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Antisemitism Is Raging on Campuses and in Classrooms This Fall
Anti-Zionist protesters being arrested at Pomona College on April 5, 2024. They had taken over an administrative building. Photo: Screenshot/Students for Justice in Palestine via Instagram
As the school year has begun, anti-Israel and antisemitic incidents have occurred at the administrative, faculty, and student level. Here is a breakdown of some of the worst offenses in October:
Faculty
In an incident that reflects the degree to which faculty demand the right to politicize every context, a Stony Brook University researcher complained that he was censured for his presentation at an international conference at the ALS and Related Motor Neuron Disease Gordon Research Conference, which featured slides of Palestinian flags and “stop starving Gaza.”
The manner in which hatred of Israel is embedded by faculty into courses was also illustrated by a course on Ethnic Studies at the University of California at San Diego taught by Professor Shaista Aziz Patel. The course, which is mandatory for Ethnic Studies students, claims that, “The pandemic is not over, neither the viral nor the structural ones of anti-Blackness, anti-indigeneity, Zionism, settler colonialism, casteism, capitalism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, racism, heteropatriarchy, and other structures of violence that keep white supremacy intact.” Information about the course was scrubbed once it was publicized.
The attitudes of individual faculty members were also displayed at McGill University in Canada, where a faculty member’s social media posting stated, “My hardcore Zionist colleagues (kill them all, as they say) from the math department at McGill will roll on the floor tearing their shirts and screaming antisemitism. Well, as they do everyday.” Despite calls from Jewish leaders, university officials have refused to comment on whether the professor’s statement constituted a threat or misconduct. The McGill Association of University Teachers recently adopted a full BDS policy, making pressure from fellow faculty members unlikely.
In a similar incident, a Rutgers University faculty member said she wouldn’t be surprised or horrified by the murder of Jews in synagogues, stating, “If a pro-Israel Zionist synagogue in the U.K was attacked because of the genocide in Palestine then we shouldn’t be surprised or horrified.”
She stated further that:
Secondly, Zionist Jews have spent 2 years convincing us that “Zionism and Judaism are the same”. I mean literally every single time I have respectfully delineated between Zionism and Judaism, I have been corrected that “95% of Jews worldwide support Israel” so if I’m criticising a Zionist I’m criticising all Jews. I am also continuously told by Zionists that ethnic cleansing Palestinians is essential to Jewish religious doctrine, Palestine was “promised to them by God”, and their “divine right on that land” makes them the only rightful inhabitants.
I mean, if they want us to really believe in their “Jewish supremacy” and that 2 million indigenous people must be killed and starved for European Jews to feel more comfortable while they bathe on beaches that don’t belong to them, then I’m sorry, but any hate towards said Jews would be valid.
Efforts to defend antisemitic and anti-Israel speech in the name of academic freedom continue to be advanced by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP).
In a letter to the US Department of Education, the AAUP complained that the University of Pennsylvania’s investigations of antisemitic speech were “Harassing, surveilling, intimidating, and punishing members of the university community for research, teaching, and extramural speech based on overly broad definitions of antisemitism does nothing to combat antisemitism, but it can perpetuate anti-Arab, anti-Muslim, and anti-Palestinian racism, muzzle political criticism of the Israeli government by people of any background, and create a climate of fear and self-censorship that threatens the academic freedom of all faculty and students.”
The AAUP’s invocation of anti-Palestinian racism represents an endorsement of a new hierarchy of racism being instituted throughout Canadian and US institutions. Conversely, the AAUP and its local chapters have also tried to police academic appointments, as seen in criticism of former White House spokesman Admiral John Kirby to a position at the University of Chicago. The California Faculty Administration has also filed a complaint to halt an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission investigation into systematic antisemitism in the California State University system.
Lawsuits in response to the growth of antisemitism within university faculty have become common. In October a Federal court ruled against the City University of New York’s efforts to dismiss a lawsuit filed on behalf of Jewish faculty at Hunter College. The suit alleges the institution failed to prevent systematic discrimination and harassment that expanded after October 7, 2023, along with disparate treatment of Jewish faculty and students.
Lawfare by the Islamic lobbying group CAIR has been directed at several universities. At Northwestern University the group sued on behalf of Muslim students who were disciplined by the university and who claimed that required antisemitism training was a violation of the Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. The complaint states that the “training course is replete with political commentary which restricts Northwestern students from advocating for Palestinian liberation, equal rights, an end to apartheid in Palestine, and for the rights of Palestine’s indigenous people (Jewish and non-Jewish).”
CAIR has also protested the appearance of former Israeli soldiers at the University of Maryland, and an appearance of Israeli physicians at the University of Maryland Medical School.
Students
Student groups in the US and Britain such as Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and the Palestine Youth Movement predictably opposed the Gaza ceasefire agreement.
A manifesto by Pomona College students who had previously disrupted an October 7th commemoration stated “this moment demands … making modern-nazis feel unwelcome, not just from these college campuses, but everywhere,” and that “Claremont Hillel and every single zionist in that room advance the genocide.”
The Michigan State University Democrats also released then quickly removed a statement condemning “genocide” and demanding the school divest from Israel.
In an especially egregious incident a student at Oxford University who was filmed chanting “Gaza Gaza make us proud, put the Zios in the ground” at a London protest was arrested and charged with inciting racial hatred. Police later removed several firearms and ammunition from his family’s home. The student was defended by a number of groups including Cardiff Students For Palestine which claimed that “Those who are called ‘Israelis’ are in reality tools and mercenaries of imperialism.”
Protests and demonstrations have continued at universities:
- Hunger strikes by SJP chapters to support Hamas have resumed at several institutions including the University of Houston and the University of Rochester;
- An SJP encampment at the University of Louisville was shut down within minutes and the group was suspended;
- At the University of Michigan, three protestors were arrested while disrupting a talk by visiting Israeli soldiers. They were charged with disorderly conduct, attempting to disarm a police officer, and with outstanding warrants.
K-12
K-12 education is increasingly the key vector for generating antisemitic hatred of Israel and its supporters, including Jews.
In an incident that revealed the extent to which teachers unions are prime movers of incitement, the National Education Association sent resources on “indigenous peoples” to its three million members that included a map which erased Israel, links to various anti-Israel websites such as “Palestine Remembered,” and reading lists from the Palestine Youth Movement.
When criticized, the organization scrubbed the resources from its website. The association president stated that the “NEA stands strongly against antisemitism. And we will continue our work to rigorously combat antisemitism, anti-Palestinian bigotry, anti-Arab racism, and all forms of discrimination…”
The role of unions was highlighted in a letter from Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA), head of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, to American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten. Kennedy accused the union of “fostering a culture of anti-semitism that alienates Jewish members.”
One tangible demonstration of this culture was a $10,000 donation from the Chicago Teachers Union Local 1 Political Action Committee to the Chicago Alliance Against Racism and Political Repression, a pro-Houthi group that supports “the resistance in Palestine.”
In one notable incident, the California Faculty Association circulated a survey to potential office holders who were asked to detail whether they have donated to or received endorsements from AIPAC or the Jewish Public Affairs Committee of California (JPAC). These were in addition to the “the Oil Industry, the Tobacco Industry, police associations, etc.” which “harm working people.”
The association had strongly opposed a bill supported by JPAC designed to address antisemitism in California schools.
In a related move, the National Council of Teachers of English’s subgroup, the Conference on English Leadership, hosted a panel with an English teacher who has lavishly praised Hamas and Yahya Sinwar.
These activities are already changing the environment within K-12 schools across the country, promoting Islam and “Palestine” and directly threatening Jews. In one recent and egregious incident, Muslim Student Association members at a Fairfax County (VA) high school filmed themselves wearing keffiyehs and pretending to take hostages who were stuffed into a plastic box. The video ended with the statement “no one was harmed in the making of this video.” School officials condemned the video and suspended the association, which was defended by CAIR officials. In New York City schools the Muslim American Society also has announced plans to hold events and create prayer spaces in 50 schools. The group also helped organize students at several high schools for a “Student Walkout for Gaza” held on October 7.
The author is a contributor to SPME, where a completely different version of this article appeared.
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All Jewish eyes are on Michigan as heated El-Sayed-Rogers Senate campaign draws to a close
(JTA) — DETROIT – The U.S. Senate race in Michigan, a deeply contentious contest that has strained Jewish relationships with the Democratic Party, drew to a bitter close Tuesday as voters headed to the polls in a race that could shape which party controls the chamber.
At its center is Abdul El-Sayed, the former county health director and Democratic nominee whose anti-corporate, Medicare For All candidacy has become a rallying cry for the national progressive movement.
His uncompromising stances on Israel have also made him a target among pro-Israel groups, including AIPAC, which has spent heavily against him in both the primary and general election. AIPAC’s rare entry into a general election race came to support El-Sayed’s opponent, Republican former congressman Mike Rogers.
One of El-Sayed’s positions on Israel — to end all U.S. military aid — was once thought a far-left pipe dream. But that has changed. On Election Day morning, Trump announced that, under his watch, nearly $4 billion in annual U.S. military aid to Israel would wind down by the end of the year. Trump said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in agreement with the need to end aid and deny Democratic critics a point of attack.
In his announcement of the plan, Trump cited El-Sayed.
“Why should we suffer the slings like lunatics like an El-Sayed when they don’t need it?” Trump said on Fox News, referring to Israel’s financial strength.
Representatives for the El-Sayed and Rogers campaigns, and for the Republican Jewish Coalition, did not immediately return requests for comment on Trump’s new pledge. It is unclear whether it will be straightforward for the White House to halt the funding by the end of 2026, given that the existing memorandum of understanding that governs it extends to 2028.
El-Sayed’s campaign has galvanized young voters and a range of other constituencies, and he pulled ahead in the polls in the race’s final stretch. But his questioning of Israel’s existence as a Jewish state and whether it or Iran posed a greater threat to the United States, as well as his prior associations with figures such as Hasan Piker, the streamer who has spread extreme rhetoric about American Jews, have sparked concern among Jewish Michiganders.
So, too, did comments the candidate made following the March terror attack on Temple Israel, a major synagogue in the state, in which El-Sayed appeared to link the attack to Israel’s war in Lebanon after reports that the attacker lost family in an Israeli strike. Hostile behavior from some of El-Sayed’s supporters toward pro-Israel Democrats, most prominently on display at the state party’s spring convention, have also alarmed Jews. El-Sayed has pledged to stand up to antisemitism.
Some Jews who had long considered themselves Democrats, including several local Jewish leaders, have cited such controversies in pledging to vote for Rogers. In some Michigan Jewish neighborhoods, yard signs proclaim that a vote for Rogers is a vote “against antisemitism.”
Accordingly, Rogers has made a play for the Jewish vote. He told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in October that his opponent is “anti-Jew,” while running ads that played up El-Sayed’s tenuous family associations with the Muslim Brotherhood.
Top Republicans have seized on the narrative, with President Donald Trump calling Jews “crazy” if they back El-Sayed, and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz calling him a national security threat. A Trump administration event to address antisemitism was held at a Michigan synagogue weeks before the election, though El-Sayed’s name was not mentioned there.
Jewish Democrats who had broken with El-Sayed found major validation in the race’s dramatic closing days. Democrat Haley Stevens, a strongly pro-Israel congresswoman who had narrowly lost to El-Sayed in the primary, flipped sides to endorse Rogers days after her Jewish fiancé, a Democratic megadonor, did the same.
The surprise move, which Jewish Democratic leaders joined many other prominent Democrats in criticizing, came after days of back-and-forth between Stevens and El-Sayed as she sought to publicly pressure him to condemn a PAC ad that had linked rising grocery prices to U.S. aid to Israel.
Meanwhile, some prominent Jewish Democrats in the state either avoided endorsing El-Sayed or did so with heavy reservations. Michigan’s Jewish Democratic Caucus, whose leadership has been deeply divided on El-Sayed, issued a statement Monday declaring the caucus would never vote for a Republican.
“Our commitment to the Democratic ticket remains resolute as we work to build a more inclusive coalition,” the caucus stated.
Throughout the campaign, El-Sayed has sought to reassure Jewish voters. He apologized for his Temple Israel comments; distanced himself from Piker; hired a Jewish outreach director; said in a recent “60 Minutes” interview that Israel has a right to exist; and sent mailers to Jewish households stating, “I am committed to protecting all Michigan Jews against hatred and injustice.” He told JTA in August that “the prerequisite of Jewish safety is never in question to me.”
More than 1,000 Michigan Jews have signed an open letter pledging to vote for El-Sayed, compared to 560 who have done the same for Rogers. Progressive Jewish figures of note have held salons throughout the state in a bid to convince on-the-fence Jews to back him.
Yet El-Sayed also has continued to stake out positions many Jews find alienating. He asserted in the campaign’s closing weeks that Israel was “not actually our friend” and declined during a debate to say whether Israel or Iran was the bigger danger to the U.S. His campaign also released an ad, designed to appeal to conservatives, that featured a brief clip of Tucker Carlson, the right-wing pundit who has promoted conspiracy theories about Israel. In addition, El-Sayed’s careful sidestepping of objectionable material about Jews and Israel from his ostensible allies, such as Piker and his uncle, left-wing anti-Israel pundit Cenk Uygur, has continued up to Election Day.
Ahead of Election Day, some liberal-leaning Zionist Jews tried to put pressure on El-Sayed to speak more directly to their concerns. A group of rabbis and other Jewish leaders launched Nonnegotiable Michigan in a bid to have him affirm what they called five core principles of Jewish participation in the Democratic Party, including “Jewish sovereignty in Israel.” After silence from the campaign, some of Nonnegotiable’s figureheads urged their followers to write in the 19th-century Jewish poet “Emma Lazarus” instead of voting for either candidate.
Michigan’s already small Jewish population, which numbers around 105,000 adults, has further splintered over El-Sayed’s candidacy. But it could prove pivotal to the outcome of a race that may determine control of the chamber. In 2024, the state’s Senate race was decided by fewer than 20,000 votes.
Either way, the race has crystallized the Democratic Party’s shifting fault lines over Israel — and many Jews’ growing uneasiness with their place in the liberal coalition.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post All Jewish eyes are on Michigan as heated El-Sayed-Rogers Senate campaign draws to a close appeared first on The Forward.
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Trump says US aid to Israel will stop at end of year
(JTA) — President Donald Trump on Tuesday morning said that the United States would halt billions of dollars in annual aid to Israel by the end of 2026, potentially ending decades of military support for one of America’s closest allies in the Middle East.
“We were giving them $4 billion. We are. But it gets cut off at the end of the year,” Trump declared during a call-in appearance on the “Fox & Friends” morning program on Fox News. Israel’s 10-year memorandum of understanding with the United States, which currently gives Israel $3.8 billion annually, runs through 2028 so it’s unclear how easy it would be for the White House to stop the funding this year.
Referencing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement in January that he wanted to taper off aid to zero at some point in the future, Trump questioned why Republicans should have to deal with criticism from hardline pro-Palestinian Democrats like Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed when “we give them more than anybody else and they no longer need it.”
“It’s a bad talking point,” he added. His comments came as Americans across the country are voting Tuesday in midterm elections that will determine control of the U.S. House and Senate.
“We reached an agreement on that” and Netanyahu “brought it up,” Trump continued. “He said: ‘I think it would be appropriate if we do not receive aid,’ because he understands that this is one of their points of contention.”
A growing number of Democratic congressional candidates across the United States have campaigned on a platform of reducing or halting military aid to Israel during the run-up to today’s midterm elections. This April, dozens of senators — almost all of them Democrats — voted in favor of a failed motion to block the sales of certain weapons to Israel.
Yair Golan, chairman of Israel’s liberal Democrats party, slammed Netanyahu in the wake of Trump’s statement, tweeting that “precisely at a time when Israel’s defense spending has reached enormous proportions, when Israel needs to replenish its offensive weapons stockpiles, and after air defense capabilities have been depleted following such a long war—Netanyahu logs another massive failure under his name.”
“The cessation of U.S. aid is heavy damage to Israel’s security” and “a responsible prime minister would have fought to increase American aid, not eliminate it,” added Golan, whose party opposes Netanyahu’s and is trying to form a coalition to oust Netanyahu from power following Israel’s own elections last Tuesday.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Trump says US aid to Israel will stop at end of year appeared first on The Forward.
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A ‘unique 20th Century Israelite’ who always made sure we got it right
It’s fitting that I first met Rabbi Capers Funnye in a television studio. And it should surprise no one that the topic that brought us together — by no means accidentally — was a discussion about Black Jews.
We never stopped talking about it. And making sure others got it right.
The spiritual leader for decades of Chicago’s Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation and since 2016 the Chief Rabbi of the International Israelite Board of Rabbis, Funnye died Nov. 2 at 74.
Our friendship spanned decades, beginning before we co-founded the Alliance of Black Jews with Michelle Stein-Evers Frankl in 1995. With Stein-Evers, then in Los Angeles, and me in Boston, the organization brought together Jews of African descent from around the country to celebrate our dual affiliations as normative.
Although the organization did not last beyond its early years, it spawned numerous other groups that exist today. Most significantly, it mainstreamed the fact that Blackness and Judaism are not mutually exclusive.
That’s the message we had been imparting five years earlier, on the Black Entertainment Television show Our Voices in 1990. Having filed a story mentioning Black Jews while a reporter for BET’s news division, I was asked by the network to co-produce a special on the subject. In addition to me, they asked who else should appear.
“There’s a rabbi in Chicago,” I said unhesitatingly, though I had yet to meet him, “and the police chief in Charleston, South Carolina” — Reuben Greenberg, who passed away in 2014.
Each of us came to Judaism differently: me, the child of a non-Jewish African-American father and non-Black Jewish mother; Greenberg, via conversion first through Reform, then Conservative Judaism (and also “reversion” in that he was reaching back to the religion of his grandfather), and Funnye, who had been Methodist before joining the Ethiopian Hebrew denomination (of African Americans, not Ethiopians) and later underwent a Conservative conversion.
Although his smicha was granted by the Ethiopian Hebrew group (now more broadly termed Israelite) and not by the Conservative body, he was invited to join the Chicago Board of Rabbis as its first African American member in 1997.
His dual affiliations as both Conservative and Israelite — and indeed, that of his largely Black and increasingly Hispanic Chicago shul, which also had merged with an aging Ashkenazi congregation — allowed him to serve as a bridge between many strains of Judaic practices.
“He accomplished what he wanted,” said Rabbi Baruch A. Yehudah of Congregation B’nai Adath Kol Beth Yisrael in New York. “He wanted to be a bridge builder and he built many — into the Ethiopian community, the Nigerian community, South Africa, Ghana, Uganda. He was the first one of us to be on a mainstream board of rabbis.”
“I loved him,” Yehudah added. “He wasn’t just my boss.”
Bruce Haynes, author of The Soul of Judaism, called Funnye “the most unique 21st Century Israelite” because of his role as chief rabbi. “To my knowledge, that (position) was the first of its kind. It elevated him institutionally as the premiere figure among modern-day Hebrew Israelites.”
Yet that outreach went beyond the bima. “Having chosen to move his whole family toward Conservative Judaism was an important step in cementing a personal relationship between Israelite congregations and rabbinic Judaism,” Haynes said.
Rabbi Tamar Manasseh, a protégé of Funnye who in 2021 became the first woman ordained by the Israelite body, said Funnye was “doing the whole bridge thing before anybody knew that they wanted a bridge.
“There were Black Jews who didn’t like that. There were white Jews who didn’t like that, either. It was uncomfortable for everybody until it wasn’t uncomfortable for anybody.”
She praised him for enduring “all of the stuff he had to go through to get us to a point where I can complain about things now, which is remarkable.”
I too find it difficult to separate the personal from the bridge-building. In addition to our numerous Black Jewish campaigns and initiatives — we literally traveled the world together, from Chicago to Boston to San Francisco to Uganda — he served as the rabbi for my mother’s funeral and my daughter’s wedding.
In my ever-diverse family, both were examples of bridge-building in their own right. During the wedding, my now son-in-law, whose native language is Russian, recited the line “I concentrate you to me as my wife,” prompting Funnye to break from the prepared liturgy to correct him.
“No, no. Consecrate. We gotta get this right.”
“I consecrate you to me as my wife,” the groom said, appreciative of the gentle but authoritative guidance.
Because Capers made sure to get it right.
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