Response to recent instances of antisemitism
July 10, 2020
To the Brandeis community,
Earlier this week, a professional football player in the National Football League released highly offensive, antisemitic posts on social media. While his hateful comments were retweeted, and in some cases defended, public disapproval of this vitriolic antisemitism was scant. The NFL player has since apologized for his comments, but the silence about them reminds us that we must remain steadfast in rejecting bigotry, antisemitism, and racism in all forms.
Brandeis was founded in 1948 as a refuge for students and faculty from an antisemitism that was deeply embedded in American higher education at the time, and experienced by Jews for millennia. Outright discrimination against Jews has become less obvious than it once was, but it remains a scourge against which we must be vigilant; we must continue to hold people accountable for antisemitic words and actions, just as we must do with other forms of discrimination and prejudice.
As our 2019 Commencement speaker, Deborah Lipstadt, MA '72, PhD '76, underscored in her powerful 2019 Commencement address, "If we are going to fight prejudice we must fight it across the board."
Ron Liebowitz