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UW Milwaukee. The Milwaukee Jewish Federation, Hillel Milwaukee, and ADL Midwest blasted the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee yesterday for capitulating to anti-Israel protesters. They said that, “The agreement is among the most offensive and dangerous of any university agreement reached with encampment protesters over the last two weeks.” Adding insult to injury, this comes after seven months of UWM Chancellor Mark Mone refusing to meet with Jewish students and failing to respond adequately to antisemitic incidents on campus. The organizations are calling on the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin system to “immediately negate this agreement” and take steps to make all Wisconsin campuses open and welcoming to Jewish students.

READ: The President of the University of Wisconsin system Jay Rothman’s tweet thread where he says: “I am disappointed by the course taken by UW-Milwaukee, and I am continuing to assess the decision-making process that led to this result.”

TAKE ACTION: Tell the Regents to rescind the dangerous agreement with protesters, reject BDS, and take decisive action now to counter antisemitic hostility to ensure safety for Jewish students.

California. The Union representing 48,000 workers at the University of California system is voting today on whether to strike in response to the university system’s response to anti-Israel protests.

UC Berkeley. The Brandeis Center and Jewish Americans for Fairness in Education have expanded their federal lawsuit against the University of California, Berkeley to include the University’s failure to enforce its anti-discrimination policies and tolerating antisemitism that occurred during anti-Israel protests at the university’s campus. These incidents include an alleged targeted campaign against the law school dean, Erwin Chemerinsky, and in February when a mob rushed a venue hosting an Israeli speaker, smashing windows and breaking a door.

DePaul. Watch as protesters near DePaul University in Chicago on Sunday chanted “Yalla Hamas” (which means “Let’s Go, Hamas”) and expressed other support for Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror attack. It stands as a reminder to all that many of these “anti-war” protesters do not support peace.

New Hampshire. In the early hours of Tuesday morning, vandals struck the University of New Hampshire in Durham, spray painting “UNH Funds Genocide” on the doors of Thompson Hall and defacing the facade in front of the flagpole. On May 1, 12 people, including 10 students, were arrested when they tried to establish an anti-Israel encampment. Since then, protesters have demanded charges to be dropped and the school to divest from Israel. UNH’s commencement is this weekend.

Campus Champions

Big Green. Dartmouth President Sian Leah Beilock took quick action to remove an encampment just two hours after it was erected. In an email the day after the arrests, Beilock wrote that allowing the university’s communal spaces to be taken over for ideological reasons is “exclusionary at best and, at its worst, as we have seen on other campuses in recent days, can turn quickly into hateful intimidation where Jewish students feel unsafe.” The New York Times details how this action has resulted in a surge of criticism on campus. However, each member of the Dartmouth board, the Times reports, “unequivocally supports” President Beilock.

Ohio Unmasked. Ohio’s Attorney General Dave Yost recently penned a letter to that state’s university presidents, reminding them of a law dating back to 1935, which bars individuals from using masks to hide their identity during the commission of a misdemeanor, originally created to prevent the KKK’s targeting of African Americans. Yost stressed the need for students to “own their advocacy,” affirming that, “The First Amendment is a shield against the government, not a sword against fellow students.” Supporting Yost’s stance, the Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote, “Masks have been a disturbing element of the campus protests because they add a menacing element to antisemitic slogans and chants.”

DEEPER: ADL was the pioneer in drafting and championing model anti-mask laws to take on the KKK in the 1950s. Read this 1952 article from JTA.

Testifying in Texas. ADL’s own Courtney Toretto, Divisional Policy Director for the Central Division, testified yesterday at the Texas Senate Subcommittee on Higher Education’s hearing on “Combating Antisemitism on Texas College Campuses.” A snippet of what she said: “Over the past few weeks, we’ve watched in dismay as campus life at universities, including UT Austin and Dallas, has been upended by protests that have too often devolved into hateful, antisemitic rhetoric and even violence. [M]any Jewish students report feeling isolated and targeted by these protests. While ADL vehemently supports the right to free speech and peaceful protest, we draw the line when conduct on campus crosses the line into harassment that threatens public safety and the well-being of students.”

Parkland Father. Gun control activist Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter was murdered in the Parkland school shooting, told Jewish Insider that many progressive groups that he has worked with have been “failing to live up to their values when Jews have been targeted by hate and violence.” Guttenberg said: “I marched with these kids, I know these kids, and not just in March for Our Lives, but the other progressive groups. And we were always fighting against hate and violence. That’s what we always did … Until the hateful rhetoric and the incitement of violence turned against Jewish kids and faculty, Jewish Americans.”

Am Yisrael Chai 💪✡️

Celebrating 76. Watch Soulfarm perform at the University of Pennsylvania as part of Israeli Independence Day festivities. A lot has gone on at the West Philly campus this year, but there is still a whole lot of Jewish pride and joy!

Abraham Accords. A new genetic study found that many Arabs and Jews are closely related. More than 70 percent of Jewish men and half of the Arab men whose DNA was studied inherited their Y chromosomes from the same paternal ancestors who lived in the region within the last few thousand years. These findings may seriously complicate those claiming that Israeli Jews are some kind of outside “colonizer.”

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