Dear American Colleges,

We are the parents of your students and frankly, we do not care whether this letter finds you well. We are tired of making phone calls, signing petitions, and writing angry letters. We are tired of being angry and tired. We want action; we want you to do your job.

Your woefully inept leadership has resulted in a tragic and dangerous eruption of antisemitism at colleges across the United States. While you hide behind the constitutional freedom of speech to justify or even encourage (not to worry, we will get to your professors later) horrific and savage displays of Jew-hatred, you are recklessly sacrificing the safety and education of your Jewish students. Needless to say, in many instances, this “free speech” has crossed the line to incendiary speech, leading to violence. Moreover, “free speech” does not excuse your legal obligation to provide a campus environment that is devoid of the severe, pervasive, or persistent hostility we are currently seeing targeting Jewish students.

At Harvard, during a Gaza “Die-In,” a Jewish student was surrounded by a menacing mob of students wielding keffiyehs as gates to prevent his escape while they groped him and chanted, “SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!” over and over like a modern-day Arthur Miller parable. To our knowledge, no one has been disciplined. Notably, one of these attackers, Elom Tettey Tamaklo, is an RA for Harvard freshmen. What virtues is he modeling for the students he is advising? How might he be dangerously influencing these students? How might he be abusing Jewish freshmen in his care?

At Cornell, a junior, Patrick Dai, was arrested for leaving hate-filled posts directing others to, among other things, “stab” and “slit the throat” of any Jewish males and behead Jewish babies. Perhaps he was inspired by Cornell professor Russell Rickford who, in a public rally, advised a crowd that when he found out about Hamas’ barbaric massacre of October 7th, he was “exhilarated” and “energized.” He remains on leave, assumingly with the possibility of returning and infecting more students with his antisemitic and vicious rhetoric.

At Columbia, more than 100 professors signed a letter defending students who support Hamas and its “military action” of October 7th. One Jewish student was physically attacked in what has been charged as a hate crime; others have been spat upon for speaking Hebrew. A student, who has been identified but not yet disciplined, yelled, “F--k the Jews” at a Jewish student. An Israeli student was beaten with a stick on campus. Subsequently, hundreds of masked Columbia students publicly celebrated the genocide of Jews. Columbia’s own tenured professor, Joseph Massad, who has previously been investigated by Columbia due to his history of making anti-semitic remarks in class, found the Hamas massacre to be “awesome.” He published an article declaring October 7th to be a “stunning victory.” He is still teaching at Columbia, spouting his lies and contempt, brainwashing students.

The University of Pennsylvania might have jump-started the uptick in antisemitism with their Palestine Writes Festival, which featured known antisemites as speakers. In fact, one of them was the journalist responsible for the repulsive tweet asking whether baking powder was used for the baby horrifically murdered in a hot oven by Hamas. Since then, swastikas and other expressions of antipathy towards Jews have reared their ugly heads, making the campus unsafe for Jewish students. Notably, at least one Penn student, Tara Tarawneh, is connected to both the Palestine Writes Festival and acts of detestable racism post October 7th. On September 14, 2023, just weeks before the massacre, Tarawneh wrote a column for the Daily Pennsylvanian entitled “Palestine Writes: Why Penn should protect its students from colonial backlash.” Tarawneh writes that “Palestinian and Arab students deserve to feel more safe on campus.” In a twist of loathsome irony, Tarawneh recently disregarded the safety of Jews and others, when she stood before a rowdy crowd, inciting them to violence. She recollects “joyful and powerful images which came from the glorious October 7th,” like bulldozers breaking through the barriers and tanks captured by “freedom fighters." She recounts her joy upon hearing about the death of Jews. The crowd repeatedly chants “YES!” and “LONG LIVE OCTOBER 7TH!” while she tells them to “hold that feeling in your heart…. Bring it to the streets… go down to the streets every day.” Where is Tarawneh now, University of Pennsylvania? Is she still able to go to class and torment and terrorize her fellow students? Do you think your Jewish students feel safe?

These are just a few examples from some of the most well-known colleges in the country. At George Washington University, the genocidal slogan, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” was projected across the library’s facade. At University of Wisconsin, students gleefully praised the “martyrs” just days after October 7th. The University of California Ethnic Studies Faculty Council rejected that Hamas’ massacre was “terrorism,” and cited multiple erroneous and factually incorrect pieces of “evidence,” which is alarming for 300 faculty members of higher education. The University of Colorado, Boulder, issued a similarly disturbing and completely false statement. At Cooper Union, Jewish kids were locked in the library while a bloodthirsty gang banged on the door hollering, “Free, free Palestine!” College professors at countless schools are offering extra credit to participate in anti-Israel walk-outs and demonstrations of Jew-hatred. At Drexel, a Jewish student’s dorm room was set on fire. At Stanford and UCLA, professors are holding classes to educate students on the suffering of Palestianians at the hands of Jews. And at Stanford, a professor divided his students into Jews and non-Jews and put the Jews in the back of the class, because “that’s what Israel does to Palestinians.”.

Sadly, we can go on and on and on.

But we would rather not. We would rather move forward and address this situation head-on with urgency, aggressive action, and intelligence.

Let’s start with education.Your students and staff should be required to participate in mandatory seminars educating them about civility, antisemitism (including modern forms of antisemitism, like anti-Zionism), the Holocaust, and yes, the actual history of Israel, which has somehow been lost. We are asking you to create mandatory programming, including required readings, classes, and orientation activities, that clarifies these issues to ensure that your students and staff are not complicit in engendering the atrocious vitriol spreading through American college campuses like a stage IV cancer. You need to bring knowledgeable, educated speakers to campus rather than those seeking to mobilize lost youth and robotic teenagers looking for a trendy cause to support.

Students, professors and other staff who violate your disciplinary codes must face real consequences, like suspension and/or expulsion. (And if your by-laws and codes are insufficient, you need to update them.) There must be repercussions for professors who indoctrinate impressionable students, provide preferential treatment to students whose views align with theirs while penalizing those (mostly Jewish) students whose views do not. For students who incite violence, threaten and intimidate, vandalize or make campus an unsafe and hostile environment to learn, grow, and these days, simply exist, there must be consequences. If your faculty, staff, and/or students support and advocate for outright inhumane brutality, how do you expect us to entrust you with our children? You have a duty to create a safe atmosphere for everybody. You need to protect your Jewish students. Period.

Your DEI programming and initiative, orientation material, and other written guidelines should adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism and should include antisemitism, which most, at the moment, do not.

Clubs which openly support terrorist organizations, like Students for Justice for Palestine, must be banned. They have no place in education and create a toxic, hostile, and horrendous environment for their targets who are also students. Further, these clubs are responsible for provoking untold acts of antisemitism, racism, and cruelty on campuses. Brandeis recently banned SJP because it supports Hamas. All colleges should follow suit.

Any student/professor/staff brandishing flags, clothing, signs, or any other forms of expression that contain symbols of hate like swastikas, Hamas flags, Taliban flags, ISIS flags, etc. should be disciplined, suspended, and/or expelled. These disgusting displays of overt hatred serve no purpose other than to threaten, intimidate, and harass, and have no place on American college campuses. Simply put, supporting terrorism should not be tolerated.

Any student/professor/staff chanting notorious calls for attacks on Jews, like “Intifada,” “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will be Free,” “Death to Jews,” “Glory to the Martyrs,” “Gas the Jews,” and other similar rallying cries for barbarous action should be disciplined, suspended, and/or expelled. These cries glorifying violence and genocide specifically target the Jewish people, and would not be tolerated if they were directed at any other minority group. It is unacceptable and impermissible to allow a hostile environment targeting minorities on college campuses, especially when this includes reprehensible calls for the murdering of Jews.

You are in the business of enlightenment! It is your job to teach young adults to distinguish fact from fiction, to question, to appreciate nuance, to operate from a place of tolerance and understanding, to know history so that their behavior has context. In this primary and essential regard, your leadership has failed. Rather than creating an intellectual, academic environment you've become cogs in the mass production of unthinking automatons, or worse, desensitized people lauding terrorism and depravity. It is your job to assure your professors educate rather than teach false narratives as a means to indoctrinate students. Because this is what is happening and it must stop.

We expect our children to make mistakes and encounter challenges; we don’t expect them to have to justify their existence. Nor do we expect them to hide their identities—by removing Stars of David, kippot, or mezzuzot—to protect themselves.

In the recent past, American universities have focused on increasing diversity among their student bodies. In fact, colleges frequently and proudly publish their admission rates in terms of diversity. We respectfully submit that, based on the above sampling, not only does there seem to be a lack of diversity of thought among your students, but also, and unless serious action is taken, your future student bodies will be largely and sadly homogenous. With the current atmosphere at American colleges, there is loud talk amongst us parents in terms of where our children might gain a top-notch education in a safe environment. So far, there are an alarmingly small number of colleges that offer this combination. As such, barring major change, you may expect fewer Jews and others supporting decency, goodwill, and equality to apply to your schools.

It is time for you to embody the standards you set for your students. It is imperative that you model critical thinking and analytic skills, empathy, growth, collaboration, independent thought, kindness, and leadership.

We have seen what’s happened to the Jews when heinous and perilous climates like this are permitted to fester. You have a responsibility to alter the future by starting with the present. We urge you to start today.

Very truly yours,

Very Concerned Parents

#EndJewHatred