‘Feeling isolated’

JMU faculty members send letter to President Alger indicating they won’t attend Holocaust Remembrance event

from HOLOCAUST EVENT, page 1

“Had JMU been willing to recognize that inclusive strategies conceived in isolation cannot be universally applied,” the letter states, “JMU would have understood the difference between being ‘difficult’ and being informed, judicious, and willing to stand up to make JMU the best University it can be.” [sic]

The Breeze reached out to Mary-Hope Vass, executive director of communications and JMU spokesperson, for comment on this story. Malika Carter-Hoyt, vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion and the university’s chief diversity officer, responded to the letter in a written statement.

The statement, on behalf of JMU, acknowledges the concerns expressed in the letter. Carter-Hoyt said neither she nor the President’s Office were notified of these concerns before the receipt of the letter. She said she’s reached out to a spokesperson for the group of faculty and staff to schedule a meeting and learn more about the situation. Carter-Hoyt’s full response is available on The Breeze’s website.

“While there is disagreement, it is important to note that a committee was formed through the recommendations of college deans as this was an academic event hosted by Academic Affairs,” Carter-Hoyt said. “Committee members were selected based on substantive expertise and commitment to the creation of an event that properly marks the occasion; no one was included or excluded explicitly based on a particular protected characteristic.”

Maura Hametz, the history department head at JMU, said she’s part of the group that wrote the letter. She served on the planning committee for last year’s inaugural Holocaust Remembrance event and remembers her time on the committee as a “wonderful experience” working with other faculty members to choose last year’s speaker.

A year later, she’s boycotting the event.

“This year, I’ve had several people say to me, ‘Oh, I’m gonna go to the thing on Thursday. See you there,’ and my answer, of course, is, ‘Thank you, you know, I’m not attending,’” Hametz said.

The letter states these issues concerning the

Jewish community are especially pertinent concerning rising antisemitism, and cites a Dec. 16 statement from Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, noting that anti-semitism is rising on college and university campuses across the country, including a rise in “Anti-Israel incidents” on college campuses.

The Jewish community in Harrisonburg also took issue with the event.

In a Jan. 24 email shared with The Breeze to members of the Beth El congregation in Harrisonburg, congregation leaders wrote of the event that, “normally, we’d help spread the word. However, in this instance, we CANNOT in good faith promote the event.”

Kurtz-Lendner, a leader of the Beth El congregation, said the Jewish community continues to feel repercussions from the Holocaust, and the program for the event felt insensitive because it felt more like a celebration than a commemoration. While Kurtz-Lendner said he doesn’t know the thought process behind the event, members of the Beth El congregation feel slighted.

“Many of us are children of survivors, or grandchildren of survivors, grandchildren of people who did not survive, and we grew up with the reality of that trauma in our households, so this is not a historical event for us,” Kurtz-Lendner said. “We kind of live this.”

Moving forward, Kurtz-Lendner said he’d like to see JMU put on events that could “be a model for others.”

“You’d want it to be reflective and represent inclusivity,” Kurtz-Lendner said. “It feels like it’s opportunistic rather than inclusive.”

One of the Jewish faculty members who volunteered for the planning committee after outreach from university leadership requested to speak anonymously because they were worried about repercussions for speaking out. The faculty member, who said they later resigned from the planning committee, said with the limited timeframe, they felt decisions were made “pretty rapidly,” there was limited time for discussion and there was a lack of expertise concerning the Holocaust.

The faculty member said after they resigned, they were contacted individually about their concerns rather than being treated as a member of a community.

“When we’re already feeling isolated on campus … it takes a lot of courage for us to speak out,” they said. “I didn’t want to meet as an individual because it’s not about me, it’s not about assuaging my personal concerns — we’re part of a community.”

The faculty member was one of the three Jewish committee members to resign, according to several people who spoke to The Breeze. “I thought I was filling out a gap or adding representation, not being it,” they said.

Hametz did say she’s encouraged by people’s response to the letter. After hearing about the situation, JMU community members have reached out to express concern and apologize, Hametz said, even when they haven’t been involved in it.

“It’s profoundly disappointing that the way that this has come about, but it’s also hopeful to me that so many people are coming together and saying, ‘No we have to do better in the future,’” Hametz said. “It tells me that there’s a core at JMU of people who really, who are getting it and who want … to not have something like this happen again. And so in a weird way, it makes me a little hopeful.”

Shirin Zia Faqiri contributed to this report.

Maura Hametz JMU history department head

CONTACT Charlotte Matherly at breezeeditor@ gmail.com and Ashlyn Campbell at breezeinvestigations@gmail.com. For more coverage of JMU and Harrisonburg news, follow the news desk on Twitter @BreezeNewsJMU.