויסע ייִדישע סבֿיבֿה, וועלכע האָט משפּיע געווען אויף זײַן באַשלוס צו ווערן אַ ייִד. אויף וועלכער שפּראַך זיי האָבן גערעדט, ווייסן מיר נישט גענוי, צום באַדויערן.
דער „ספֿר אליהו‟ איז, ווײַזט אויס, דער עלטסטער אָפּגעהיטער פּראָטאָ־אַשכּנזישער קוואַל. ביזן 11טן יאָרהונדערט איז אין ארץ־אַשכּנז בכלל נישט געווען באַקאַנט די גמרא. ווי מע זעט פֿון די אַשכּנזישע ספֿרים, אַז אַפֿילו שפּעטער זענען בײַ מיסטיש־געשטימטע דײַטשישע ייִדן געווען גאָר וויכטיק — אפֿשר, נאָך וויכטיקער ווי די גמרא — פֿאָלק־מעשׂיות, שפּרוכן און סגולות, וכּדומה. אַז זיי האָבן געשילדערט די ביאת־המשיח ווי אַ כּמו־קריסטלעך אַפּאָקאַליפּטיש געשעעניש, אויסגעמישט מיט אימאַזשן פֿון גערמאַנישער מיטאָלאָגיע, איז נישט קיין גרויסער חידוש. דער דײַטשישער פֿאָלקלאָר פֿאַרנעמט אַ גרויס אָרט אין דער אַלט־ייִדישער ליטעראַטור, ווי אויך, ווייניקער, אין ערנסטע ספֿרים. אַז אַזאַ קולטור־סינטעז האָט זיך שוין אָנגעהויבן אינעם 9טן יאָרהונדערט איז אָבער יאָ אַ חידוש.
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Roy Lichtenstein was far more than just a copyist, Roy Lichtenstein was far more than just a copyist
It’s easy to understand why the new Roy Lichtenstein exhibit at the Whitney Museum foregrounds the issue of copying, even to the extent of embracing it. Lichtenstein was — as his “Image Duplicator” from 1963 (included prominently here) shows — a constant and avowed copier. That’s by no means all he did, but he was famous for taking comic book art and making it epic. The issue was publicly and recently revisited by James L. Hussey and Jesse Finley Reed in their 2023 documentary Whaam! Blam! Roy Lichtenstein and the Art of Appropriation, in which researcher David Barsalou found hundreds of images which Lichtenstein used as source material.
Just for the sake of an in-your-face example of duplication, the Whitney owns the study for his massive 1964 World’s Fair mural “Girl in Window.” In addition to displaying that image in the exhibition gallery, the museum has mounted a spectacular replica of it on the outside of the building that is almost twice the size of the original. The 32-foot reproduction demonstrates the radical difference in scale between a comic panel and the monumental installation. It also has the effect of encouraging tourists on the High Line to visit “Roy Lichtenstein: Like New.”
The copying doesn’t stop there, it goes on and on. The most striking of the several works in the exhibition that were inspired by Lichtenstein’s practice comes from artist Alex Da Corte (also one of the curators). His large outside artwork “Hot Dog With Ketchup” traces directly back to Lichtenstein’s much smaller 1964 “Hot Dog.” Though the other work is smaller and located inside, Da Corte’s benefits from size, color, condiment, and location — his work sits opposite the hot dog vendors that cater to Whitney visitors and High Line walkers.
What the Whitney doesn’t mention, in its consideration of Lichtenstein’s art in the era of AI appropriation and TikTok culture, is that the mid-20th century was a time when people were already worried about copies. Jews and antisemites especially were extremely concerned with what it meant to take one thing and reproduce it. The question of mass production, reproduction and art had reached America as early as in 1917, when Marcel Duchamp took a mass-produced urinal and submitted it upside-down for a show in New York as “Fountain.”
That was already about a decade after the antisemitic Austrian politician Hermann Bielohlawek — a member of the Vienna City Council and ally of the Nazi-forerunner Karl Lueger — said “Culture is what a Jew copies from another.” (“Kultur ist was ein Jud’ von anderen abschreibt,” as quoted in David Nirenberg’s Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition.) Once the slow trickle of emancipation legislation acknowledged that Jews should have the same rights as other citizens and were legally part of the European body politic, racist cultural arbiters were invested in disallowing them from European culture as an ersatz people just copying “real” Europeans.
So, yes, Lichtenstein owes a lot of his understanding of perception and practice to his professor Hoyt L. Sherman and the Flash Lab at Ohio State University, but the idea of aping and shaping culture from ready-made images is a larger topic. Perhaps too, it was a topic for which America — not immured in canonical European Christian art — had a specific role to play. When I arrived in the country late in the last millennium I was amazed that cooking recipes listed ready-made ingredients like cans of mushroom soup. But maybe there’s a liberation in that.
By Duchamp’s time, culture had crashed through the walls of decorum, but in the generations between him and Lichtenstein, technology had also moved on. While Lichtenstein was at grade school on 89th Street on the Upper West Side, Walter Benjamin was writing his prescient, seminal 1935 essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproducibility,” which discusses, among other things, how contemporary image reproduction undermines the almost religious nature of art: Viewing a postcard of the Mona Lisa is not the same as experiencing it in person.
By taking ready-made images of everyday life from tins, comics, or — in one particularly heavy-handed instance — from Erle Loran’s book Cezanne’s Composition and pulling them back into the realm of art, Lichtenstein was joining an established conversation in parallel with the other preeminent Pop Artist, Andy Warhol. But, unless you are on the 7th floor where the museum is displaying Family Album, a small Warhol show, don’t mention that other “W” word at the Whitney this fall: The museum has gone big for this show. “Like New” is the first New York Lichtenstein retrospective it over 30 years, it is his centenary show (though three years late because of COVID), and Roy is the hometown hero, so gentrified downtown is all “L” all the time.
The closest the exhibition comes to including Warhol is displaying “Laughing Cat,” a 1961 painting that Lichtenstein included in a trade (with other art) for portrait commissions from his Pittsburgh peer in 1975. Little seen in the past 50 years, Lichtenstein’s “Laughing Cat” sits next to “Engagement Ring: just as it did in his breakthrough 1962 show at the Leo Castelli Gallery. At the press presentation, curators Da Corte and Meg Onli expressed their appropriate pride at recreating that show in a room inset into the spacious Whitney galleries.
It’s both breathtaking to be taken back to 1962 and also retro fun. Though it’s an actual reproduction of the gallery, the reproduced studio is radically different from the original, not just because it’s 64 years on and this time the setting is a museum, rather than a for-profit art gallery. But also, relatedly, because these pieces of art are not new but proven, even iconic. It’s worth comparing the Castelli Gallery to The Cavern where — at almost the same time as that show — four young Liverpudlians were working out the kinks in “Love Me Do,” one of their first songs fashioned from the chords of the American rock and R&B covers they loved.
Is any of this “Like New” as the title of the exhibition would have it? Certainly not in the sense that nothing in seeing this massive and beautifully spaced retrospective is like seeing the work as it was freshly made. Even the inclusion of four just-painted life-size murals, beginning with the bright, audacious Greene Street mural as you enter the exhibit does not make it “like new.”
However, the title works in the intended sense that Lichtenstein made existing things seem “like new.” He took ready-made images and techniques from the market and the culture around him and — to use the word coined by Viktor Shklovsky in the decade before Lichtenstein’s birth — “defamiliarized” them. So, in the sense that both Lichtenstein and the curators are presenting common, everyday, iconic things in an unfamiliar or strange way — yes.
The issue of copying is, to my mind, relatively trivial. AI has effectively stolen all the words and images that have ever been made without any compensation for the creators while using those words and images in exactly the same way that the creators intended them. Lichtenstein transformed the work he found.
In its review of Hussey and Reed’s film, the Guardian quoted Michael Daley, a cartoonist, talking about the feelings of those artists whose images Lichtenstein used: “Comic book artists are rightly aggrieved. Aside from outright plagiarisms, technically and artistically, they are generally far better draughtsmen than Lichtenstein.” But the review goes on to cite the authoritative answer of Bradford R Collins, author of Pop Art and professor of art history at the University of South Carolina. He defended Lichtenstein: “It’s not plagiarism. It’s appropriation,” he wrote. “With plagiarism, you’re stealing somebody’s work and using it for the same purpose they did. If Lichtenstein made comic books out of it, that would be stealing. But appropriation means you’re taking something and reusing it for a very different purpose, taking something out of a comic book and making it into a painting….I can understand why [Hy] Eisman [another cartoonist] would feel angry. I would feel the same way. But artistically, it’s not plagiarism.”
What’s perhaps more interesting about this is what came out of the experiment? What is of worth and what is of value? By taking us from the source material to an incredible array of Lichtenstein’s art, to art that uses Lichtenstein himself as a starting point, the curators give us space to ask those questions. They have seriously and playfully recreated the Castelli gallery, presented an Artist’s Studio (riffing off Lichtenstein’s series of the same name, itself an homage to Henri Matisse’s l’Atelier Rouge), dedicated an entire room to Lichtenstein’s only movie (Three Landscapes), an oval space to his Mirror series, and a large wall to his Rouen cathedral series that made Claude Monet pop in many senses of the term. They have stunningly displayed “Sunrise” (1965) in front of a vast window where the sun sets into the Hudson.
For my part, I don’t particularly consider Lichtenstein one of the true Greats. And, not least because of its tendency to drift into the spectacular or decorative, Pop Art often seems to lack substance. But that’s a matter of taste. I thoroughly enjoyed my 90 minutes at ‘Like New’ and, for the next seven months at least, can’t imagine a better place to go and argue about the significance of 20th century art.
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