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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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They want Jewish life without Zionism. Now they’re building the institutions to match.
(JTA) — One year after Jewish Currents editor-at-large Arielle Angel called for “new Jewish institutions” that have no attachment to Israel or Zionism, more than 100 Jews crammed into a Victorian house-turned-event space in central Brooklyn in hopes of creating them.
The event was billed as a bootcamp for people hoping to get fledgling Jewish groups off the ground. Sessions focused on topics like staffing and funding, as well as discussions about who, exactly, is welcome in a space that is “anti-Zionist,” “non-Zionist,” “diasporist” and the like.
Many of the groups represented on Monday were minyans, which host prayer services in locations like people’s apartments or community spaces. They sought practical guidance for building their institutions, but also for defining who to welcome as their ranks expand.
“If we’re doing things right,” Angel said, “many of these small minyans will be synagogues in a few years.”
Esti, 27, who declined to share her last name to maintain privacy, is involved in leading an anti-Zionist minyan in Brooklyn. She said she has heard from “so many” attendees that they were relieved to attend services in a space without an Israeli flag.
“People are like, ‘I never thought I could be in a Jewish space like this, I never thought I’d see queer people leading, I never thought I could be in a Jewish space where they’re saying Free Palestine,’” she said. The minyan averages about 50 attendees at Shabbat services, she said.
Some of the speakers at the workshop detailed how they have refused to compromise their organizations’ politics. One panel led by Rabbi Brant Rosen, who helped found the anti-Zionist synagogue Tzedek Chicago, and Rebecca Vilkomerson, the former director of the anti-Zionist group, Jewish Voice for Peace, focused on the process of setting an organization’s “political boundaries.”
Rosen spoke from his own experience, saying that Tzedek Chicago was presented as “consciously not an inclusive community.”
“In other words, this is what we stand for, it might not be for you, it might not be for everyone, and that’s OK. There are many places out there that you can choose,” he said. Rosen added that potential members were not forced to agree in order to join, but rather that they were faced with the question: “Given that these are our values, is this a community you want to belong to?”
Esti spoke to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on the sideline of the Urbane Arts Club event, which JTA attended on the condition that attendees’ in-session remarks throughout the day were kept off the record, though panelists’ remarks were all on the record.
Americans’ support for Israel has dropped writ large amid its military campaign in Gaza and the war with Iran. A survey by the Jewish Federations of North America found that 37% of Jewish respondents said they identified as Zionist, while 7% labeled themselves anti-Zionist and another 8% said they were non-Zionist. Another 18% said they weren’t sure, while 30% said none of the labels described them.
According to an AP-NORC poll from earlier this year, support for Israel is a less significant component of younger Jews’ religious identity versus Jews older than 45.
“These groups are starting up because of demand,” Rabbi Alissa Wise told JTA.
Wise is a co-founder of the Jewish Diaspora Movement, the group behind Monday’s bootcamp, which is itself in its beginning stages. She has previously worked for JVPe and in October 2023 founded Rabbis for Ceasefire, which has protested for a Gaza ceasefire and an end to U.S. military aid to Israel.
While JVP “played a pivotal role in building Jewish life outside of Zionism,” Wise said there was still a major gap in religious and cultural Jewish institutions that reject Zionism.
In addition to the represented minyans, which facilitate prayer services, and the havurahs, which offer events such as Shabbat dinners and other holiday celebrations, Angel said some attendees were looking to start projects including summer camps, educational offerings and cultural projects such as theater collectives.
Jen Kaminsky, an attendee who is part of the Buffalo Jewish Collective’s leadership team, told JTA that her organization welcomes “a range of Jews, many of whom have not felt comfortable in legacy Jewish institutions.”
“We say that we welcome anti-Zionists and non-Zionists, and people who are questioning Zionism and people who have a range of relationships to Zionism,” Kaminsky said. “If you are comfortable with the values that we put out, or you’re comfortable being in a room where those values are the dominant values, we welcome you.”
Vilkomerson told the group that there should be an attempt to grow membership by engaging people closer to the center in “left-liberal coalitions,” but without making concessions on left-wing values. She put the concept into New York City political terms, pointing to the political alliance between the anti-Zionist Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the liberal Zionist Brad Lander.
“Brad, as a liberal Zionist, was able to partner with Zohran Mamdani — but Zohran set the terms of the campaign, not Brad,” she said.
Also on Monday, Lissy Romanow — a co-founder of the group IfNotNow, which describes itself as “anti-occupation” — gave a nuts-and-bolts session on the first steps of creating an organization, including how to concisely conceive of a group’s DNA and how to avoid burnout among volunteers.
As groups look to grow and achieve loftier goals like setting up permanent locations and hiring paid staff, one clear obstacle stands in the way: funding.
“There’s only so much money on the Jewish left,” Angel told JTA.
Any anti-Zionist group is highly unlikely to receive funds from one of the country’s many Jewish federations, which often maintain deep ties to Israel.
Three left-wing Jewish donors — Liana Krupp, Deborah Sagner and Kathleen Peratis — spoke on Monday about the limited landscape of funding for Jewish anti-Zionist organizations.
“If we don’t flip liberal Zionists we’re not going to grow, because that’s where the money is,” Peratis said.
Participants on Monday, whose groups are mostly volunteer-run, did not have any illusions about that landscape.
“For now, the goal is to keep doing Shabbat in a sustainable way on a regular basis,” Esti said. But she also shared her long-term vision.
“I think it would be amazing to have a brick-and-mortar shul, a place we could call our definitive home,” she said. “But that’s way, way far down the line.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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After bronze win, judo athlete Raz Hershko tells JTA, ‘I stand for something far bigger than myself.’
(JTA) — Israeli judoka Raz Hershko, one of the country’s top athletes, missed a major opportunity in 2025 when the 12-day war between Israel and Iran closed Israeli airspace, preventing her from traveling to Budapest. Earlier this year, she withdrew from the Tashkent Grand Slam after the Shin Bet ordered the Israeli team to leave Uzbekistan.
But nothing could keep Hershko off the podium this weekend, when she won a bronze medal at the World Judo Championships in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Hershko, 28, burst into tears after winning the bout that secured her medal.
“Representing Israel has always been something that moves me, but at this moment, it carries so much more meaning,” Hershko told JTA. “At the end of the day, I step onto the mat alone, but I feel like I have an entire country behind me.”
Hershko dedicated her victory to the memory of Yonatan Gutin, an Israeli soldier killed on Oct. 7, 2023, as well as his family and the people of Israel.
According to his official memorial page, Gutin, a 20-year-old Israel Defense Forces officer, was killed fighting to rescue civilians during the battle for Kibbutz Be’eri. Judo was a central part of his life. He had trained in the sport for about 14 years and was a member of Israel’s cadet national team. Even during his military service, he occasionally returned to his judo club to coach.
Despite the achievement, Hershko made clear that bronze was not the result she had hoped for.
“I’m pretty disappointed that the day ended with a bronze medal, because I was aiming for gold,” she said. “But now it’s time to look ahead to the next goals.”
Hershko has established herself in recent years as one of the world’s leading judokas and one of Israel’s most prominent athletes. She won an individual silver medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics and a gold medal at the 2024 European Championships. She competes in the women’s heavyweight division.
Her latest achievement came just days after Israel marked the third anniversary of the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attacks, a date that has continued to shape the country’s public life and weigh heavily on its athletes competing abroad.
“Knowing that I was able to give people back home even a few moments of happiness, a smile, a sense of pride — that means so much to me. Especially during the times we’re going through, these are the moments that remind me why I do what I do,” she added.
The judoka said that “everything has felt different since Oct. 7” and that she can’t “disconnect” herself from the Israeli reality.
“Before that, I would go into competitions feeling immense pride in representing my country,” she said. “Today, that pride is even stronger. I’m much more aware of what the flag I wear represents, and of the fact that I stand for something far bigger than myself.”
Hershko, however, has little time to dwell on the medal. She told Channel 13 that she would take two days off before returning to training ahead of another competition next week. Asked by JTA how she has managed to stay hungry and focused after achieving so much, the Israeli athlete said she simply enjoys the journey.
“I really love what I do. I love judo, I love competing, I love the challenges, and I think that’s what keeps me hungry,” she said. “Of course, I’m proud of everything I’ve achieved, but I never feel like I’m done or that there’s nothing left to strive for. At the end of the day, the medals are incredible moments, but the journey is what builds me as an athlete, and I’m still enjoying that journey.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Jewish school educators cancel trip to Italy after Italian education program required participants to denounce ‘genocide’ in Gaza
(JTA) — Educators from Jewish schools across the U.S. canceled a study trip to Reggio Emilia, Italy, over whether the hosts would require participants to formally distance themselves from Israel’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank.
The controversy has drawn accusations of antisemitism from Jewish educators and from Italian Jewish community leaders. It has also sparked a political dispute in Italy.
In an email sent to participants on Oct. 9, the American organizers, the Paradigm Project, said they canceled the trip because of “antisemitic pressure being placed on the group.” In a Zoom call with the participants, the organizers also cited safety concerns amid the scrutiny of the Jewish school educators’ personal profiles by pro-Palestinian activists who were agitating for the declaration, a participant said.
In a leaked audio recording broadcast Monday evening by Italy’s Tg3 TV news program, the president of the host organization Reggio Children, Maddalena Tedeschi, discussed asking participants to sign declarations distancing themselves from the “occupation of territories and genocide.” The recording is of an Oct. 6 meeting of the city’s early childhood education council.
In an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Reggio Children spokesperson Francesca Severini said the request — intended to appease local pro-Palestinian activists — had never become an official participation requirement, but acknowledged that the additional wording had been discussed.
The Paradigm Project, a professional development network for Jewish early childhood educators, organized the trip for 68 Jewish educators. A separate delegation of 22 educators from Israel arrived in Reggio and was participating in the program this week.
“Now, more than ever, we must bring back the light and keep the bridge between us strong,” the Israeli educators said in opening remarks Monday.
Reggio Children, an educational organization partly owned by the municipality, promotes the city’s internationally influential approach to early childhood education and provides training for educators. Reggio Emilia Mayor Marco Massari and the city’s education official Marwa Mahmoud did not respond to requests for comment.
The cancellation, which came in a phone call from Paradigm to Reggio Children on Oct. 7, follows months of tensions in the city, where pro-Palestinian activists had protested the participating schools’ ties to Israel. During the weeks preceding the trip, activist Cosimo Pederzoli had publicly accused some of the schools of supporting the Israeli military.
At the Oct. 6 meeting, Reggio Children presented a charter, titled “For a Democratic and Participatory Education,” asking visiting groups and partners to uphold human rights, oppose discrimination, reject war, and condemn genocide. The charter, which was approved and is now on the organization’s website, also opposes violations of human rights in occupied territories worldwide, without naming Israel or Gaza.
Severini, the spokesperson, said that activists, teachers and parents had pressured Reggio Children and the municipality to take the charter one step further and requiring participants to agree to the statement: “I … hereby declare that I distance myself from the occupation of Gaza and the violation of children’s and human beings’ rights in occupied territories as well as every place in the world.”
Severini said that the wording was included as “material for discussion” in a private WhatsApp group. The American organizers were not in the chat, she said, and subsequently received the wording without the context that it would not, in the end, be official language.
Her account contradicts Reggio Children’s earlier public statements. On Oct. 7, the organization acknowledged that the educators had been asked to explicitly distance themselves from the policies of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in response to concerns raised in the city. Mayor Marco Massari also acknowledged the additional commitment in a public statement, which says, “This Charter will be signed by all delegations visiting Reggio Emilia in the coming months and years.”
In an email to parents, leaders of Wilshire Boulevard Temple’s early childhood centers in Los Angeles said seven of their educators had been scheduled to join the trip and expressed support for Paradigm’s decision to cancel.
“Paradigm, on behalf of our educators and dozens of others, rightfully refused and canceled participation in the study tour and conference, due to the refusal to sign and other security considerations,” read the email. “All participants were notified on October 7, 2026.”
Pesha Kletenik, head of Manhattan Day School, had planned to join the trip. “This was one of the most painful experiences I’ve had,” Kletenik told JTA. “I never felt so targeted as a Jew before in my life. I’m an American citizen. I have one passport. I’ve lived here my entire life.”
Kletenik said she had hoped to adapt the Reggio approach to Jewish teaching and practice, including their model Passover seder, because “it aligns so beautifully with Jewish values.”
Steve Freedman, head of Solomon Schechter Day School of Bergen County, New Jersey, said his school withdrew an educator from a separate trip planned for November. In a letter to families, he criticized the demand for a political declaration while affirming the school’s commitment to the Reggio approach.
The council of the Jewish Community of Modena and Reggio Emilia, a single institution based in nearby Modena that serves both cities, condemned efforts to boycott educational and cultural initiatives involving Jews. It described the conflation of diaspora Jews with Israel’s government as antisemitic.
The Reggio Emilia approach, developed after World War II by educator Loris Malaguzzi and local families, places children’s exploration, expression, and participation at the center of early childhood learning. It gained wider international recognition after Newsweek named one of the city’s preschools among the world’s 10 best schools in 1991.
Severini said Reggio Children’s relationships with American Jewish and Israeli educators stretch back roughly three decades. The Israeli liaison first visited in 1996, she said, and educators from Reggio have also traveled to the United States and Israel.
The organization has hosted educators from all over the world, Severini said, including China, Russia, and Iran. She said she knew of no comparable controversy involving other visiting groups, including previous delegations from Jewish schools.
Reggio Children, she said, hoped to continue its dialogue with the American educators. For Manhattan Day School’s Kletenik, the cancellation stood in stark contrast with the educational values that had drawn her to the approach.
“How are we to navigate rejection by the very experts we collectively idealized—the gatekeepers of the sensitive worldviews and teachings we trusted to nurture our most tender children?” she wrote in a message to her school’s board.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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