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Hundreds walk in iV to support Jewish community

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Diversions

Diversions

By DAVE MASON NEWS-PRESS MANAGING EDITOR

Several hundred Jewish and non-Jewish people walked together Sunday afternoon in Isla Vista to protest against antiSemitism and for a better world where diversity is embraced.

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The short walk began at Santa Barbara Hillel, an organization that serves Jewish students in Isla Vista and at neighboring UCSB, and it culminated at Little Acorn Park, where speakers varied from Jewish student leaders to state Sen. Monique Limón, DSanta Barbara. There was also a stop halfway during the walk for another round of speeches.

The talks included biographies of Holocaust victims.

Jan. 27 was International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The walk was co-organized by the UCSB Jewish fraternity, Alpha Epsilon Pi, and Santa Barbara Hillel.

Sunday’s walk came just after a week of widespread anti-Semitic acts in the Santa Barbara area.

The acts consisted of anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli comments found Monday of the chalkboard of a UCSB Israeli politics class, antiJewish and anti-Israeli comments posted Monday on the bulletin board at UCSB’s Jewish Studies Department, anti-Jewish fliers found Tuesday in Isla Vista and the discovery of a swastika attached to a pole at the Dos Pueblos High School stadium in Goleta.

The Jewish community and its supporters on Sunday reacted to those acts with a walk featuring a large number of people — mostly college-age but there were some middle-age people and seniors in the group, along with some elected officials such as Santa Barbara County Supervisor Laura Capps and Santa Barbara City Council member Oscar Gutierrez. And the students and others spoke in support of the Jewish community, in remembrance of the Holocaust and for the vision of a future where anti-Semitism isn’t tolerated.

Tessa Veksler, one of the Jewish student leaders and a member of the Senate at UCSB’s College of Letters and Sciences, told the crowd at Little Acorn Park that her parents emigrated from Ukraine in 1990 to escape from anti-Semitism.

“They came here with the hope that they would never be prosecuted for being Jewish,” Miss Veksler said. “Now they have to live here knowing their daughter is facing the same exact thing they fled.

“This week has been difficult, to say the least, for the UCSB Jewish community and the Jewish community at large,” she said, urging people to “show up for the Jewish community before antiSemitism happens.”

Sen. Limón told the crowd that she stood in solidarity with others to end hatred of Jews and all hatred.

“I stand in solidarity to ensure our learning environments are safe, to understand when it (hate) happens to any brother or sister of any background, it can happen and will happen to all of us,” Sen. Limón said.

Jamie Orseck, co-president of the student board at Santa Barbara Hillel and one of the speakers, told the News-Press

Rabbi Evan Goodman, the executive director of Santa Barbara Hillel (which is behind him), told the News-Press he was happy with the turnout at the Isla Vista walk. Please see PROTEST on A4

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