December 22, 2023 | 10 Tevet 5784
NOTEWORTHY LOCAL Shining a light on antisemitism
Candlelighting 4:39 p.m. | Havdalah 5:43 p.m. | Vol. 66, No. 51 | pittsburghjewishchronicle.org
High school seniors rethink college applications as antisemitism rises
Former CMU student sues university over ‘anti-Jewish discrimination and retaliation’
Local teachers awarded for their work Page 4
By David Rullo | Senior Staff Writer
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LOCAL A trip to strengthen Jewish peoplehood
Community mission to Israel in the works LOCAL
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Mental health on campus
Jewish Healthcare Foundation funds initiatives for student wellness LOCAL
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Keeping the community safe
Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh helps secure state funding Page 11
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College-bound seniors have a lot to consider after months of heated tension on campus. Photo by ijeab via iStock By Adam Reinherz | Senior Staff Writer
Two weeks after the Israel-Hamas war began, Squirrel Hill resident Josh Siebzener visited University of Pennsylvania’s campus. The Hillel Academy of Pittsburgh senior was among nearly 25 college-bound students invited to spend Shabbat at Penn Hillel in Philadelphia. Before encountering Locust Street or the LOVE Sculpture, however, Siebzener had spent weeks following social media posts of “attacks, outbursts or protests turned violent” at universities post-Oct. 7, he said. Four days after war erupted, an Israeli student at Columbia University was allegedly hit with a stick by a fellow student in front of the school’s Butler Library, the Columbia Spectator reported. On Oct. 15, a University of Toronto student was arrested and charged by Peel Regional Police after posting a “threatening and hateful” message, according to CP24. Two days earlier, a women’s bathroom at Drexel University was defaced with antisemitic graffiti, “by someone within our community,” the university’s president said in a message to students and colleagues. Between Oct. 7-23, the ADL Center on
Extremism recorded 312 antisemitic incidents (190 directly linked to the war in Israel) — a two-week sum representing a 388% increase from the same period in 2022. Siebzener visited Penn and gleaned a “firsthand perspective” by talking to students, he said. “I didn’t feel unsafe for a moment there, but in the weeks following the Shabbaton I felt confused again.” On Oct. 31, a Cornell University student was arrested after posting he was “gonna shoot up” a kosher dining hall, “stab” and “slit the throat of ” Jewish males on campus, decapitate Jewish babies and “rape and throw off a cliff any Jewish females,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Northern District of New York. One week later, CBS News Boston reported that during a solidarity demonstration for hostages held by Hamas, a UMass Amherst student punched a Jewish student holding an Israeli flag, then spit on the flag. On Nov. 10, hours after two women entered The Ohio State’s Hillel Wexner Jewish Student Center, took Israeli flags and yelled “derogatory words,” two Jewish students were assaulted near campus, ABC15 News reported. Please see College, page 10
n a 39-page federal complaint filed against Carnegie Mellon University last week, Yael Canaan, a Jewish student of Israeli descent, claims she was subjected to “pervasive anti-Jewish discrimination” during her time at the university. The five-count complaint, filed by the Lawfare Project on Canaan’s behalf, claims systematic antisemitic behavior and abuse beginning in 2018 by CMU faculty and administration. Canaan graduated from CMU in May 2023. Filed in the Western District of Pennsylvania, Canaan’s complaint takes aim at the university’s Statement of Assurance, which says the school doesn’t discriminate on the basis of “race, color, national origin, sex, handicap or disability, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, creed, ancestry, belief, veteran status or genetic information.” Canaan claims these promises are false. The alleged abuse began when Mary-Lou Arscott, studio professor at CMU’s School of Architecture and associate head for design fundamentals, purportedly denied Canaan a homework assignment extension so she could attend an Oct. 29, 2018, memorial service for victims of the Oct. 27 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting. In 2022, the complaint alleges, Arscott commented on a project Canaan created about the conversion of a public space into a private space through an eruv, and said a wall in the project looked like the wall Israelis used “to barricade Palestinians out of Israel.” Canaan also claims that Arscott said she should instead focus on “what Jews do to make themselves such a hated group.” Canaan alleges she reported Arscott’s Please see CMU, page 10
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