Campus Antisemitism
“We have to take it seriously every single time. Because we don’t know whether it’s just somebody trying to shock or whether it’s truly a sign that something that is dangerous to the physical safety of our students is coming,” said Rabbi Marley Weiner.
“I think it is an embarrassment to society,” said Rabbi Nechemia Deitsch, director of Chabad of Midtown in Toronto, which services the student population. “The fact that there is this hatred in the air is due completely to a lack of education.”
“Mind you, it never takes the form of brutal speech or action, but rather, it brews, all the more intensely, under the surface,” wrote the physicist and mathematician in 1936.
“Have we really gotten to the point where one student government leader can de-platform Jewish students and delegitimize a well-known pro-Israel student group for the ‘crime’ of defending themselves on social media?” said Jacob Baime, CEO of Israel on Campus Coalition.
Members of Hillel and other pro-Israel campus organizations set up a table with literature on the outskirts of the rally to challenge the one-sided anti-Semitic narrative of Students for Justice in Palestine.
A total of 111 cases were recorded at British universities—a 59 percent rise from the 70 cases recorded during the 2019-20 school year.
The 79 organizations also asked university president Tim Sands to affirm his commitment to ensuring that “no student will be subject to unfair discrimination or harassment because of the implementation of such a boycott on campus.”
The student union debating society at the London School of Economics faced criticism for inviting Tzipi Hotovely.
“Let us not be shy about our Judaism or cower in the face of hate. Let us stand proudly as Jews and show Jewish pride,” said Rabbi Shmuel Tiechtel, director of Rohr Chabad at ASU in Tempe, Ariz.
“Someone came and tried to make Jewish students feel attacked; our response was to do the opposite,” said Rabbi Yudi Steiner, director of the Rohr Chabad at GW.
Rabbi Yudi Steiner, director of the Rohr Chabad at GW, said “what I’m hoping to do today is lead by example and model how I think the Jewish response, from Jewish students especially, should be, and that is what we will talk about the rally.”
Aviva Rosenschein, International Campus Director for CAMERA, said it was “shocking” that it would call for the boycott of all Israeli academics.
