F ocus Issues Inside the Debate Over Judaism and Zionism That on
THE
JEWISH LIGHT
Quietly Roiled the University of Iowa By Ben Sales
A view of the University of Iowa campus (Wikimedia Commons)
(JTA) — When the University of Iowa student senate debated a bill to give special representation to Jews on campus, Nick Nachtman voted no. Other minority groups had been given their own seats in the Undergraduate Student Government, chosen by their respective student organizations. The Jewish senator would be chosen by students at Hillel. In Nachtman’s view, that was a problem. “Unfortunately as I was researching Hillel International, I’ve seen quite a connection that holds a specifically positive view of the State of Israel,” said Nachtman, a first-
year student at the university who is not Jewish. “I worry that having such a strong power connected to the people who are making this decision could influence them to hold a political belief in an office that shouldn’t have a political belief.” That night, the student senate rejected the proposal. But two weeks later, after Nachtman and other senators gave the matter more thought, they met again to reconsider their decision. This time, Nachtman did not raise any reservations with the idea of having a designated Jewish senator. The bill passed with 95% support. The reversal reflects a remarkable episode that unfolded over the past two weeks at the University of Iowa. Student leaders have worked through thorny questions about how to define anti-Semitism, whether Judaism is primarily a religion or ethnicity, what role Zionism plays in Jewish identity and whether Jews get more attention than other persecuted minority groups.
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And they have done so with little of the vitriol, or involvement by offcampus advocates, that often accompanies campus fights over bigotry against Jews. “A lot of us feel differently on different things regarding protecting speech of people that may speak on the Israel-Palestine conflict,”
Kendall Michaels, a Jewish senior who said she had experienced anti-Semitism on campus, worked with student senators to craft the bill under debate. (Courtesy of Michaels)
Maria Martin, a Jewish student who said she is involved in Hillel and also critical of Israel, said Tuesday at the senate meeting. “And we also agree on a lot of things regarding the really old nature of anti-Semitism.” The idea to create a Jewish “constituency senator” post arose when Kendall Michaels, a Jewish senior, searched for a way to address antiSemitism she had encountered on the Iowa City campus. Several other minority groups there, such as LGBTQ+ students, veterans and Black students, have been afforded similar seats, and she thought a senator representing Jewish students could advocate for them. Michaels is a leader of her school’s Students Supporting Israel group, which has made public waves on other campuses. But the anti-Semitism that Michaels hoped to confront wasn’t connected to Israel, as it has been on other many campuses where debates about antiSemitism have garnered national attention. Instead, she was alarmed by ignorant comments and tasteless jokes that she had heard on campus. Michaels has been asked where her horns are and saw an acquaintance, who knows she is Jewish, post a swastika to social media along with the message “I hate all Jews.” She worries about wearing a Jewish necklace around campus. “Most students, when these things happen, they’re scared to ask for help,” Michaels said. “I wouldn’t
say it happens every day, but it happens enough that there’s something that needs to be done. It shouldn’t happen at all.” She attributed the anti-Semitism to the divide between Jewish students from places like the suburbs of Chicago, like her, and peers from rural Iowa who had little prior exposure to Jews. The school’s Hillel estimates that there are about 600 Jews amid a total undergraduate student body of over 22,000. Two senators worked with Michaels to craft the bill giving those students representation in the student government. Some of the other groups afforded constituency senators have populations that are smaller than or equivalent to that of Jews on campus. The bill stipulated that the Jewish senator, like other constituency senators, would be chosen by a student group that represents them — in this case by the students affiliated with the campus Hillel. But at the senate session on March 23, several student senators raised objections to the bill. Some, including Nachtman, worried about appointing a senator affiliated with a pro-Israel institution because the Senate does not generally comment on international issues. Others wondered whether by creating a post for Jews, the senate was unfairly privileging a religion at a public state university. “I know that it’s more than just a religion, and I know that it extends to ethnic ties and all of that,” said Marco Oceguera, who noted that he has Jewish ancestry. “I feel like the Jewish identity, Judaism as a whole, is one of the three major Abrahamic religions, and the fact that we’d be giving them a voice and giving a platform for that identity, even though it extends beyond the religious aspect, like I said, it’s impossible to represent the ethnic aspect without representing the religious aspect.” More than an hour into the March 23 debate, Elke Heckner, a professor who teaches about the Holocaust, said that she was “a little bit horrified” by what she was hearing. She was distressed that some students were arguing that Jews should See DEBATE on Page
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