{"id":75864,"date":"2020-01-29T17:05:50","date_gmt":"2020-01-29T15:05:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=75864"},"modified":"2020-01-26T13:58:42","modified_gmt":"2020-01-26T11:58:42","slug":"29-05-51","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=75864","title":{"rendered":"Campus Antisemitism Reaches New Lows in America"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>Campus Antisemitism Reaches New Lows in America<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

Ken Cohen \/ JNS.org<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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An anti-Israel \u201capartheid wall\u201d on display at Columbia University during Apartheid Week in 2017. Photo: Facebook.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The Trump administration issued an\u00a0Executive Order<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0last month aimed at combating antisemitism on American college campuses. For ideological as well as financial reasons, this action caused outrage on numerous campuses \u2014 eliciting cries of censorship from administrators, faculty, student governments, and others. Yet these same academics are quick to condemn similar offenses directed at African-American, Muslim, women, or transgender students.<\/span><\/p>\n

Equal protection on campus is everybody\u2019s business \u2014 not just that of the academic community. Antisemitism on campus is a reflection of a greater societal sickness that threatens every minority, whether racial, religious, sexual, or ethnic.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet college antisemitism has reached epidemic proportions and deserves not only outrage from every American, but also public pressure to eliminate it directed at university administrators and elected representatives at every level.<\/span><\/p>\n

The numbers tell a story of hate directed at American Jewish college students \u2014 to some, reminiscent of early warnings in 1930s Germany.<\/span><\/p>\n

Acts of campus antisemitism last year rose to 201 reported incidents, an 86 percent increase in just two years. These included numerous acts of harassment and vandalism, but also several assaults of Jewish students, according to the Anti-Defamation League\u2019s Annual Report.<\/span><\/p>\n

There were also a half-dozen bomb threats to Jewish campus institutions. At the University of California at Berkeley, campus police found a fake bomb covered with antisemitic statements, including \u201cAll Jews f*** off and evaporate.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Horrifically, during the week of national grieving for victims of the massacre at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, memorials set up at four universities \u2014 the University of Tennessee, Pomona College, Eastern Michigan University, and Duke University \u2014 were defaced with antisemitic graffiti and Nazi swastikas.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nationwide, many meetings and events of Jewish organizations like Hillel were disrupted by raucous protesters, typically shouting anti-Zionist and outright antisemitic chants. On campuses from coast to coast, national pro-Palestinian groups like Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) have usually orchestrated the antisemitic verbal \u2014 and sometimes physically threatening \u2014 assaults. Some Jewish students are scared to wear outward signs of their Jewishness because doing so can lead to harassment and sometimes even assault.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s executive order relates to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which specifically denies funding to colleges that do not prevent and\/or punish perpetrators of discrimination or harassment based on \u201crace, color, or national origin.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The new rules extend the list to include antisemitic actions, and clearly state that anti-Zionism \u2014 that is, the denial of the Jewish people\u2019s right to a nation in their indigenous home \u2014 is a form of antisemitism and thus covered by Title VI. (It also states that normal criticism of particular Israel policies is no different than, say, critiquing American immigration policy or Great Britain\u2019s Brexit policy.)<\/span><\/p>\n

The president\u2019s order states that a school\u2019s Title VI obligations are triggered when harassment is \u201cbased on the group\u2019s actual or perceived shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics, rather than solely on its members\u2019 religious practices.\u201d It also suggests that funding agencies use the definition of antisemitism advanced by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA).<\/span><\/p>\n

The IHRA guidelines include \u201capplying double standards by requiring of Israel a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The antisemitic activities on campuses go beyond the sort of incidents that the ADL tallies. At several schools (including McGill University in Canada), student and faculty groups have tried to eliminate study-abroad programs at Israeli universities. At the University of Michigan, a professor \u2014 based on his advocacy of a total academic boycott of Israel \u2014 refused to write a letter of recommendation for a Jewish student who wished to study at the University of Haifa. (Fortunately, in this case, the campus administration remedied the situation.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Columbia University and the University of North Carolina have already been put on notice that various campus goings-on regarding Jewish students and groups may endanger their Title VI funding. Even the notoriously antisemitic San Francisco State University has taken steps to ameliorate the hostile atmosphere for Jewish students fostered by pro-Palestinian groups.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is tragic that the state of American universities has degenerated to the point that Jewish students and groups must look to a presidential order for protection from rampant antisemitism. Apparently, though, this is the only way to make cowardly campus administrations sit up and take action when their Jewish students are harassed and made to feel unwelcome on campus.<\/span><\/p>\n

All people of goodwill \u2014 and certainly all of those who care about young Jewish students \u2014 should continue to pressure colleges to take responsibility for the well-being of Jewish students and organizations on campus in their communities and nationwide.<\/span><\/p>\n

If your local college \u2014 or your alma mater \u2014 is a place of hostility for Jewish causes and Zionist students, demand that the campus leadership provide a safe place for all Americans, regardless of ethnicity, religion, or support for Israel. Make your financial support dependent on such equal protection. Write letters to your local newspaper \u2014 or college newspaper \u2014 expressing your outrage at the harassment of Jewish students.<\/span><\/p>\n

Demand that young Jews leaving home for the first time to study at an American university should not have to hide their Jewish identity or their support for the State of Israel as the home of the Jewish people. Nor should they feel that it is risky to participate actively in Jewish-related or pro-Israel activities at institutions that are supposed to be centers of diversity and free expression.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Ken Cohen<\/strong> is editor of Facts and Logic About the Middle East (FLAME), which publishes educational messages to correct lies and misperceptions about Israel and its relationship to the United States.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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Campus Antisemitism Reaches New Lows in America Ken Cohen \/ JNS.org An anti-Israel \u201capartheid wall\u201d on display at Columbia University during Apartheid Week in 2017. Photo: Facebook. The Trump administration issued an\u00a0Executive Order\u00a0last month aimed at combating antisemitism on American college campuses. For ideological as well as financial reasons, this action caused outrage on numerous […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75864"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=75864"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":75871,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75864\/revisions\/75871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=75864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=75864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=75864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}