At 9:01 am this morning, UCLA chancellor Julio Frenk, sent a long overdue email calling for a campus-wide “Initiative to Combat Antisemitism.”
While October 7th certainly served as a catalyst for the anti-Israel and antisemitic frenzy that has erupted across college campuses, blatant antisemitism has been a feature of college life long before Hamas’s most recent terrorist attacks.
As a fourth-year Jewish UCLA student, antisemitism has smacked me in the face almost every year. My sophomore year was interrupted by signs claiming “Nazis are based” (a slang word for justified) on a whiteboard in a dorm lounge, alongside messages to “abort Jewish babies: 6 million wasn’t enough.” My junior year was filled with nasty propaganda against Jews and Israel, calling “Zionists” Nazis and glorifying anti-Jewish plane hijackers, like Leila Khaled, as subjective artwork in my major. During my senior year, I encountered countless UCLA students who failed to denounce Hamas as a terrorist organization. When I wanted to report the dorm incident to housing staff, I was told by some to brush it under the rug, while others ignored me completely. Given how the UCLA community, and the world at large, has responded to antisemitism, Chancellor Julio Frenk’s email was desperately needed to set administrative precedent.
In his email, Chancellor Frenk made it clear that antisemitism has no place on campus. To quote him directly, “Antisemitism has no place in our society — and no place at UCLA. It threatens the mission of academia and is antithetical to the values that define the very essence of a university. Everyone deserves the right to learn, teach, work and live in a community that is free from discrimination and bigotry.” However, the right for Jewish students to learn, teach, and work has been continuously downtrodden since October 7th. Student learning has been interrupted by student protests calling for “Intifada,” teaching has become political with teachers choosing hostility instead of peace, and dorm living has become uncomfortable with students writing hate speech on communal white boards. Personally, I stopped living on campus because I was constantly surrounded by people who wanted me eradicated on the basis of my religious identity, or so it felt. Given this, Frenk took action, “we have more to do in our shared goal of eradicating [antisemitism] in its entirety.” This action certainly starts with a movement, one that Chancellor Frenk and UCLA Professor Stuart Gabriel have so importantly catalyzed.
The Initiative to Combat Antisemitism will be led by UCLA Anderson School of Management Professor Stuart Gabriel. The goal of the initiative, as cited in the email is to, “bring together members of our Bruin community and civic leaders from diverse backgrounds, faiths and perspectives” in hopes of “extingusih[ing] antisemitism, completely and definitively.” In collaboration with the Task Force to Combat Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias, this mission will take the form of “enhancing relevant training and education, improving the complaint system, assuring enforcement of current and new laws and policies, and cooperating with stakeholders.” This initiative is a step towards reforming UCLA into a university where identity does not have to be hidden, civil discourse can be had, respect can be built, and trust can be established.
Rabbi Sacks wrote “We can face any future without fear so long as we know that we won’t face it alone.” Meaningful changes and reforms happen in conjunction with community efforts. Antisemitism is not solely a Jewish problem–it is a problem of broken mutual dependency between groups of people where hate seems to triumph. Collective effort to reform a community that has been clouded by judgement, discrimination, and fear is of utmost importance. There is no community without togetherness. This initiative strives to combat hate with love and education–an initiative the Jewish community, and so many others have been begging for.
Thank you Chancellor Frenk and Professor Gabriel for this monumental initiative.
As always, “We are one UCLA.” Let’s fight the battle of hate together.
Cover Image: Via author
The views expressed in this post reflect the views of the author(s) and not UCLA or ASUCLA Communications Board.
