This month, my organization, American Jewish Committee, organized a ground-breaking visit of Muslim religious leaders from across the country to Y.U. and Salanter Akiba Riverdale (SAR) High School, two flagship Modern Orthodox institutions.
The last time the city of Chicago issued a report analyzing hate crimes was in 2005. Beginning this year, the appropriate agencies must collaborate on analyzing and producing annual reports on hate crimes in Chicago.
These incidents join a growing list of anti-Semitic episodes targeting Jewish students at institutions of higher education. But even worse, the episode at McGill shows how students aren’t just barring attachment to Israel; they are barring learning about it at all, for the simple reason that exposure to Israel inevitably means abandoning the good vs. evil narrative that prevails in progressive spaces.
Seattle’s political and civic leadership acted in unison with appropriate and necessary horror when an African American City Council candidate’s campaign sign was defaced with racist graffiti days before Election Day. Ominously, though, that same reflex was absent when vile acts of antisemitism have occurred in our city. Two recent incidents are particularly telling.