2,500 Jewish Academics Call Out Trump
Over 2,500 Jewish academics and students denounce Trump for cynical claims of antisemitism
On Tuesday, a letter drafted by members of Concerned Jewish Faculty and Staff – Boston Area denounced the Trump administration’s “unlawful abduction” of Mahmoud Khalil. Signed by over 2,500 professors, staff members, and students from U.S. colleges and universities, the letter condemned President Trump for “using Jews as a shield to further a naked authoritarian campaign to concentrate power and exert existential terror on American universities and their constituents.”
“The signatories include experts in Holocaust Studies, Jewish Studies, Religious Studies, History, Economics and Public Policy, English and Comparative Literature, Women’s and Gender Studies, Asian American Studies, and Black Studies and hail from dozens of American colleges and universities, including many that have been targeted by the Trump administration for allegedly failing to combat antisemitism,” a press release reads.
The letter also calls on universities to “cease any voluntary collaboration with federal immigration enforcement or organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League, and to defend any community member targeted by the Trump administration.” The letter comes in response to the growing campaign against universities, educators, and students as the administration targets them for exercising their right to freedom of speech and expression.
“I signed this letter because I am disgusted by how the Trump administration is using Jews and antisemitism as a smokescreen in the attempt to silence and criminalize speech, deport activists, and decimate higher education. I refuse to be lectured on what constitutes antisemitism by certified antisemites in the federal administration,” said Marianne Hirsch, William Peterfield Trent Professor Emerita of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University
The letter goes beyond denouncing the Trump administration’s “cynical weaponization of antisemitism and Jewish identity as part of its Christian Nationalist agenda.” The signatories call on university leaders to take several concrete actions such as devoting institutional resources to “free Mahmoud Khalil and defend any other community member targeted by the Trump administration.”
They are asking university leaders to cease any voluntary collaboration with federal immigration enforcement and reject the dangerous narrative that pro-Palestinian advocacy, in which many Jews have participated, is presumptively anti-Jewish. Signatories also seek to terminate all collaboration with organizations, such as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
The goal is to stop the villainization of students after the ADL applauded the “lawless targeting of political opponents.” The letter goes on to say that universities should instead “engage a variety of Jewish stakeholders to develop policies and programs that can meaningfully address antisemitism alongside all other forms of bigotry.”
Additional Quotes
“Future generations will not look kindly on those who aided in this attack on universities and anti-war protest, an attack that is contrary to every core value in American Jewish life. That students are being dragged away in handcuffs from their pregnant wives supposedly to protect us will go down as one of the grimmer chapters in U.S. history,” said Jason Stanley, Jacob Urowsky Professor of Philosophy at Yale University.
“The cheap instrumentalization of anti-Semitism to attack critical thinking and political protest is shameful. Its use as a rubric to deport students and scholars is a terrifying new notch in authoritarian and ethnonationalist power. Every Jew should protest this,” said Wendy Brown, Professor Emerita of Political Science at UC Berkeley and UPS Foundation Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study.
“We, the signatories of this letter, stand united in rejecting the false claims of antisemitism used by this administration to silence dissent and to dismantle academic freedom. This letter marks yet another contribution to American Jewish resistance in this moment: as academics we stand in solidarity, working collectively to maintain the free speech rights of all those protesting for Palestinian rights on our campuses and beyond,” said Marjorie Feld, Professor of History at Babson College.
“Jews, of all people, cannot remain silent in the face of the destruction of the universities where they work, especially when it is done on the pretext of protecting Jews themselves,” said Samuel Moyn, Kent Professor of Law and History at Yale University.
“I signed this letter because I refuse to accept the supposition of too many that supporting the cause of Palestinian freedom, not to mention the core democratic principle of free expression, is somehow antithetical to Jewish interests or well-being,” said David Myers, Distinguished Professor of History at UCLA
“I signed this letter because I am against the manipulation of charges of anti-Semitism to quash legitimate dissent among the Jewish community over issues ranging from the Israel-Palestine conflict to the distinction between anti-Semitism and criticism of the Netanyahu government. I also signed because I stand with the rights of our students and colleagues to exercise peacefully their freedom of expression without fearing reprisals and deportation,” said Seyla Benhabib, Eugene Meyer Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Philosophy Emerita at Yale University.
“Now is the time for every Jew of conscience to stand up and loudly assert their refusal to be used as the pretext for the destruction of America’s centuries-old experiment in democracy,” said James Schamus, Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia University.
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