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** 1. ‘The place I love has betrayed me’: Haverford professor speaks out on rising antisemitism ([link removed])
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By Beth Ann Rosica

Hatred towards Jews is not limited to Ivy League campuses — even small, suburban liberal arts schools like Haverford College are experiencing pervasive antisemitism. However, the attacks on this campus, situated on the affluent Main Line, are targeted primarily towards Zionist Jews — those who believe in Israel’s right to exist as a country.

Haverford College President Wendy Raymond had an opportunity earlier this month to set the record straight at a congressional hearing in Washington D.C., but her performance was as abysmal as the former UPenn and Harvard presidents’ testimonies in 2023. Both Liz Magill (Penn) and Claudine Gay (Harvard) resigned as president from their Ivy League universities shortly after their feeble performances.

Thus far, there are no signs of Raymond resigning, either voluntarily or involuntarily; however the college atmosphere is contentious according to several sources.

Why It Matters. Barak Mendelsohn is a tenured political science professor at Haverford and is the only Israeli-American faculty member. In an interview with Broad + Liberty, he cited “rampant antisemitism” that the administration fails to address or stop.

Mendelsohn describes a campus where Jewish students are afraid to attend Shabbat dinner at the Chabad House or wear a kippah, a traditional headcovering for men, for fear of being attacked. Some students are afraid to even visit the Chabad House, the Jewish community center just outside campus. He talked about “loyalty tests” where Jewish students are forced to publicly state their position on the state of Israel.

According to Mendelsohn, the so-called “good Jews” — those who reject Israel’s right to exist and wish genocide on half the Jews who reside in Israel — pass the loyalty test and are not attacked or bullied. However, “bad Jews” — the Zionists, those who support Israel’s right to exist, even if supporting a two-state solution — are subject to regular intimidation and hateful behavior.

Quotable. Ironically, Mendelsohn describes himself as left-leaning. Despite serving in the Israeli Defense Force (IDF), he said, “I do not defend Israel’s actions, but I refuse to argue about what must be given — Israel’s right to exist.”

Continue Reading ([link removed])


** 2. Shapiro administration withheld rows of metadata on Vereb scandal, unlike in similar case ([link removed])
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By Todd Shepherd

Gov. Josh Shapiro’s office withheld rows of metadata in response to a document request from this organization — a striking departure from how it handled a similar request by another reporter well over a year earlier. The inconsistency again suggests that the administration may be selectively applying transparency rules when it comes to scrutiny of the Mike Vereb scandal.

The finding comes just weeks after Broad + Libertyreported ([link removed]) that the Shapiro administration deleted the email account of the young woman deputy who accused Mike Vereb of workplace sexual harassment —while preserving ([link removed]) the accounts of other former staffers. Together, the reports raise new questions about whether the administration is selectively withholding or deleting records tied to the scandal.

Why It Matters. This practice of deleting entire rows of data rather than redacting them stands in sharp contrast to a records request from Spotlight PA reporter Stephen Caruso.

In August 2023, Caruso requested all metadata for a single month for the governor’s chief of staff.

In the appeal that followed, the Office of Open Records noted that the metadata log contained in excess of 5,000 entries. The subject line for 255 of those might “reveal privileged communications,” and “four additional subject lines that reflect internal, predecisional deliberations of various topics, and three subject lines that relate to a noncriminal investigation.”

Yet for all of that privileged information identified — privilege being the same exemption the office applied to the Broad + Liberty request — it seems clear from theOOR final determination ([link removed]) on Caruso’s request that the office only applied redactions. Nothing in the final determination would appear to indicate that the office deleted entire rows of data.

Meanwhile, the governor’s office still refuses to answer the key question: When, exactly, was the email account for the aide deleted?

Continue Reading ([link removed])


** 3. Lightning Round
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* Guy Ciarrocchi: Marco Rubio gets it ([link removed])
* Thom Nickels: Philadelphia versus the rule of law ([link removed])
* Patty-Pat Kozlowski: The ‘Summertime’ of the ’90s song is now a distant memory ([link removed])
* Christine Flowers: Weaponized words can lead to terror ([link removed])
* Chris Gibbons: A Memorial Day tribute to “Philadelphia’s own” ([link removed])
* Karen O’Keefe: It’s time for a sensible approach to cannabis in Pennsylvania ([link removed])

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** 4. Making an impact
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This week, Penn Medicine announced that it would no longer perform “gender-affirming surgeries” on children ([link removed]) . The change was the result of federal pressure on the issue from the Trump administration, but you might not have known that sex changes for kids were happening at all in Philadelphia if not for reporting from Beth Ann Rosica, including this story ([link removed]) from just two days before Penn’s announcement.

Now, we don’t want to claim all the credit — the leveraging of federal dollars is the real force for change here. But it is fair to say that keeping the issue in the public eye, especially when the mainstream media tries to hide it, plays an important role in bringing about positive change in the region. Beth Ann deserves our thanks, as do all of the readers and donors that make her work possible.


** 5. What we're reading
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We at Broad + Liberty have been concerned for some time about the lack of transparency in the governor’s office. But we’re not the only ones. This week at RealClear Pennsylvania, Oliver Bateman asks, “Does Josh Shapiro have a secrecy problem? ([link removed]) ” Shapiro coasted to victory with the votes and good will of millions of Pennsylvanians, but as Bateman writes, he is burning that credibility “at an alarming rate with a pattern of secrecy that threatens to define his governorship.”

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With gratitude,

— The Editors at Broad + Liberty
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