“It breaks my heart to think that CUNY would not be a safe place for my children,” Jewish activist Lizzy Savetzky told more than 100 people who gathered in midtown Manhattan for an #EndJewHatred Rally on September 12, outside the office of CUNY Chancellor Felix Matos Rodriguez.
“Just this last month, four Jewish professors at CUNY were put under investigation,” she said. “For what? For reporting antisemitism… It is completely insane. And the cherry on top is the recent hiring of Marc Lamont Hill.”
Hill, who has been teaching at Temple University, was recently hired by CUNY as a Presidential Professor for Urban Education at CUNY’s Graduate Center. In 2018, he was fired by CNN after he spoke at the United Nations and called for “a free Palestine, from the river to the sea.” The phrase is widely viewed as a call for the destruction of Israel and is chanted by Hamas. In an online post, Hill wrote that violence against Jewish people “was the furthest thing from my intent” and he was “deeply sorry” for the fear and anger his remarks caused.
In the same speech at the UN, pouring himself a glass of water, Hill said: “Forgive my thirst – I literally just got off from a flight from Palestine to come and address you this morning and I was boycotting the Israeli water, so I was unable to quench my thirst…” He called former President Trump’s moving of the embassy to Jerusalem a “diplomatic death blow.” He also said they needed “dangerous words” but it is not clear what he meant by that. He urged people to join the BDS movement (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) against Israel.
Attorney Abraham Hamra was the loudest of the speakers at the New York rally. He said his parents had fled Syria for America to be free. He said he feared his children could be brainwashed with “ridiculous ideologies.” Hamra said politicians must be put on notice. “Neutrality is not an option,” he said. “You are either with us or against us…” He also said Jews must show pride and not fear showing signs of their Judaism. “Walk with a kippah if you want to,” Hamra said. “Put on a Magen David, say you keep kosher, say a bracha in public, pray in public. Don’t be afraid to show who you are, cause we are Jews. We have done nothing wrong. We stand for morality and light and it must spread.”
One of the speakers at the rally was Joseph Borgen, an Orthodox Jew beaten in the city for wearing a yarmulke. In 2021, Borgen was attacked by five youths, including pro-Palestinian activist Waseem Awadeh, who could be seen on video hitting Borgen repeatedly with a metal crutch. As part of a plea deal facilitated by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Awadeh was given 18 months in prison for attempted assault in the second degree as a hate crime and criminal possession of a weapon. Borgen said he was called a “dirty Jew” during the attack. According to The New York Post, prosecutors said Awadeh told a jailer, “If I could do it again, I would do it again.”
In his speech at the rally, Borgen took issue with Fatima Mohammed who was the commencement speaker at the CUNY Law School Graduation. Mohammed “went up there, ran her mouth about antisemitism, anti-Zionism, and got a round of applause from the dean of the law school. She spoke at a rally with the same people who attacked me… When we say words have impact, they 1,000 percent do.”
In one line of that speech, Mohammed said, “Israel continues to indiscriminately rain bullets and bombs on worshippers, murdering the old, the young, attacking even funerals and graveyards,” and called for “revolution” against the legal system’s white supremacy.”
Free speech is a hallmark of a democracy but the question of when it becomes hate speech or incitement to violence is an important one that many have been struggling to delineate. The CUNY board belatedly condemned Mohammed’s May 12 speech; a statement by CUNY Board of Trustees chairman Bill Thompson, vice-chair Sandra Wilkin, and chancellor Matos Rodriguez read in part, “Hate speech…should not be confused with free speech and has no place on our campuses or in our city, our state, or our nation.”
But Ari Ackerman, an entrepreneur and philanthropist who has served on the boards of leading Jewish organizations and is on the board of the Hamptons Synagogue, wondered why there was no discipline for the law school’s dean, who clapped for the speech. Ackerman urged the crowd to check out a video on his social media where Rabbi Marc Schneier interviewed Matos Rodriguez. Schneier asked the chancellor why no action was taken against the dean and how Jews could feel safe with no accountability. One might have expected the chancellor to say the dean had free speech to clap if she wanted to. Instead, he said the dean was “new to us” and implied she wasn’t actually listening to the words of the speech.
“I know that she does not embrace what that speaker was saying,” Rodriguez said on the video. “I think many of us here, have probably – if you had a camera someplace and you heard someone you that you didn’t like and you do applause, I think many of us would be found guilty.” His response drew groans at the Hamptons Synagogue’s event.
Ackerman told those at the rally that he had had a private conversation with the chancellor, who told him he promised him things would get better. “Mr. Chancellor, things have gotten worse,” Ackerman told the crowd.
Last year, the City Council held a hearing on antisemitism at CUNY that was chaired by Eric Dinowitz, a Democrat who represents District 11, joined by Inna Vernikov, a Republican who represents District 48, and Kalman Yeger, a Democrat who represents District 44. The three Jewish City Council members expressed surprise and disappointment that the chancellor decided to skip the event, which had been postponed for the sole purpose of fitting his schedule, and which included testimony of students, faculty members, and even a leader of the Anti-Defamation League in person and on Zoom. The CUNY representatives present on Zoom admitted that CUNY had not followed its own policy regarding timeliness in responses to claims of antisemitism, and under pointed questioning from Vernikov, could not give a single example where disciplinary action was taken against anyone over complaints of antisemitism.
At the time, Vernikov called for the chancellor to be fired, but after meeting with him, she said she hoped steps could be taken to improve the situation. “If he does not make immediate change today, he has failed,” she told the crowd, adding that Jews must get louder to make their voices heard.
Vernikov, who pulled $50,000 in discretionary funding from CUNY Law, said the hearing exposed pervasive antisemism. She said the hiring of Hill was unacceptable.
Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa did not speak at the rally, saying he was not asked to. But the Republican mayoral candidate who lost to Mayor Eric Adams said if he could speak to Matos Rodriguez, he would tell him to “have courage like Herman Badillo, who challenged Leonard Jeffries, a tenured professor, all way to the Supreme Court.”
Badillo, a veteran politician and former Bronx Borough president, was appointed to head CUNY’s board of trustees in 1999. Jeffries was removed from his position as chair of CUNY’s black studies department after racially charged remarks about Jews and whites. Jeffries sued and was first victorious, but a federal appeals court reversed the decision and sided with CUNY in 1995.
Sliwa said firing the chancellor would achieve little. “Well, who are you [going to] replace him with?” Sliwa asked The Jewish Press. “They’re all the same. Eric Adams is the shot caller. He didn’t even have him go to the hearing on antisemitism that Inna Vernikov was holding.”
Gerald Filitti, senior counsel for The Lawfare Project, took part in the City Council’s hearing on antisemitism and said it was absurd that Matos Rodriguez did not attend the hearing, which included dozens of students, faculty, and some Jewish leaders. “He’s paid around $700,000 a year,” Filitti told The Jewish Press. “I think he could have shown up.”
Mayor Adams recently traveled to Israel to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu. He’s spoken at high-profile Jewish events, praising Israel and the need to fight against antisemitism. He has praised yeshivas and met with leading rabbis. Orthodox Jews hold key staff positions in his administration. He also created the first ever Jewish Advisory Council in June. Adams said in a press release that “with antisemitic crimes up across the nation, our newly formed Jewish Advisory Council will ensure that Jewish New Yorkers in every community have a seat at the table and have access to the support and resources the city officers.” The Jewish Advisory Council includes prominent Orthodox rabbis and Jewish leaders and totals 37 people.
Matos Rodriguez traveled to Israel on a leadership delegation in 2022, a move that was criticized by some Palestinian student leaders. He also released a statement saying that CUNY did not and could not support BDS after the CUNY Law School’s student government association, with support from the CUNY Law Faculty, passed a resolution endorsing BDS.
Former Democratic Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who represented District 48 for 35 years, told The Jewish Press in a phone interview that he was informed that the CUNY Graduate Center president Robin Garrell was told not to hire Hill. Hill was hired. Two weeks ago, it was announced that Garrell, who’d led CUNY’s Graduate Center for three years, would be stepping down at the end of the month.
Hikind said all Jews need to be more vocal. “Where is the Jewish world?” he said. It’s like a joke. We are going in circles. How…is Lamont Hill still there? Press releases won’t get us to first base, even.”
Hikind, an Orthodox leader who has fought against Jew-hatred for many decades, said with the rise in antisemitism and little results, many have been clamoring for him to make a political return. He said he is contemplating it but didn’t want to speak much about it because the concerns are so pressing right now.
“Jews need to mobilize in big numbers and it’s not happening,” he said. “People think Jews don’t matter.” He lamented that the number of New York Jews protesting the visit of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be greater than the number of Jews protesting antisemitism.
In a bizarre moment, rapper Kosha Dillz was in the middle of a song about a rising up against hatred when the police shut him down. Some yelled, saying the cops should focus on criminals and not Jewish musical performers. An NYPD officer told The Jewish Press they were stopping the performance because a $25 permit for amplified sound had not been applied for.
#EndJewHatred was founded by civil rights attorney Brooke Goldstein, who also heads The Lawfare Project. A television personality, she authored the upcoming book, End Jew Hatred: A Manual for Mobilization. Goldstein, who lives in Israel, told American media outlets that Jews must be vocal. She has said there is an unfair double standard whereby American Jews are pressed to explain all of the actions of the Israeli government, when, for example, Chinese Americans are not asked to explain every action of China.
In April, the New York City Council passed a resolution to make April 29 “End Jew Hatred Day.”
Yehuda Jian, an Orthodox grad student at Baruch College who is the campus coordinator of #EndJewHatred told the crowd that a Jewish student leader at Brooklyn College cried and told him she did not know how to handle the level of antisemitism. “CUNY is a symptom of a systemic problem in this country,” Jian said. “College campuses around the country consistently and continuously throw aside the Jewish community because they think we don’t matter.”
Orthodox Republican Assemblyman Ari Brown, who represents District 20, praised Sliwa and told the crowd that “Jews like to talk,” but that in terms of CUNY there was a need to “hit ‘em where it hurts,” meaning financially, though he did not specify how.
Two Orthodox professors among the four being investigated are Avraham Goldstein, an assistant professor at The Borough of Manhattan Community College, and Jeff Lax, a professor at Kingsborough Community College. Goldstein told The Jewish Press that one person had filed a complaint against him for “contributing” to some online publications that discriminate due to race or religion. He said he filed a grievance with the union, and he is in the process of interviewing lawyers. He said he is dumbfounded that he hasn’t even been told what he allegedly did. “What did I contribute?” he asked. “Did I repair their printers?”
Lax, an attorney, is a founder of S.A.F.E. CUNY, which stands for Students and Faculty for Equality at CUNY. He said the group was necessary, as many Jewish students and faculty are being harassed and are perplexed by the decisions of the administration. “CUNY should immediately cease all four investigations,” Lax said. “They owe Jews everywhere not only an apology but a change in policy to make sure this never happens again. The thought of any protected class being investigated for complaining about being discriminated against is horrifying.”
In one of several formal complaints by Lax, an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) determination was made that members of the faculty’s union purposely organized a meeting on the Sabbath so Lax could not attend. He said attempts to meet with the chancellor were not successful.
Lax said he would like to speak to the famed Jewish New York Senator who has said he is against antisemitism. “Chuck Schumer has been unbelievably quiet,” he said. “There was a time where he would have spoken out. I’d love to speak to him. Maybe he’s not aware of just how bad it is. Unfortunately, there are many, even at the Senate level, who I think are not aware of the things that are going on here.”
