Israeli - Palestinian politics on college campuses has a tendency to get taken over by the nastiest most bigoted people, driving away others. So it can be on any campus where there is significant political activity.
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Tufts.
Not surprised to hear this. It’s awful, and also not surprising
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Yes other top schools have too - Michigan I believe had similar. It’s too bad that students can’t work together. But how can you when you are doing this ?
Do you thing this will help? Does it go far enough?
“The Florida Legislature has put forth House Bill 269, which would elevate many public displays of antisemitism that have plagued the state to third-degree felonies, up from their current misdemeanor status. Offenders could face heavy fines and up to five years in prison.”
Its a start
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Florida HB 269 information is at CS/CS/HB 269 (2023) - Public Nuisances | Florida House of Representatives (with links to various revisions of the text).
The “public displays of antisemitism” mentioned above would be things like projecting or displaying messages on other people’s buildings or property without consent of the building or property owner. Some other provisions seem to be against stuff that could already be illegal in being threats or harassment.
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The antisemitism bill failed in Georgia…… again. Such a disgrace Georgia antisemitism bill fails to advance amid dispute over wording
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Maybe Georgia should follow Florida’s lead, where the FL bill passed the house unanimously (from ucb’s link).
FL’s Jewish population is 3% and GA’s is 1.2%. Wondering if these differing results suggest a threshold of exposure that more efficiently translates to action.
It may have more to do with what the bills actually propose.
Georgia HB 30 attempted to define “antisemitism” for the purpose of “evidence of discriminatory intent for any law or policy in this State which prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, or national origin or provides for enhanced criminal penalties for criminal offenses when the defendant intentionally selected any victim or group of victims or any property as the object of the offense because of such victim’s or group of victims’ actual or perceived race, color, religion, or national origin”, but not much else. Definitions can be contentious.
In contrast, the most recent version Florida HB 269 does not mention Jewish people, antisemitism, or any other specific ethnicity, religion, or bigotry while stating that certain things are illegal (like projecting or posting any image on a building or property without the owner’s permission). (The original version did have some mentions of such, but they seem to have been amended out.) A fairly generic bill like it is now is easy to vote for and harder to oppose.
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“ “I always stand on anything that condemns racism, but now that I had an education, I’ll definitely spread the word to people in my culture about what I’ve seen and what I felt at that concentration camp today,” Mill told CNN during the march…
Mill’s case helped spur activism among many high-profile figures, including Kraft, on the issue of criminal justice.
“It’s important for me to learn humanity’s history,” Mill said. “But I think it’s also important for me to support Robert, all my Jewish friends, everyone that always supported me. Robert supported me at a very high level. When I was going through what I was going through, he learned my lifestyle. He learned my cultures, where I come from, my background.” “
https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/23/politics/meek-mill-auschwitz-antisemitism-robert-kraft/index.html
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This demonstrates the importance of being exposed, listening, and learning. If we remove exposure from the equation, the listening and learning won’t happen. I am sure Meek Mill will help expose more people to the truth, and I hope that they listen and learn.
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I was in San Francisco a few weeks ago. Just casually driving from one point to another, we came down a hill with a great view of a huge, beautiful building that I would later learn is called Congregation Emanu-El. I really wanted to park and peek inside the building, but there was a police car parked in front, and an officer guarding the entrance. This was early afternoon on a Thursday.
My son asked me why the officer was there. I assumed he was there to guard against a potential attack, drawing from the conversation in this thread, so that is the explanation I gave him.
Saw the pictures of swatiska flags being displayed outside of Disneyworld’s entrance by DeSantis supporters. Doesn’t look like Florida is a model against rising anti-semitism.
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I just don’t understand the how and why people do this.
But was it closed? It might be that there was a guard but that you could go in to look around, pray, ask questions. I was in SF in April and went into the Catholic church in Chinatown just because it looked beautiful. It was noon and there was a mass going on so my friend and I sat in the back for a while, but then got up and look around the back. There were a few informational signs about the history of the church, the community, things to buy from a display case. If I’d wanted to look at the windows and other things farther up in the church, I would have had to wait until mass was over but I could have done it.
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There’s a politics forum for those who want to engage in more “robust” discussion, but on the main forums we need to remember forum rules. Regardless, let’s refrain from blatant insults please. Several posts hidden.
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Yes, these days, there are guards at synagogues when open, or otherwise they’re locked. For a while, in other countries, appointments have been needed to visit synagogues. I think this is where we are here, now, sadly.
That is a beautiful one—the oldest in the area. I wonder if it has an official tour time, just because it’s historic.
This. It is painfully sad. Quick story: My DH has a fairly high level position with the JWV (Jewish war veterans). We were going to Charleston,SC for a wedding several years ago (pre covid) and DH had reached out to the rabbi at a historic synagogue to give him some information about the JWV, who told DH to stop by. So we did, just after services ended on a Saturday morning. There were some folks in front of us at the door who were turned away. Then we went up to the person at the door and they started to turn us away as well. DH asked the person to give the rabbi his business card (his JWV card). As we turned to leave she told us to wait, went inside to talk to the rabbi, and came back and invited us in. Apparently she thought we were with the people in Front of us who apparently were suspicious (they just seemed to be tourists from Europe). She also explained later that they have security at the few synagogues in town who radio each other when there is something suspicious. Such a sad state of affairs.
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The rabbi in Texas learned the hard way when he invited a stranger into the building. Folks want to be kind, but a hostage situation? Not what anyone signed up for…