On the evening of July 25th, Jewish faculty, students, staff, and allies gathered in front of UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin’s home to demand unbiased anti-semitism training and an end to what they call “the weaponization of anti-semitism” to suppress their support for Palestinian liberation. Organized by the Faculty and Staff for Palestinian Liberation, the demonstration drew approximately 30 people.
Protesters arrived at Mnookin’s university-provided residence at around 5 p.m. with signs that read “We are not free until we are all free,” and chalked messages including, “Stop criminalizing protesters of genocide,” “You make Jewish students unsafe,” and “Jews want a free Palestine” on the sidewalk directly in front of the property. Many protesters also wore keffiyehs, a traditional Palestinian garb used to symbolize resistance and solidarity.
Protesters delivered a copy of the book, Safety Through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism by Shane Burley and Ben Lorber, to Mnookin’s front door, urging her to read its contents and apply them to her university leadership.
“The overall message of that book is that Jewish safety is achieved through standing in solidarity with all marginalized peoples in this world because anti-semitism is a branch of white supremacy and a branch of colonialism,” Mary, one of the event organizers and speakers, told Madison365.
“We see that Israel itself is anti-semitic in painting itself as the one version of Jewishness that there is, which includes violence and genocide,” they continued. “But the majority of Jewish people do not embody their religion through genocide.”
Mnookin did not face the demonstrators, as she is reportedly out of state.
Claims of anti-semitism have been a tense subject on UW-Madison’s campus and globally since Israel’s current offensive against Palestine, with some claiming that all shows of support and solidarity with Palestine are inherently anti-semitic.
In February, the US Department of Education launched an investigation of UW-Madison after Virginia-based conservative news outlet Campus Reform filed a Title IX complaint against the university for “its alleged failure to protect Jewish students from harassment following the Hamas attack on Israel” in October of 2023, according to WPR.
In early April, UW facilitated an internal anti-semitic training for Student Affairs staff members. A survey conducted after the training noted that it contained many instances of anti-Black and anti-Indigenous rhetoric, as The Daily Cardinal previously reported.
“We clearly see that the university is not actually taking anti-semitism seriously in the same way that it’s not currently taking racism [or] Palestinian students seriously,” Mary said of the training feedback. “We demand the university to stop weaponizing anti-semitism for upholding its current oppressive system.”
“Anti-semitism is used as a weapon against us when when really, we’re talking about anti-Zionism and anti-genocide in general,” UW student and demonstration organizer Mia Kurzer further explained.
“We are against the use of anti-semitism as a scapegoat,” she continued. “It’s kind of easy to distinguish things as anti-semitic [because] you can just sweep it under the rug and say, ‘We don’t align with this protest because it’s’ anti-semitic.’ You don’t actually have to talk about the theories and things behind what’s going on.”
Four speakers shared remarks with the crowd, documenting the effects of Israel’s’ war in Gaza that has killed more than 39,000 Palestinians; the sharp increase of Isalmophobic and anti-Arab racism on UW-Madison’s campus; the alienation and violence faced by anti-Zionist students in Jewish spaces on campus; the personal effects that Zionism has had on the organizers’ family relationships; and messages of support from anti-Zionist Jewish organizers from other parts of the US.
In his speech, UW graduate student Kareem Mayouf detailed just how severe anti-Arab racism has been on UW’s campus and in surrounding neighborhoods since October of last year: “During the fall semester, two Arab students studying in the humanities building received death threats for wearing the hijab,” he said.
“Another student had a baseball thrown at her while walking down Langdon Street. Anti-genocide pro-Palestine protesters marching down State Street had ice thrown at them from residents of several buildings,” he continued.
In light of these incidents and Mnookin’s response to last spring’s pro-Palestinian encampment, Mayouf says that the Chancellor has made her message “painfully clear:” “If you protest against genocide, or express sympathy and solidarity for massacred Palestinian children, you will face the wrath of the police state and receive a beating accordingly.”
In her remarks, Kurzer said members of Hillel, a Jewish campus organization, asked rabbis not to sit or engage with her at the Library Mall encampment, and physically pushed her out of havdalah (the end of Shabbat prayer) because of her involvement in the encampment.
“The only anti-semitism that I have experienced is from other Jews who are Zionist [and] against the encampment, against us,” Kurzer said. “The only people who would say that I’m not Jewish enough, or that I don’t deserve to wear the star, are Zionists.”
Mnookin’s relationship with UW’s pro-Palestinian organizers has been especially fraught since the spring. On the second day of the pro-Palestinian encampment at Library Mall last April, the UW-Madison administration issused a police raid that led to the arrest of 34 protesters and the injury of at least three faculty members of color.
“There were so many Jewish people [at the encampment],” Kurzer told Madison365. “But when the Chancellor approved police being sent in to brutalize us, she did not care about Jewish safety. She didn’t care about the safety of all Jewish students, she cared about the Zionists.”
Additionally, after the negotiations between UW administrations with student organizers that led to the encampment’s dismantling on May 10, Dean of Students Christina Olstad launched an investigation on Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Young Democratic Socialists in American (YDSA), two groups who were in charge of organizing the encampment.
“I think that’s showing that the Chancellor is not really seeing students as wanting a genuine positive change at this university,” Mary said. “She is viewing students as agents to investigate rather than people who want our university to abide by its own values that the Wisconsin Idea proposes.”
Mary added that the result of negotiations left many students disheartened, with a majority expressing the sentiment that none of the encampment’s six original demands were met.
“We were not really promised anything that would get us closer to divestment and disclosure,” they said.
They continued: “I think students are hoping that given the nationwide movement around disclosure and divestment—especially around investment in weapons manufacturers that Israel contracts with to kill Palestinians—that the Chancellor will take our concerns seriously and when the time comes, actually negotiate in good faith this time. Students will keep demonstrating until the university divests and until our six demands are met.”
