Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, adjunct lecturer at UC Santa Cruz and Leila Beckwith, Professor Emeritus at UCLA have written an open letter to the Jewish community in connection with the problem of anti-Semiitsm on UC campuses. I attach it below.
"Dear Jewish Community of California,
Bigotry against Jewish students has occurred on University of California campuses over many years and on many campuses. Jewish students have been subjected to: swastikas; acts of physical aggression; speakers, films and exhibits that use anti-Semitic imagery and discourse; speakers that praise and encourage support for terrorist organizations; the organized disruption of events sponsored by Jewish student groups; and most recently the promotion of student senate resolutions for divestment from Israel that seek to demonize and delegitimize the Jewish State.
Last May, more than 700 Jewish UC students signed a petition expressing outrage at anti-Jewish rhetoric and imagery on their campuses. They asserted that these incidents are as offensive and hurtful to Jewish students as a "Compton cookout" or a noose are to African American students. In addition, dozens of Jewish students from three different UC campuses, who responded to an on-line questionnaire, described feeling harassed and intimidated by the promotion of hatred against the Jewish State and of Jews. Almost all of the students felt that the administrators on their campuses did not treat Jewish concerns as sensitively as they did the concerns of other minorities such as African Americans and Latinos.
In June 2010, leaders of 12 Jewish organizations, including the Orthodox Union and the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, wrote to UC President Mark Yudof, expressing their concerns about the hostile environment faced by Jewish students on UC campuses, and calling on him to address this serious problem immediately. President Yudof responded by asking Jewish leaders to have patience and faith in the newly-established Advisory Councils on Campus Climate, Culture, and Inclusion. Over the last year, however, these Advisory Councils have failed to address, or even acknowledge, the problem of anti-Semitism on UC campuses. In fact, the aims and actions of the Advisory Councils since their inception, as revealed by documents released under a Freedom of Information request, show that Jewish students are not a focus at all.
In an effort to convey to President Yudof the deep concern that members of the California Jewish community feel for the well-being of Jewish students, and their distress that the harassment and intimidation of Jewish students have not been addressed by UC administrators in a substantive way, we have created the AMCHA Initiative. AMCHA is the Hebrew word meaning "Your People" and also connotes "grassroots," "the masses," and "ordinary people." It is our goal to bring together Jewish people from all over California so that they might speak in one voice, united in their concern for the safety of Jewish students on UC campuses.
Jewish students, like all students, should be guaranteed a campus environment that is safe and conducive to learning.
Please help protect Jewish students at the University of California by signing the Petition to UC President Mark Yudof protesting the intimidation and harassment of Jewish students on several UC campuses:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/LettertoUCPresidentYudof
In order to reach as many Jewish Californians as possible, please circulate this letter widely.
For more information, contact Tammi Rossman-Benjamin: tbenjami@ucsc.edu.
Sincerely,
Leila Beckwith, Professor Emeritus, University of California at Los Angeles
Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, Lecturer, University of California at Santa Cruz
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fousesquawk comment: I have signed the petition. To me, this problem is underlined by the fact that just this afternoon I learned that last Thursday, sometime after the noon event, an altercation broke out at UCI between a Jewish student and a Muslim student, which fortunately, did not erupt into a physical fight as bystanders kept the pair separated. The fact is that on any university campus, the Israel-Palestinian conflict is a volatile issue. Someday, someone is going to get seriously hurt.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
Tammi is such a whiner.
Jewish students have been subjected to:
swastikas - that counts as bigotry, and not only to Jewish people.
acts of physical aggression: if its assault, prosecute, if not, details please.
speakers, films and exhibits that use anti-Semitic imagery and discourse - I'll buy that to the extend if refers to the ahistorical "Khaybar al Yahud" slogan. Otherwise, details please.
speakers that praise and encourage support for terrorist organizations: which ones?
the organized disruption of events sponsored by Jewish student groups - fair enough, IF what happened was in fact organized disruption, not counter-picketing.
and most recently the promotion of student senate resolutions for divestment from Israel that seek to demonize and delegitimize the Jewish State.
This is why I don't trust vague characterizations from Tammi. I oppose resolutions for divestment from Israel. But passing such resolutions is not, ipso facto, demonizing Jews, nor is questioning the legitimacy of the Jewish state ipso facto anti-Semitism.
This consistently sounds like a different brand of political correctness every time I hear it.
Details.
2001 MSU brings Mohammed al-Asi to UCI. He says, "There is a pchcosis in the Jewish community that prevents it from living in harmony with others. You can take the jew out of the ghetto, but you can't take the ghetto out of the Jew."
Malik Ali. Where do I begin? How about when he called Rupert Murdoch a straight-up Zionist Jew? Or Rahm Israel Emanuel-Zionist jew or many others?
Last May, I stated that he supported Hamas, and Hizbollah and called Jews the new Nazis. Take virt5ually any Ali appearance at UCI and play the video.
The disruption of the Oren event was not spontaneous. It was planned and orchestrated. i was there. i saw it.
A few years ago, Jewish student had a rock thrown at his head by a woman in a hijab because he was wearing a Jewish logo t-shirt. A Jewish woman had her camera shoved in her face by a Muslim girl at Israel Aparthied week. I know the girl in question.
Last Thursday, there was almost a fight because a MSU student became enraged at a Jewish student for taking his picture at the Aparthied wall.
On that same wall, I have seen caricatures of Ariel Sharon drawn in the Nazi style of Julius Streicher's der Stuermer and Ann Frank in a bloody keffiya.
Last year, when berkeley Jewish students held a peaceful vigil to protest swatikas on bathroom walls, they were heckled and given the finger by Prof Andrew Gutierrez. It is all on video here at this blog.How about the comment to Horowitz at UCSD last year?
It goes on and on and on. That is just the UC system. Check out what happened at York U in Toronto last year. Or a ax thrwon past the head of two Israel student supportes at a bar at Carleston Univ in Canada
The only thing missing is a serious injury or death-and if universities don't get on the ball, its just a matter of time.
Details.
2001 MSU brings Mohammed al-Asi to UCI. He says, "There is a pchcosis in the Jewish community that prevents it from living in harmony with others. You can take the jew out of the ghetto, but you can't take the ghetto out of the Jew."
Malik Ali. Where do I begin? How about when he called Rupert Murdoch a straight-up Zionist Jew? Or Rahm Israel Emanuel-Zionist jew or many others?
Last May, I stated that he supported Hamas, and Hizbollah and called Jews the new Nazis. Take virt5ually any Ali appearance at UCI and play the video.
The disruption of the Oren event was not spontaneous. It was planned and orchestrated. i was there. i saw it.
A few years ago, Jewish student had a rock thrown at his head by a woman in a hijab because he was wearing a Jewish logo t-shirt. A Jewish woman had her camera shoved in her face by a Muslim girl at Israel Aparthied week. I know the girl in question.
Last Thursday, there was almost a fight because a MSU student became enraged at a Jewish student for taking his picture at the Aparthied wall.
On that same wall, I have seen caricatures of Ariel Sharon drawn in the Nazi style of Julius Streicher's der Stuermer and Ann Frank in a bloody keffiya.
Last year, when berkeley Jewish students held a peaceful vigil to protest swatikas on bathroom walls, they were heckled and given the finger by Prof Andrew Gutierrez. It is all on video here at this blog.How about the comment to Horowitz at UCSD last year?
It goes on and on and on. That is just the UC system. Check out what happened at York U in Toronto last year. Or a ax thrwon past the head of two Israel student supportes at a bar at Carleston Univ in Canada
The only thing missing is a serious injury or death-and if universities don't get on the ball, its just a matter of time.
Charlie, you wrote, "But passing such resolutions is not, ipso facto, demonizing Jews, nor is questioning the legitimacy of the Jewish state ipso facto anti-Semitism."
Query: Do you believe that sanction efforts against the Pope or questioning the legitimacy of the Pope is ipso facto anti-Catholic?
Can you see where Catholics would think so?
Can you see where obsessive anti-Israel rhetoric is widely considered a fig leaf for anti-Semitism?
Since you aren't familiar with the supporting details I don't think you know the history of UCI and everything that preceded these events.
.
Gary, a series of incidents, in which some form of assault or battery was committed, does not add up to a pervasive climate of anti-Semitism.
This gets back to the fundamental flaws we have both recognized in "hate crime" laws. Throwing a rock at someone's head should be treated as throwing a rock at someone's head, in a manner which makes very clear that the thrower's motive is of no consideration whatsoever. Otherwise, they get a martyr complex, just like the Aryan nations types whining about Jewish and black conspiracies against "white people."
Mohammed al-Asi's words are, ipso facto, anti-Semitic. He was invited by a campus organization that declined to disavow his words. So, it would be fair to state that MSU is fostering anti-Semitism. Again, that doesn't add up to a pervasive climate on the campus, unless a majority of students say , oh yeah, that's OK with me.
An MSU student becoming enraged at a Jewish student taking his picture during a public demonstration should get about the same response at Julie Wells (FFRF point girl in Denver) got when she said she didn't want to carry her own atheist sign around in front of the city Christmas display, because someone might say nasty things to her. You know, if you want to appear in public for a cause, you have to have a little spine. You have to understand that you have stepped out in public. Objecting to having your picture taken is not anti-Semitism, just cowardice.
Break it down. This stuff is more vulnerable to being refuted that way.
Those are fair questions Miggie, so let me see if I can answer them:
I do not consider that questioning or impugning the authority of the Pope is anti-Catholic. Do you believe that questioning whether the Jewish people are, and remain to this day, God's Chosen People, the priesthood of the world, is anti-Semitic?
I see a difference between saying "You, as a people, are bad," and saying "The claims you make for your institutions or direct and exclusive line to God are wrong."
I grant you, the Islamists who hope for a world wide conversion to Islam betray a certain kind of chauvinism, but so do most evangelical religions. There is such an elements of chauvinism in orthodox Judaism, although it is not often displayed in public. Judaism is not evangelical, and Jews remain a minority everywhere except in Israel.
Certainly I see where Catholics would consider denial of the authority of the Pope to be anti-Catholic. I have read an entire book "The Persistent Prejudice" by a bigoted Catholic named Michael Schwarz. He essentially writes that to question the mission of his church to convert all America to obedience to the Pope is "anti-Catholic prejudice." He betrays himself a bigot by his own argument. I reject it.
It is true I don't know about UCI in any detail, but the author of this blog appears to consider what he writes about a matter of national, even international, significance.
I would not agree that criticism of Israel, excessive or otherwise, is "a fig leaf for anti-Semitism." Rather, I see that historical European anti-Semitism, and its ultimate fruit, the Nazi regime, have been appropriated as useful tools in the course of several decades of tension over the territory of the former Palestine. They have, lately, been mixed with anti-Semitic strains which have appeared here and there in Islamic history. But don't forget that in the 1960s and 1970s, Israel was primarily dealing with secular leftist Arabic groups, not Islamists.
In terms of criminal acts, I too am uneasy prosecuting the motive instead of the act. There has been no prosecution for these incidents, so if they are motivated by some form of hate, there is nothing wrong in pointing it out to signal a dangerous situation that must be dealt with.
Post a Comment