Campus Watch Jan. 5, 2023

Md. High School Staff Subjected to Antisemitic Emails Following “Jews Not Welcome” Graffiti

Staff at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Md. found antisemitic emails in their inboxes from an anonymous person following antisemitic graffiti found on the school’s welcome sign.

The Bethesda Beat reported on December 20 that the person who sent the emails appears to be outside of the school county’s network; the specific text in the emails were not reported. The emails came a few days after graffiti stating, “Jews Not Welcome” was found on the school’s welcome sign. The school and police are working together to find the perpetrator.

Canadian High School Student Subjected to Nazi Salutes, Swastika

A student at a high school in Ottawa was subjected to Nazi salutes and a swastika in a locker room.

The CBC reported that the student had walked into the locker room on December 1 to find students doing a Nazi salute and a swastika made of ski poles on the floor. Four students were suspended, but the father of the victimized student, David Baker, told the Canadian outlet that the suspended students returned to school without their knowledge and one of them confronted his son upon returning. He showed “absolutely no remorse for what he had done, and how he’d behaved,” Baker told the CBC, urging the school board to take a stronger stance against antisemitism. A spokesperson for the school board told the CBC that they would be providing more education to students on antisemitism. 

UMich Police Stops Investigation of Antisemitic Assault on Student After Trail Goes Cold

The University of Michigan Police Department has closed their investigation of an antisemitic assault of a Jewish student, as the case has gone cold.

As previously reported in the Journal’s Campus Watch, an unidentified student at the university alleged that on November 10, a 5’10” male wearing a baseball cap grabbed her arm and then lobbed antisemitic comments at her. On December 21, the university police told The Algemeiner that “after a thorough investigation this case was closed with a lack of leads.”

U of Toronto President Rejects IHRA Definition

University of Toronto President Meric Gertler wrote in an op-ed for The Globe and Mail that the university has decided not to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism.

The Algemeiner reported that Gertler wrote that he based his decision of the findings of a working group convened by the university, which found that IHRA is “both insufficiently responsive to many of the most troubling instances of antisemitism in the university context and in tension with the university as a place where difficult and controversial questions are addressed.” Gertler added that “the remedy for dealing with controversial speech is more speech, not less.”

The Algemeiner quoted a tweet from Canada’s Hasbara Fellowships criticizing Gertler’s op-ed as being “incredibly disappointing,” noting that the day before, The Globe and Mail had published an editorial urging the university to adopt the definition. Jewish on Campus similarly tweeted, “Adopting the IHRA definition of antisemitism is the stepping stone towards making university campuses safe and inclusive spaces for Jewish students. Want to support us? Adopt IHRA.”

Wiesenthal Center report lists American college campuses in top 10 global antisemitism report

The Simon Wiesenthal Center listed American college campuses among its top 10 global antisemitism incidents in 2022.

The Wiesenthal Center report ranked American college campuses as seventh on the list, behind rapper Kanye West, the United Nations Human Rights Council and the hostage crisis in Colleyville, TX, among others. The report cited a separate report from AMCHA Initiative stating “that there were more incidents of anti-Semitism at Harvard University – the pinnacle of elite American universities – than at any other US university in 2022.” “Selected examples of anti-Semitic conduct at Harvard include the tearing down of Harvard Hillel posters, anti-Israel stickers attached to tubs of kosher hummus in the dining halls, and the posting of anti-Harvard College Israel Trek signs,” the Wiesenthal Center report stated. 

Monument to Jewish cemetery at Greek university vandalized with swastika

A monument to one of Europe’s oldest Jewish cemeteries located at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki was vandalized with antisemitic graffiti on December 29.

The Jerusalem Post reported that the graffiti consisted of a swastika and a Celtic cross, a white supremacist symbol, both in red spray-paint.

“This act is an insult to the Monument that commemorates the 50,000 Jews of Thessaloniki who were exterminated in the Nazi camps and connects the modern image of the area with its history by reminding everyone the existence, for centuries, of the old Jewish Cemetery which was destroyed by the Nazis and their collaborators in 1942,” the Jewish Community of Thessalonki said in a statement.