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Alleging exclusion, Jewish faculty boycott James Madison University’s Holocaust commemoration event
(JTA) — An event that took place at a Virginia university Thursday night to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day was scheduled to feature lectures about the legacies of Auschwitz and the intersection between white supremacy and antisemitism. There was also a planned recitation of a poem and a musical performance.
Not on the docket at James Madison University: support for the event from the school’s Jewish faculty and staff.
Dozens of them announced in an open letter that they would boycott the event, titled “An Evening Conversation on the History and Legacy of the Holocaust,” citing concerns about its appropriateness. Of particular concern, according to multiple people familiar with the situation, was a planned performance by the university’s provost, a pianist, during a segment titled “Music as Refuge in the Holocaust.”
“There was no refuge for those targeted by the ‘Final Solution,’” said the open letter, which was unsigned but said it had the support of “24 of Jewish JMU Faculty, Faculty Emeriti, and Staff.”
The letter, which the school’s student newspaper The Breeze published Thursday morning, said the planning of the Holocaust event had “disrespected and disparaged Jewish individuals, dismissed Jewish participation and failed to reflect the inclusive values that JMU purports to foster.” The letter criticized the university’s decision to invite keynote speakers from other universities and the rabbi of a neighboring community to give a community address, rather than centering James Madison personnel or the local rabbi.
That rabbi, Jeffrey Kurtz-Lendner of Beth El Congregation of Harrisonburg, said the event had been planned with little to no input from Jews, and that three Jews who were added to the planning committee late in the process later resigned en masse.
In an interview, Kurtz-Lendner compared the event to “a Martin Luther King observance planned by an entire committee of white people.” He said he was joining the boycott and not encouraging his congregants, who include James Madison professors, to attend. He said the rabbi listed on the original program, from a Reform synagogue about 30 miles away in Staunton, would not attend, either.
“The program looks wholly insensitive,” he said. “Instead of being a commemoration of the Holocaust, it looks like it’s turning into an opportunity for celebration.”
That idea appeared to be rooted in the inclusion of music during the event. Maura Hametz, the Jewish chair of the university’s history department, said she had successfully argued against including instrumental music during last year’s commemoration, citing prohibitions in Jewish tradition against instrumental music in times of mourning.
“Biblically we don’t use instrumental music, as Jews,” to commemorate the Holocaust, she said. “If you use the instruments, it’s a celebration.” The proposal to include a musical interlude, she said, also had a history in “medieval church music, so that doesn’t track with what is good for us.”
The belief that Holocaust commemorations cannot include music is not universally held; some commemorations have featured music written by Jewish composers as acts of resistance or remembrance. International Holocaust Remembrance Day was created by the United Nations in 2005 as a way to mourn all victims of the Holocaust, distinct from Yom HaShoah, the Jewish holiday that takes place in April and was established by the Israeli government to commemorate specifically Jewish Holocaust victims.
Still, Hametz had made the case against music last year, so when she saw that this year’s event was again scheduled to include musical selections, she said, “It did surprise me.” She ultimately decided to boycott the event and sign the open letter.
The boycott was supported by one of the university centers sponsoring the event, the Mahatma Gandhi Center for Global Nonviolence. Its director, Taimi Castle, issued a statement to the student newspaper saying the center would “spend time reflecting on how we can support the Jewish community at JMU in addressing the harm caused by these actions.”
A James Madison University spokesperson said Thursday that the event itself was still scheduled to proceed as intended that evening. The university said it had reached out to “a spokesperson for this group” of critics and planned to hold a meeting “to gain further understanding and collectively work on a path forward.”
The episode comes amid broad questions about the role of Jews in efforts to promote diversity and inclusion in universities and workplaces. Jewish critics of the emerging field of diversity, equity and inclusion have charged that antisemitism is not always treated as similarly offensive to racism or homophobia, despite also being rooted in hatred based on identity. The Jewish open letter signers also cited a recent statewide report on antisemitism in Virginia as reason to take their concerns about Jewish representation at the university seriously.
James Madison’s Holocaust Remembrance Day event was sponsored in part by the university’s equity and inclusion office, and the associate provost for inclusive strategies and equity initiatives was scheduled to deliver opening remarks and also moderate a question-and-answer session at the event’s end.
“This event is to create an opportunity for people to learn about the lived experiences of others and honor the Holocaust Remembrance Day through educational and solemn means,” Malika Carter-Hoyt, the school’s vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion, said in a statement provided to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. The statement did not mention Jews or antisemitism.
Carter-Hoyt said she hadn’t received “any notice about these concerns” prior to the letter.
“I acknowledge the letter and express compassion toward the concerns outlined by faculty,” Carter-Hoyt said. But she also defended the planning and suggested that having Jews on the planning committee had not been a specific university priority.
“Committee members were selected based on substantive expertise and commitment to the creation of an event that properly marks the occasion,” she wrote. “No one was included or excluded explicitly based on a particular protected characteristic.”
James Madison University, located in Harrisonburg, is a public college with about 21,000 students. About 1,200 of them are Jewish, according to Hillel International, which offers some services on campus but does not have a building or rabbi there. Efforts to reach anyone affiliated with JMU Hillel were unsuccessful. The chapter’s vice president was listed as a participant on the evening’s program, scheduled to read a poem by Primo Levi, an Italian Holocaust survivor.
The school also does not have a Jewish studies department, despite what Hametz said had been extensive lobbying by faculty members to establish one. Alan Berger, who launched Jewish studies departments at Syracuse and Florida Atlantic universities, was billed as a keynote speaker at the event Thursday.
James Madison’s provost Heather Coltman, who was scheduled to play piano at the Holocaust memorial event and also previously worked at Florida Atlantic University, has an uneasy relationship with the school’s faculty. This week the faculty senate sought to condemn her for reportedly retaliating against the authors of a report on transparency at the school.
While there are courses taught on Jewish topics, the lack of a separate department means that Jewish representation on campus is limited, Hametz said.
“There is no spokesperson here for the Jewish community,” she said. “There’s no central voice to say, ‘Hey, why is this happening? How is it possible that you go ahead with a Holocaust event with no Jewish people on the committee?’”
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The post Alleging exclusion, Jewish faculty boycott James Madison University’s Holocaust commemoration event appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Pete Hegseth compares media to the Pharisees, ancient Jewish sect derided by Christians
(JTA) — Almost exactly seven years after a presidential candidate stopped referring to “Pharisees” in response to allegations of antisemitism, another prominent political Pete has invoked the term.
And this time, it’s not just Jews but Christians who are finding the allusion offensive.
In 2019, it was Pete Buttigieg, then an Indiana mayor on the verge of declaring his Democratic presidential run, who compared an adversary to Pharisees, the sect of ancient Jews who are portrayed as hypocrites in the New Testament.
“There’s an awful lot about Pharisees in there,” Buttigieg told the Washington Post while speaking about then-Vice President Mike Pence, a Republican who frequently touted his Christian values. “And when you see someone, especially somebody who has such a dogmatic take on faith that they bring it into public life, being willing to attach themselves to this administration for the purposes of gaining power, it is alarmingly resonant with some New Testament themes, and not in a good way.”
Scholars of ancient Judaism and liberal Jewish leaders objected, saying that the term carried antisemitic implications even if not intended that way. Just days later, Buttigieg’s team announced he would no longer use the term, saying, “We appreciate the people who have reached out to educate us on this.”
Now, it’s Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth who has derisively name-dropped the sect, understood to be precursors of modern rabbinic Judaism in their approach to Jewish practice.
Speaking to members of media on Thursday, Hegseth said he had thought of the Pharisees in church when his minister preached about a New Testament story describing Jesus entering a synagogue and healing someone sick.
“The Pharisees — the so-called and self-appointed elites of their time — they were there to witness, to write everything down, to report,” he said. “But … even though they witnessed a literal miracle, it didn’t matter. They were only there to explain away the goodness in pursuit of their agenda.”
An 1843 engraving of Jesus with the Pharisees by Friedrich August Ludy, after a painting by Johann Friedrich Overbeck. (Getty Images)
To Hegseth, the comparison was clear amid critical coverage of the U.S. war on Iran. “Our press is just like these Pharisees. Not all of you, not all of you, but the legacy Trump-hating press, your politically motivated animus for President Trump nearly completely blinds you from the brilliance of our American warriors,” he said. “The Pharisees scrutinized every good act in order to find a violation, only looking for the negative.”
The invocation alarmed some Jews who heard it, according to posts on social media. They were responding with an awareness that in Christian tradition, the Pharisees have come to be thought of as “hypocrites, fools and a brood of vipers, full of extortion, greed, and iniquity,” as the Jewish scholar of early Jewish-Christian relations Amy-Jill Levine put it in a 2015 article arguing that Christian criticism of the Pharisees is antisemitic.
But this time, the comparison triggered a sharper outcry among some Christians and conservatives, because it likened Donald Trump and the U.S. military to Jesus at a time when the president has roiled some of his Christian base by posting an AI image of him as a Jesus- or God-like figure. (He said the image was depicting him as a doctor rather than Jesus, then deleted the picture.)
“Hegseth and Trump need to leave the religious jargon out of this,” wrote Peter Laffin, a senior editor at the conservative Washington Examiner, on X. “It is grotesque to compare the press to Pharisees, because it implies that they, Hegseth and Trump, are Jesus. “This is a hole they need to stop digging.”
The Jesus image closely followed Trump’s sparring this week with Pope Leo XIV. After the pope criticized the Iran war, Trump lambasted him on Truth Social, saying he should “get his act together” and implying that Trump played a role in his appointment. The pope rejected Trump’s criticism, adding fuel to a feud that has captivated Catholics around the world and even reshaped elements of Italian politics.
Soon after Hegseth’s speech, Pope Leo XIV tweeted again: “Woe to those who manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic, and political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth.”
Hegseth’s comments come as the Trump administration has injected overtly Christian ideas, references and practices into government activities. They were not his only comments citing scripture to draw criticism this week. He has also been mocked for quoting a biblical verse — Ezekiel 25:17 — using not the text found in Jewish or Christian texts but the one used by a character in Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction” to justify violence.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Pete Hegseth compares media to the Pharisees, ancient Jewish sect derided by Christians appeared first on The Forward.
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Jewish groups urge Trump to prioritize Americans held in Iran during ceasefire talks
(JTA) — The American Jewish Committee is calling on President Donald Trump to make the return of Americans in Iranian custody an “urgent national priority,” as his administration works to preserve a fragile ceasefire with Iran.
“The United States must be unequivocal: the wrongful detention or hostage-taking of Americans will not be accepted or sidelined,” the ADJ said in a statement issued jointly with other North American groups. “Our adversaries must recognize that harming Americans has lasting consequences, and Americans must be assured that their government will pursue their return with unwavering resolve.”
Along with the AJC, the call came from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation, the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights and United Against Nuclear Iran. The co-founders of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum U.S., the American branch of the group that advocated for the Israeli hostages in Gaza, also signed on.
The groups celebrated the Trump administration’s record of negotiating hostage releases, writing that it had “already demonstrated an extraordinary record in recovering Americans from hostile regions, securing the release of over 70 Americans since January 2025, including every last hostage held in Gaza, living or deceased.”
The groups wrote, “The ability of the U.S. to lead in the recovery of not just Americans held in Gaza, but to secure the release of all hostages taken by Hamas showcases that the time to act decisively is now.”
Among those in captivity is Robert Levinson, a Jewish retired FBI special agent who went missing in Iran in 2007 during a business trip. Levinson’s family announced that he had died in Iranian custody in 2020.
“President Trump has brought more than 70 Americans home since January 2025,” Levinson’s family said in a statement. “We urge him to make Bob and every American held in Iran a priority in these talks — and to demand that the men responsible for our father’s abduction finally account for what they did. After 19 years, please help our family get the truth we need to move forward, and give our heroic father the justice he so rightfully deserves.”
The statements came as Trump announced that Israel and Lebanon had agreed to a 10-day ceasefire, a condition that Iran has said was essential for any longer-term peace deal with the United States and Israel.
On Friday, Trump told Axios that he expected a permanent deal with Iran to be reached “in the next day or two,” and negotiators for the two countries are expected to meet over the coming days.
The potential deal, which has largely focused on suspending Iran’s nuclear activity, is not expected to include any provisions about the release of American hostages, which are often handled through separate negotiations. In 2023, former President Joe Biden negotiated the release of five American prisoners in Iran in exchange for releasing $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets.
There are signs that the United States is interested in securing the release of Americans in Iran. In February, Secretary of State Marco Rubio designated Iran as a “state sponsor of wrongful detention,” writing in a release at the time that “for decades, Iran has continued to cruelly detain innocent Americans, as well as citizens of other nations, to use as political leverage against other states.”
While it is unclear exactly how many American hostages are currently in Iranian captivity, United Against Nuclear Iran currently maintains a list of 13 individuals.
“The Iranian regime must stop taking hostages and release all Americans unjustly detained in Iran, steps that could end this designation and associated actions,” Rubio said. “We encourage it to do so.”
The Jewish and pro-Israel group are calling on the Trump administration to “make the safety, security, and freedom of Americans held captive in Iran a top priority and ensure this is integrated into broader strategic discussions regarding Iran.”
They added, “We stand ready to work with the Administration to bring every American held in Iran home safely and swiftly. There is no time to waste—the moral and strategic imperative is clear.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Jewish groups urge Trump to prioritize Americans held in Iran during ceasefire talks appeared first on The Forward.
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Trump’s antisemitism envoy says US will bar World Cup attendees tied to antisemitism abroad
(JTA) — Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun, the U.S. special envoy for monitoring and combating antisemitism, said this week that the United States will bar individuals from attending the World Cup who are accused of fostering antisemitism in their home countries.
“The president and the secretary of state have made it perfectly clear that people who want to sow discord in this country are not welcome here,” Kaploun told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Friday. “People who want to bring their brand of hate to the United States with antisemitism are not welcome. Coming to this country is a privilege. It’s not a right.”
Kaploun’s comments on a potential ban were first reported by Euractiv, which said he told a European Jewish Association conference in Brussels that the United States was “holding countries accountable for ministers who are saying things, and they are not being allowed into the country.”
But Kaploun dismissed Euractiv’s report that the United States would institute a ban specifically on European politicians, instead saying that “everybody is judged as an individual.”
“If there is a minister that is promoting, you know, there are people who are promoting right-wing antisemitism or left-wing antisemitism,” Kaploun said. “Either way, coming to the United States is a privilege, not a right, and everybody is judged on making sure that they’re going to be coming to this country, that they’re going to not ferment hate.”
The FIFA World Cup, which will be hosted in cities across the United States, Mexico and Canada from June 11 to July 19, will be the organization’s largest event to date, featuring 48 national teams.
The countries that qualified include several that have battled openly — and in some cases literally — with Israel, such as Iran, Turkey and South Africa. (Israel, which has faced widespread calls to be banned from the Union of European Football Associations, will not participate, having lost in qualifying competition last year.)
Participating countries also include several where antisemitism is seen to be on the rise or where U.S. officials have sparred with leaders over issues related to Jewish safety — for example Belgium, where the U.S. ambassador recently challenged the health minister publicly over the arrest of mohels who performed Jewish circumcisions.
Kaploun, who was confirmed as antisemitism envoy in December, has taken aim at antisemitism in Europe in recent months, including in January when he split with the president of the Conference of European Rabbis over the root of antisemitism in the region.
Kaploun’s comments came as FIFA President Gianni Infantino confirmed at CNBC’s Invest in America Forum on Wednesday that Iran would participate in the World Cup, despite its ongoing war and fragile ceasefire with the United States and Israel.
“The Iranian team is coming for sure, yes,” Infantino said. “We hope that by then, of course, the situation will be a peaceful situation. As I said, that would definitely help. But Iran has to come. Of course, they represent their people. They have qualified. The players want to play.”
On Thursday, Andrew Giuliani, the executive director of the White House FIFA World Cup task force, told Politico that the Trump administration did expect Iran to be in attendance.
“I’m not going to speak for the Iranian team, but I will say that the president, when I’ve talked to him, has invited the Iranian team here,” Giuliani said. “The president of FIFA made a statement, I think, yesterday, that they’re going to be coming. So we expect them here.”
Discussing who could be affected by potential bans, Kaploun pointed to those involved in the October decision by England’s Aston Villa Football Club to prohibit Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters from attending a match, as well as individuals tied to the violence in Amsterdam last year that left several Maccabi Tel Aviv fans injured.
“Those people who are responsible for what occurred in Amsterdam at the soccer matches, or that are responsible for the lies that ended up resulting in tourists, people, not being allowed to come to a soccer match — those people who do those things will be held accountable and aren’t welcome to come to the United States of America,” Kaploun said.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Trump’s antisemitism envoy says US will bar World Cup attendees tied to antisemitism abroad appeared first on The Forward.