ON CAMPUS

Fresno State U to consider renaming library honoring Nazi sympathizer

BY MAYA MIRSKY

(JTA) — Administrators at California State University, Fresno, announced last week they would consider renaming the school’s Henry Madden Library, after a professor at the university shared with students that Madden, a longtime librarian at the school, was an antisemite and vocal Hitler supporter.

“First and foremost, I want members of our Jewish community to know that we stand with you and against both the historic and ongoing antisemitism that remains all too present in our society,” the university’s interim president Saúl Jiménez-Sandoval said in a Nov. 29 email sent to faculty, staff and students about the renaming.

“I’m very glad the university is quickly addressing this,” said Rabbi Rick Winer of Fresno’s Temple Beth Israel, who serves on an advisory council on Jewish life at the school.

The development comes amid a national reckoning on names and monuments honoring figures who expressed racist views, a movement that has seen the University of California-Berkeley law school renamed, highways in northern Virginia bearing the names of Confederate generals rededicated to honor abolitionists, and a proposal to replace more than 40 San Francisco public school names because of associations with racism.

The Madden issue at Fresno State came to light because of research by Bradley Hart, a professor in the school’s Media, Communications and Journalism Department and the author of a book on American supporters of Hitler and fascism. He praised the administration for the announcement.

“I think they acted with great sense of purpose,” he said. “Obviously they take it seriously.”

Hart’s book, “Hitler’s American Friends: The Third Reich’s Supporters in the United States,” was published in 2018 but, according to university spokesperson Lisa Boyles Bell, the school was only made aware of Madden’s views after Hart lectured on the material in a class on Nov. 17.

“The topic only came up right at the end,” Hart told J., describing the class. He said students caught the small reference to the school’s librarian and asked Hart about it.

“There was quite a bit of shock,” he said.

Madden was librarian at the school from 1949 to 1979, and the university’s central library was named for him in 1981. He donated his papers to the library, including private correspondence, but they were sealed until 2007.

According to local news station ABC 30, in the book Hart quotes a letter from Madden: “Whenever I see one of those predatory noses, or those roving and leering eyes, or those slobbering lips, or those flat feet, or those nasal and whiny voices I tremble with rage and hatred. They are the oppressors. … Whom do I hate more than the Jews?”

The university confirmed it had copies of Madden’s antisemitic writings in its collections.

“The views attributed to Dr. Madden are more than allegations; they are reflections of his beliefs as captured in his own words, and in documents he curated and donated to the Library before his passing,” JiménezSandoval’s email said.

A task force has been announced to rename the building.

Winer, a member of the task force, said the issues surrounding Madden’s views reach beyond the small Jewish community in Fresno, a city of about 500,000 with three synagogues and a Jewish federation.

“While the Jewish community is extremely small, the community of people of color and the community of religious minorities is very substantial,” he said.

A version of this story was first published in J. The Jewish News of Northern California, and is republished with permission.

Report: Student gov’t BDS resolutions at US colleges spiked last year

BU SHIRA HANUA

(JTA) — Student governments considered resolutions to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel at 17 college campuses in the United States during the 2020-2021 school year, according to a new report from the Anti-Defamation League.

The watchdog group, which released the data Wednesday as part of its annual reporting, called the BDS resolutions a “cornerstone of anti-Israel campus activity during the last year.”

During a school year in which a May conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza was accompanied by widespread criticism of Israel on and beyond college campuses, the number of student governments entertaining BDS resolutions was not dramatically higher than in the recent past.

Of the bills supporting the Israel boycott, 11 passed, according to the report.

That was fewer than in the 2015-2016 school year, according to the ADL’s report about that year, when it documented 23 BDS resolutions, of which 14 passed. The following year, student governments considered 14 BDS resolutions, passing six; the year after that, five of 12 resolutions passed. (In the 2019-2020 school year, just four BDS resolutions came before student governments; likely a result of school closures caused by the pandemic.)

According to the U.S. Education Department, there are nearly 4,000 “degree-granting postsecondary institutions” in the United States, meaning that BDS resolutions were introduced at .425% of college campuses and passed at .275% of campuses last year.

None has been implemented and in some cases university presidents rejected the student government resolutions, noted ADL.

The ADL’s position is that not all criticism of Israel is antisemitic, but that the BDS movement is. Its report concludes that anti-Israel activity on campus last year continued to “span from legitimate criticism of Israeli government policies to expressions of antisemitism from some activists.”

Student leaders at at least two universities, the report notes, faced “exclusionary calls because of their expressions of support for Israel and Zionism” and one of them resigned over it.

“As we saw acutely during the May conflict with Hamas, the anti-Israel movement’s drumbeat of rhetorical attacks on Zionism and Zionists can truly hurt and offend many Jewish students, leaving them feeling ostracized and alienated,” the ADL’s CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement accompanying the report.

In a different report released this fall, the ADL found that one-third of Jewish college students said they had personally experienced antisemitism in the last year.

USC president responds to faculty demanding censure of student’s hate tweets

BY SHIRYN GHERMEZIAN

(JNS) In a letter to faculty members, the president and provost of the University of Southern California wrote that legal considerations prevented them from discussing what, if any, actions were taken against a USC student who posted antisemitic and anti-Jewish tweets online, including one that mentioned wanting to “kill” the Zionists.

“As I am sure you are aware, we are legally required to protect student privacy and cannot discuss university processes or actions with respect to a specific student, much less denounce them publicly,” wrote USC president Carol Folt and provost Charles Zukoski, according to the online publication Insider Higher Ed.

That letter was in response to a Dec. 1 open letter—signed by 64 USC faculty members—asking the university to “voice a public, explicit and specific condemnation” of Yasmeen Mashayekh, a student in the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, who posted the tweets.

On Nov. 22, the watchdog group Canary Mission posted a video on Twitter highlighting tweets by Mashayekh, which were uploaded between May and June as Hamas fired more than 4,000 rockets at Israeli population centers. In her tweets, Mashayekh wrote: “I want to kill every motherf***ing Zionist,” “Curse the Jews,” “Israel has no history just a criminal record” and “Zionists are going to F***ing pay.”

She also tweeted: “I f***ing love Hamas.”

Folt and Zukoski said they learned about the social-media posts by Mashayekh over the summer, prompting her removal from a “paid mentoring position” at the engineering school.

Mashayekh confirmed that she was fired from her campus job and taken off the Viterbi Graduate Student Association website, where she was listed as a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion senator, wrote The Forward.

The USC administrators also criticized the involvement of an “outside organization” in reviving the tweets.

“Just before Thanksgiving, the deleted tweets were republished by outside organizations, which urged supporters to protest by writing to the dean of the school, who had no control over either the original tweets or the student’s election to the student organization,” said the USC administrators. “Nevertheless, the Viterbi School quickly issued a public statement denouncing these hateful statements as being contrary to our university’s values. … It is appalling that anti-Semitism continues to exist as a scourge across the nation and the world, and we will continue to work tirelessly with you and others to stamp it out.”

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean and director of global social action for the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told JNS on Tuesday, Dec. 7, that the administration’s response to faculty did not go far enough and will be included in the Wiesenthal Center’s annual list of the “Top 10” worst antisemitic incidents.

Cooper noted that last year, Folt came out strongly against racism and announced measures the university would take to combat it on campus. By contrast, he said, this letter “about an overt Jew-hater, which sounds like it was reviewed by lawyers, is an outrage. Jews deserve the same treatment and protection promised to all.”

“There is one question the university and its leader have to answer,” he said. “If [similar] comments were made about black students, what would the school’s response be?”

Briefs

Pressure increases on Unilever to end Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream boycott

(JNS) Pressure is intensifying on the British company Unilever, the parent company of Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream brand, because of its announcement in July not to allow products to be sold in Judea and Samaria, and parts of Jerusalem. Ben & Jerry’s Israel CEO Avi Zinger told the Israeli business daily Globes that Unilever thought the uproar would blow over after a few weeks. “The opposite has happened, and processes that needed time to gain momentum are happening now— more and more states and institutions are withdrawing investments, state governors are publishing harsh declarations and withdrawing their money,” reported Zinger. The company’s stock price has dropped about 12 percent in the past few months ever since a backlash erupted over its new sales policy.

According to the report, the moves against Unilever began with removing the investment in Unilever by seven U.S. states that have massive pension fund investments. New York had pension fund holdings of $100 million in the company’s shares; another 33 states are considering taking similar measures. Attorney generals from 12 states wrote to Unilever CEO Alan Jope last week expressing their concern over the boycott.

Earlier this year, several U.S. Ben & Jerry’s franchisees wrote to the company calling on them to rescind their July 19 decision. Last month, four congressmen urged the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate whether Unilever should amend its regulatory filings to reflect the potential risks shareholders face over the ice-cream maker’s decision to boycott Israeli settlements.

NY Times updates style guide to ‘antisemitism,’ losing the hyphen

(JTA) — The New York Times has updated its style guide and now favors the use of the spelling “antisemitism” over “anti-Semitism.” The change was made in August but was only announced publicly on Dec. 7. The spelling of the term has been the subject of debate for years. One of the loudest voices for dropping the hyphen has been Deborah Lipstadt, the historian who was recently nominated by the Biden administration as the State Department’s antisemitism envoy. Lipstadt has argued that keeping the hyphen and capital “S” implies the existence of a racial category called “Semite” that obscures actual hatred of Jews. The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance and the AntiDefamation League also support the hyphenless version.

Earlier this year, the Associated Press updated its style guide, which is used by media around the world, including this one, to adopt the hyphen-less version of the word. JTA followed suit and The Times adopted the change in August, which it announced in a memo to editors at the paper. “We are dropping the hyphen and lowercasing the S, which is now the style of The Associated Press and is preferred by many academics and other experts. Those who favor antisemitism argue that the hyphenated form, with the uppercase S, may inadvertently lend credence to the discredited notion of Jews as a separate race,” the memo stated.

NYPD: Hate crimes double in year, many markedly antisemitic

(JNS) The New York City Police Department released statistics on Wednesday indicating that hate crimes have doubled in a single year. Of the nearly 500 hate crimes reported in the city as of November, some 180 were antisemitic in nature. The total is up from 121 incidents the year before and accounts for the largest number of hate crimes against any group. Scott Richman, NY/NJ regional director for the Anti-Defamation League, said “it’s alarming that in the past seven weeks alone, we have had to issue five reward offers asking for information about violent antisemitic incidents. Hate crimes affect entire communities, not just the victims. This trend is unacceptable, and we cannot let this hate become normalized.”

Evan Bernstein, national director and CEO of the Community Security Services, which trains volunteers to help secure synagogues and Jewish communal institutions, said, “We are tremendously fortunate to have the NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force in our city that deeply understands the sensitivity around anti-Jewish bias. The numbers keep telling us the same thing: We must continue to ensure the highest level of security and safety for institutions. From a communal perspective, we remain laser-focused on empowering the Jewish community to take a more proactive role in this realm.”

Illinois inmates face murder, hate-crime charges for killing Jewish inmate

(JNS) Two prison inmates in Illinois who are members of a white-supremacist group were indicted by a federal grand jury on Fec. 7, for beating a Jewish inmate to death.

Brandon “Whitey” Simonson, 37, and Kristopher “No Luck” Martin, 39, were each charged with conspiracy to commit murder, second-degree murder, a hate crime and assault resulting in serious bodily injury in connection to the death of fellow inmate Matthew Phillips, 31.

Both men, who are incarcerated at Thompson Penitentiary in Illinois, were part of a group called the Valhalla Bound Skinheads. On March 2, 2020, they conspired to assault Phillips because he was Jewish, according to the indictment in Rockford, Ill. Martin and Simonson repeatedly struck Phillips in the upper body, face and head, and continued to do so even after the victim became defenseless, the charges stated.

Phillips was imprisoned for distributing heroin and money laundering. Simonson and Martin face life in prison for the conspiracy to commit murder, second-degree murder and hate-crime charges, while the maximum sentence for the assault charge is 10 years. Arraignments have not been scheduled yet.

Poll: 51% of Israelis would support attack on Iran without US go-ahead

(JNS) A recent poll of the Israeli public found that 51 percent of respondents would support an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear sites without an American green light. The poll, conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute and published on Wednesday, also found that 18 percent of the sample did not know how to answer the question, and 31 percent said they thought an American green light would be necessary before a strike.

Only 18 percent of Israeli Arabs agreed that Israel should attack without American consent. In addition, while a majority on the political right agreed with the idea of an Israeli strike without U.S. consent, and half of the respondents in the center agreed with the statement, only a little more than a third on the left taking that position. “A certain majority of the public as a whole sees Iran as constituting a great existential danger to Israel,” the institute stated. “This majority is similar to the rate of those who thought so when we asked a similar question about half a year ago. The rate of Jews who see Iran as an existential danger is significantly higher than the rate among Arab citizens of Israel.”

Pop singer Pink lights menorah with her kids

(JNS) Three-time Grammy winner Pink shared a video on Instagram of her lighting the Chanukah menorah with her two children. The 42-year-old, whose real name is Alecia Beth Moore, posted a clip on Friday, Dec. 3 of her son Jameson Moon, 4, lighting the menorah as the Jewish singer and her daughter Willow, 10, together recite the traditional blessing that is sung when lighting the candles. After finishing the prayer, the three give each other high fives before shouting, “Happy Chanukah!” Pink stumbled a bit with the words of the Hebrew blessing and captioned the post, “Happy Chanukah (I mess up the words to every song I sing). I wish everyone peace in their hearts.” The singer, who has talked about her Jewish identity on social media, shares Willow and Jameson with her husband Carey Hart, whom she married in 2006.

Also on Friday, the pop-rock band Haim, which consists of Jewish sisters Este, Danielle and Alana Haim, released a rendition of Adam Sandler’s popular “Chanukah Song” by updating his lyrics to mention more celebrities who celebrate the Jewish holiday, such as actors Maya Rudolph, Rashida Jones, and Eugene and Dan Levy. They also feature celebrities who are half-Jewish, including Timothée Chalamet and Doja Cat. The song was shared on their Twitter and Instagram accounts. Shortly after they posted the clip, Sandler retweeted the video and wrote, “Love you ladies! You are three badass jews! See you on tour!”

Israel plans for 400 selfdriving electric taxis in 2022

(JNS) Israel presented a draft law by the Ministry of Transport and Road Safety on Tuesday that would allow 400 self-driving electric taxis to operate in the country as early as next year. Avner Flor, an official at the Transportation Ministry, said 640 Israeli startups were working on autonomous vehicles with the goal of zero road accidents, coupled with reduced emissions and highway congestion, reported Reuters. “In the next decade, these vehicles will be mainly used for public transportation and less for private vehicles,” he told lawmakers in the Knesset Economic Affairs Committee. Flor also noted that 40 self-driving cars were already on the roads and that other self-driving cars are also being tested in Israel. Intel’s Mobileye unit is one of the companies developing self-driving cars.

Vandals tear through Chabad House in Kansas City, Mo.

(JNS) Police in Kansas City, Mo., continue to search for the vandal or vandals responsible for destroying a Chabad center in the city. Chabad on the Plaza was vandalized last week with electrical wires damaged, water lines broken, and items torn and strewn everywhere. The ark was found open, though the Torah was still inside. The space was deemed completely unusable.

According to the Kansas City Police Department, on Nov. 30 at around 1:15 a.m., a caller reported a prowler around the building. The caller told police that he had seen an “unknown suspicious black SUV parked near the dispatched location and heard glass break in the immediate area.” The caller then saw the vehicle leave.

“This is an active investigation, and I do not have any updates at this time,” the police spokesperson told JNS.

“We have full faith in the local authorities to get to the bottom of this,” said Rabbi Yitzchak “Itche” Itkin, director of Chabad on the Plaza. After notifying the police, Itkin took to social media, writing: “There is nothing more disturbing than walking into the Chabad House for an early-morning Torah class and finding the place torn up. Papers and books everywhere, electric wires ripped out, plumbing cut with water pouring everywhere. That was my reality this week.” He also posted photos showing the extent of the damage and announced a fundraising campaign to rebuild.

Within hours, tens of thousands of dollars had been pledged with the campaign closing on Sunday, Dec. 5, having raised more than $91,000, almost double the funds needed.

Though there has been no motive identified, the Anti-Defamation League Heartland branch said, “The targeting of this house of worship, especially during the festive holiday of Hanukkah, is particularly distributing and inflicts concern and fear in the larger community.”

As for Chabad on the Plaza, it went ahead with its planned events, including Shabbat services in a temporary space and a large outdoor Chanukah event on Sunday; all with the encouragement of the greater Kansas City community. “It is extremely heartwarming to see the outpouring of love from all parts of the community,” said Itkin. “It just shows how much good and light there is in the world.”

Bay Area Muslim leader warns about ‘polite Zionists’

(JTA) — A Muslim civil rights attorney who leads the San Francisco office of CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, is drawing sharp criticism, including accusations of antisemitism, from local and national Jewish organizations after a Nov. 27 speech. Zahra Billoo’s speech, which drew attention after excerpts were republished by the Israel-advocacy website Israellycool on Dec. 2, implored attendees gathered at a pro-Palestinian conference in Chicago to vigorously oppose not only extreme right-wing forces, but also “polite Zionists,” including the Anti-Defamation League, Jewish Federations, Hillel and “Zionist synagogues.” “When we talk about Islamophobia, we think oftentimes about the vehement fascists,” Billoo said. “But I also want us to pay attention to the polite Zionists. The ones that say, ‘Let’s just break bread together. They are not your friends,” she said.

In the speech, delivered at an annual conference of American Muslims for Palestine, Billoo described a well-funded campaign to bolster Islamophobia around the world and an interconnected network of Zionist-supporting organizations working to harm Muslims. She also repeated an unsupported claim, one that circulates among some activist groups, that “police officers in the United States who kill unarmed black men, women and children are trained by the Israeli military.”

A number of Jewish organizations offered harsh criticisms of her comments, saying they echoed antisemitic tropes of Jewish power and control. The ADL’s national director Jonathan Greenblatt issued a searing rebuke on Twitter, calling them “textbook vile, antisemitic, conspiracy-laden garbage attacking the mainstream US Jewish community.”

The San Francisco-based office of the Jewish Community Relations Council also excoriated the speech in a statement, calling it “antisemitic and deplorable, seeking to divide and besmirch efforts at cooperation and coexistence.”

Billoo said during the speech she does not support a two-state solution to the IsraeliPalestinian conflict. “Allah has promised us victory,” said Billoo.

Billoo, a member of CAIR since 2009, was recently named a Pioneer in Justice fellow, a five-year program for social justice advocates, by the S.F.-based Levi Strauss Foundation.

This is not Billoo’s first time drawing scrutiny from Jewish and pro-Israel groups. In 2019 Billoo became one of a handful of Women’s March organizers who either left or were removed from organizing roles amid claims of anti-Israel animosity and antisemitism. Her removal came after criticism from the ADL and others stemming from a 2015 tweet in which she wrote: “I’m more afraid of racist Zionists who support Apartheid Israel than of the mentally ill young people the #FBI recruits to join ISIS.”

This story was originally published in J. The Jewish News of Northern California, and is republished with permission.

‘Jeopardy!’ devotes category to Yiddish theater

(JTA) — In recent years, Yiddish theater has enjoyed a remarkable resurgence, with Yiddish-language performances wowing audiences in New York, online and, last month, Stockholm. But perhaps its biggest audience yet came on last Thursday night when “Jeopardy!” devoted an entire category to it. In its Double Jeopardy round.

It was Ed Hashima, a professor of history at American River College in Sacramento, California, who correctly responded to four of the five clues. He identified one play as the Yiddish “King Lear,” named the Jewish holiday of Purim as being tied to Yiddish theater’s origins, and answered that Marlon Brando’s acting teacher was Stella Adler, who grew up in a family of Yiddish theater royalty. Hashima also revealed a “Daily Double” in the category. A smile broke across his face as host Mayim Bialik read the clue: “A surprise New York hit in 2018 was a Yiddish-language ‘Fiddler on the Roof’: This song becomes ‘Ben Ikh Bin a Rotshild.” The response:“If I Were a Rich Man.”

One clue stumped all of the contestants. “The play ‘Chantzhe in Amerika’ is about a woman wanting to learn this modern play; ‘How I Learned To’ do it is a non-Yiddish play,” Bialik read. The correct response: “What is ‘Drive,’” referring to the classic work by Paula Vogel, the Jewish playwright whose own passion for Yiddish theater has been a galvanizing force in her recent work.

Speaking recently with the Harvard Divinity Bulletin about her play “Indecent,” which incorporates scenes written by the classic Yiddish playwright Sholem Asch, Vogel offered an insight about why Jeopardy’s nonJewish contestants might be so knowledgeable about this niche entertainment. “Yiddish is a language of yearning, a language of anxiety. I believe we’ve worked hard to communicate that love to the audiences,” she said. “Audiences have said they feel the emotion we are trying to convey.” At the Hebrew Center for Health and Rehabilitation, we understand that comfort and familiarity is a key part of the journey to wellness. We also understand that maintaining your religious beliefs and principles is fundamental in continued enrichment of life. Our Kosher meal services allow residents to maintain their dietary requirements throughout their stay with us. At the Hebrew Center, we ensure we follow all principles of Kosher including purchase, storage, preparation, and service.

At the Hebrew Center for Health and Rehabilitation, we also offer a variety of other services and amenities to ensure your stay is as comfortable as possible.

THESE SERVICES INCLUDE: • Passport to Rehabilitation

Program • Long-Term Skilled

Nursing Care • Specialized Memory Care • Respite Care Program • Palliative Care and

Hospice Services

Coordination

OUR AMENITIES INCLUDE:

• Barber/Beauty Shop • Café • Cultural Menus • Laundry and housekeeping services • Patient and

Family education • Life Enrichment

HKC רשכ

For more information on our Kosher program, please contact: DIRECTOR, PASTORAL SERVICES - (860) 523-3800 Hebrew Center for Health and Rehabilitation One Abrahms Boulevard, West Hartford, CT 06117

LIKE US ON