Jewish community recounts experiences of anti-Semitism
Esther Reed, a rabbi and the senior associate director at Rutgers Hillel, said the University has the second-largest undergraduate population in the country, accommodating about 6,400 Jewish undergraduate and about 1,000 Jewish graduate students.
Aviv Alter, a School of Arts and Sciences senior and a member of the Jewish community, said the University is generally a very welcoming community that appreciates and celebrates diversity. She said she personally never felt uncomfortable as a Jewish student on campus.
“That being said, individual cases of anti-Semitism do arise,” she said.
The National Demographic Survey of American Jewish College Students produced research, which found that 55 percent of Jewish students experiencing anti-Semitism on campus.
To gather information for the study, questions regarding whether Jewish students have personally experienced or witnessed anti-Semitism on campus were sent to Jewish students on 55 campuses. Though not nationally representative, 58 percent of religious students and 51 percent of secular Jewish students reported that they have experienced reactions of hostility toward Jews or Judaism.
Alter said she has heard of multiple cases in which professors have made discriminatory comments about Jews with Jewish students in the classroom.
Incidents of possible anti-Semitism occur outside the classroom as well. Recently, Executive Director of Rutgers Hillel Andrew Getraer noticed a sign that previously hung on a fence in front of a College Avenue construction site — emblazoned with the words “Rutgers: A great place to be Jewish” — was missing. He quickly reported it on his Facebook account to share with the community.
“Well, the sign went missing sometime over the middle of the night,” he said. “This is at least the forth banner with this message that ... has been stolen from Hillel in the last three years.”
Each stolen sign, which costs about $100, is reported to the Rutgers Police Department, Getraer said.
Getraer said he does not know the exact reason for the repeated thefts, but guessed that people who take the signs down are acting out of anti-Semitic sentiments or otherwise tear them down because they like the message and want to hang it up in their own homes.
Regardless of intention, Getraer said the recurring vandalism of Hillel signs is "very frustrating."
The latest stolen sign was found the afternoon of March 11 near the construction site and was put back up immediately, Reed said.
“At Rutgers Hillel, we use that tagline ‘Rutgers: A Great Place to be Jewish’ because we believe it to be true,” she said. “At the same time, there are anti-Semitic incidents that have taken place each year since I've been working here.”
Reed said most of the anti-Semitic incidents on campus are low level and petty or what she categorized as “micro-aggressions," everyday verbal or nonverbal snubs that convey bigotry or negative messages, especially to marginalized groups.
Occasionally, Reed said she will hear about a student who was not excused for a Jewish holiday, despite University policy that allows students to miss class for religious reasons, or a student who was told that they could miss classes for the Jewish holidays but would have a write a five-page paper for each class session that they missed.
Reed also serves on the Bias Prevention Education Committee at the University where she learned that there have been three reported incidents of swastika graffiti in bathroom stalls and stairwells since June 2014 on campus.
“A Jewish student who sees a swastika in the place where they live will feel that there is hostility toward Jews,” she said. “Fortunately, after being reported, the swastikas were removed or painted over by the University.”
In another situation, Reed said a student in a small seminar about Middle Eastern studies last semester answered that Jews own the media after a professor asked the class who owns the media.
Reed said the only Jewish student in the class was offended but felt she had to defend herself and speak against the long-standing stereotype.
“When she raised concerns about this statement, other students said things like ‘everyone knows that it is true’ and ‘Walt Disney was Jewish,’ which is patently false,” Reed said.
Afterwards, Reed said the student filed a bias report and followed up to resolve the matter.
"No student should need to defend an entire protected category of people, based on religion, ethnicity, ability status or veteran status, while being the only representative of that category in a classroom where they will ultimately receive a grade from a professor leading the discussion," Reed said.
Still, Reed does not think University students are inherently hostile toward Judaism, but does feel that there are individuals who make hostile statements or act in hostile ways toward the Jewish community.
In order to amass a positive relationship among all types of students on campus, Reed thinks every person should learn about religions and cultures that differ from their own.
“I also think that every person on campus can stand up when they see discrimination or hatred, or even microaggressions, that targets another individual or group,” Reed said. “When we all see each other as human beings and all support one another, we can live in harmony.”
