The University of Washington must “act swiftly to restore a sense of law and order on the campus prior to the start of the fall quarter,” according to the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle.
Last week, a meeting of Seattle public school’s board was adjourned after anti-Israel protesters, who are pushing the school to divest from “Boeing and other companies that support Israeli Defense Forces,” yelled “shame” in an attempt to drown out a Jewish person who spoke during a public comment period, KOMO News reported.
“As a Jewish community, we care deeply about the safety and well-being of the Jewish community on campus, and call on the UW leadership to ensure that the university is a welcoming place for all,” Solly Kane, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, told JNS.
The school is “the intellectual center of the Pacific Northwest,” and its decision to take action would make “a ripple effect across our region,” according to Kane. He urged University of Washington leaders “to act swiftly to restore a sense of law and order on the campus prior to the start of the fall quarter.”
Julie Platt and Eric Fingerhut, chair of the Jewish Federations of North America and its president and CEO, respectively, sent a letter to Washington Gov. Jay Inslee on Monday, stating that “speakers who appeared to address the concerns of Jewish students about the tone and tenor of the anti-Israel atmosphere on campus and the resulting antisemitism experienced by Jewish students were constantly disrupted and verbally harassed.”
When Kane “attempted to deliver prepared remarks that respectfully urged the board to take necessary steps to protect Jewish students on campus from antisemitism,” the Federation leadership wrote, “his remarks were met with one of the most vile, outrageous displays of antisemitism to be witnessed at a public meeting in the United States of America in recent memory.”
“To make matters worse, the board, a public body duly chartered by the State of Washington, did nothing to remove the disrupters, but instead chose to adjourn the meeting rather than to ensure the right of this speaker and the others who had planned to speak to proceed,” Platt and Fingerhut wrote. “The board has so far taken no legal or disciplinary action against the disrupters. The speaker had to be escorted from the premises for his physical safety.”
The Federation leaders added in their letter to the governor that the incident is “a stain on the reputation of the State of Washington and the University of Washington that you must personally address.”
A page on the University of Washington’s office of the president website, which offers “resources on conflicts in the Middle East, Israel and Palestinian territories,” refers to “the attack by Hamas on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and the Israeli invasion of Gaza and intensification of violence that followed,” which it says “have resulted in tens of thousands of civilians being killed and many more being injured and displaced from their homes.”
