The picture would have benefited from 1,000 words—or 100—explaining its context.
On a webpage about forthcoming workshops for students, staff and faculty to “end antisemitism and Islamophobia,” Loyola Marymount University, a private, nearly 115-year-old Jesuit school in Los Angeles, included a map labeled “Palestine region.”
Labels for “Israel” and “Lebanon” are visible on the cropped map, which also notes “Jordan,” among many cities and bodies of water. The map features both Arabic and English names of sites, some of the latter coming from Jewish scripture.
The Loyola Marymount page does not specify when the map was made, nor does it make clear whether the school recognizes “Palestine” as a state currently, which the United States does not.
The page does note that the school’s campus ministry will hold a “series of workshops” from September to November “with guest speakers, who will focus on building bridges between Jews and Muslims especially with the rise in antisemitism and islamophobia [sic] on college campuses.”
The page quotes Rabbi Zachary Zysman, director of Jewish student life at the school, who states that “one of the hopes of bringing these speakers on campus is to address the lack of awareness of what the attacks on Oct. 7 mean to Jewish students.”
JNS sought comment about the image from both Zysman and the university.
A Sept. 16 event, held in the school’s sacred heart chapel, “will focus on promoting cultural sensitivity and inclusivity, addressing the need for understanding and respect amidst diverse perspectives.” An Oct. 14 workshop “will be a campus-crisis workshop addressing mental health awareness and communication skills in the context of significant events, such as the one-year anniversary of the Hamas attacks and war and the upcoming November elections.”
It wasn’t clear if the school intended to compare the Hamas attack and the upcoming presidential elections.
A Nov. 11 workshop “will center on revisiting the current situation and reinforcing conflict resolution strategies and allyship,” per the webpage.
“My main goal is to start a conversation,” Zysman stated. “I noticed that our students are not engaging with each other, there is a lot of anxiety and fear. These works will provide an opportunity for us to have dialogue and have meaningful engagement with one another.”
