June 25, 2024

Thank you to the 150 community members who attended and many more who streamed the MN Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the pattern of Antisemitism at the University of Minnesota. Many have already written messages of gratitude to Senator Ron Latz and members of the committee and we thank you.

Here you can view the recording of the hearing and read TC Jewfolk’s coverage of it.

We thank U of M Interim President, Jeff Ettinger who came to listen and gave testimony. We appreciated his concluding remarks that “the message of the various folks testifying today and what we heard from your panel today should be well taken by the university that we need to work harder in this area to make sure that we continue to thrive as an institution and serve the full population of our state.”

Executive Director of MN Hillel, Benjie Kaplan, urged the administration to put their words into action with “proactive, systemic change….Unless the University does something to proactively change the toxicity,” which he described in his testimony as daily rallies, graffiti, hateful signage, teach-ins, die-ins, rape-denial by faculty, shutting down campus, all culminating with the shooting of the Hillel building windows, “Jewish students and staff will be left wondering if, next time, it won’t be just windows that get shot.”

JCRC Executive Director Steve Hunegs, echoed this with “Jewish students are not safe on this campus, while support for organizations that call for the slaughter of Jews is left unchallenged.” Ending with, “We cannot change the past. We can only try to improve the future. We look forward to welcoming President Rebecca Cunningham to campus.”

Thank you to U of M Professor Oren Gross, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs who directed his message towards those on faculty who use the “tired argument that anti Zionism is not anti-Semitism. It is a canard that I call on you to dispense with.”

Thank you again for all who took the time to show their support. We invite you to continue to show support for our community by attending the Twin Cities Pride festivities this weekend with our community partner J-Pride. Visit the J-Pride page for more details.