Concerned Jewish Faculty & Staff
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concernedjfaculty.bsky.social
Concerned Jewish Faculty & Staff
@concernedjfaculty.bsky.social
We believe that the fight against antisemitism cannot be separated from the struggle against all forms of oppression.

Learn more and join us:
https://concernedjewishfaculty.org

Our statements:
https://www.concernedjewishfaculty.org/statements
Pinned
The MA Antisemitism Commission has approved its final report conflating Judaism with Zionism.

We respond: "The Commission has done more to fuel rising authoritarianism and antisemitism than to create the conditions that promote Jewish safety"

www.concernedjewishfaculty.org/commission-s...
CJFS Commission Shadow Report | Concerned Jewish Faculty & Staff
www.concernedjewishfaculty.org
It bears emphasizing: The same admin that is attacking and defunding our universities, over what they call an antisemitism crisis, is now saying antisemitism isn't a problem at all.
This is wrong. There is widespread antisemitism in the US, AND there is also deliberate conflation by Democrats and GOP of criticism of the genocidal, apartheid Israeli government and its occupation of Palestinian lands with antisemitism––itself an ultimately antisemitic move.
December 23, 2025 at 2:52 AM
Reposted by Concerned Jewish Faculty & Staff
The new travel ban issued by President Trump halts people with Palestinian Authority-issued passports from entering the United States. Immigration law expert Samah Sisay (of
@ccrjustice.org) says the new restrictions are about politics, not security.
Trump’s New Travel Ban Targets Palestinians
Immigration law expert Samah Sisay says the new restrictions are about politics, not security.
jewishcurrents.org
December 22, 2025 at 7:44 PM
The choice by ADL and other legacy institutions, to demonize protest against Israel as antisemitic, created a wide opening for Vance et al to deny that antisemitism exists, while at the same time welcoming anti-semites like Fuentes into their fold.
This is wrong. There is widespread antisemitism in the US, AND there is also deliberate conflation by Democrats and GOP of criticism of the genocidal, apartheid Israeli government and its occupation of Palestinian lands with antisemitism––itself an ultimately antisemitic move.
December 22, 2025 at 7:55 PM
From CJFS co-founder Eve Spangler:
Ceasefires in the Gaza Genocide: A Historical Perspective

www.counterpunch.org/2025/12/19/c...
Ceasefires in the Gaza Genocide: A Historical Perspective
What is new in the current situation and particularly ominous, is that, formerly, even the most exclusivist version of Zionism did not rely on genocide as a tool: generations of Zionists have tried to...
www.counterpunch.org
December 21, 2025 at 3:24 PM
CJFS joins 2000+ demanding that Harvard's School of Public Health reverse the ouster of Mary Bassett as director of the FXB Ctr for Health & Human Rights.

We are outraged that FXB's webinars on the public health crisis in Gaza have been smeared as antisemitic.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
A Harvard scholar’s ouster exposes a crisis of institutional integrity | Eric Reinhart
The dismissal of a a renowned health leader who refused to ignore Palestine highlights false claims of universality in human rights, global health and academia
www.theguardian.com
December 19, 2025 at 7:13 PM
Reposted by Concerned Jewish Faculty & Staff
"To foster a campus climate of real inclusion, we need to convene and converse, not record and report... Our administrations and governments just have to give us the respect, job security and academic freedom to do so." www.insidehighered.com/opinion/view...
A Better Way to Approach Antisemitism on Campus (opinion)
Policing speech about Israel is counterproductive.
www.insidehighered.com
December 18, 2025 at 9:25 PM
Reposted by Concerned Jewish Faculty & Staff
“…to foster a campus climate of real inclusion, we need to convene and converse, not record and report. The details are tricky, but teachers and students can figure them out together. Our administrations and governments just have to give us the respect, job security and academic freedom to do so.”
December 18, 2025 at 1:34 PM
Reposted by Concerned Jewish Faculty & Staff
mic drop from the brilliant @margaretlitvin.bsky.social co-founder of @concernedjfaculty.bsky.social modeling how we lead with humanness. (no surprise from the humanities).

www.insidehighered.com/opinion/view...
December 18, 2025 at 1:10 PM
Our co-founder @margaretlitvin.bsky.social on how to combat antisemitism by bringing students together rather than turning them on each other.

www.insidehighered.com/opinion/view...
A Better Way to Approach Antisemitism on Campus (opinion)
Policing speech about Israel is counterproductive.
www.insidehighered.com
December 18, 2025 at 12:47 PM
From Joseph Levine in @dailyhampgazette.bsky.social :

Report of MA antisemitism commission "flawed for its conflation of Judaism with Zionism, and dangerous because it... puts the imprimatur of a blue state on the Trump admin’s exploitation of antisemitism."

reader.gazettenet.com/story/hg-dhg...
Antisemitism report by state‘deeply flawed’
reader.gazettenet.com
December 17, 2025 at 8:52 PM
DOJ attorneys tasked with investigating antisemitism in the UC system were told to "come up with a reason to sue UC" before they had even started the investigation.

www.latimes.com/california/s...
Times Investigation: Ex-Trump DOJ lawyers say 'fraudulent' UC antisemitism probes led them to quit
The Times spoke to nine former Department of Justice civil rights attorneys tasked with investigating antisemitism complaints at the University of California. They all resigned during their investigat...
www.latimes.com
December 16, 2025 at 4:54 PM
It's been a horrible 24 hours, with one mass shooting at Brown and another on a Hanukkah celebration in Sydney, Australia.

Our thoughts are with everyone impacted.
December 14, 2025 at 2:49 PM
Reposted by Concerned Jewish Faculty & Staff
Here’s what many Jews know but the commission won’t acknowledge: Conflating Jewish identity with support for Israel increases antisemitism. By insisting that criticizing Israeli government policy is antisemitic, we make all Jews responsible for those policies.

@concernedjfaculty.bsky.social
Massachusetts lawmakers must reject the antisemitism commission's flawed recommendations  - CommonWealth Beacon
AS MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATORS consider recommendations from the state's Special Commission on Combating Antisemitism, they face a critical choice: Will
commonwealthbeacon.org
December 12, 2025 at 1:00 PM
Today, CJFS and @inclusivemass.bsky.social members handed copies of our Shadow Report to the offices of every Senator and Representative in the MA State House, and shared our concerns about weaponization of antisemitism.

Read the report here: www.concernedjewishfaculty.org/commission-s...
CJFS Commission Shadow Report | Concerned Jewish Faculty & Staff
www.concernedjewishfaculty.org
December 12, 2025 at 12:01 AM
Two new pieces in the @cwbeacon.bsky.social from CJFS members!

1. Alex Gourevich writes how state antisemitism commission obssesses over criticism of Israel, while ignoring growing threats from right-wing Christian nationalists.

commonwealthbeacon.org/opinion/the-...
The state commission on antisemitism doubles down on its mistakes  - CommonWealth Beacon
RIGHT-WING ANTISEMITISM is exploding. Nick Fuentes recently complained to Tucker Carlson about “organized Jewry” and Young Republicans think it’s normal
commonwealthbeacon.org
December 11, 2025 at 11:32 PM
"Why should it be antisemitic to argue that members of a state of different religions should have equal rights? Wasn't that the premise of emancipation? Don't we criticize states that fail to do that?"

-Mark Mazower, author of "On Antisemitism: A History of a Word"

www.haaretz.com/life/books/2...
Why this historian thinks how we define antisemitism right now is destructive
After Watching the Gaza Encampments Transform Into a National Spectacle, Columbia University Historian Mark Mazower Sought to Understand What Is – and Isn't – Antisemitism by Comparing Its Usages Thro...
www.haaretz.com
December 10, 2025 at 12:18 AM
Reposted by Concerned Jewish Faculty & Staff
For more on the argument that Northwestern should have sued over the grant freeze in the first place, see here: dailynorthwestern.com/2025/10/29/o...
Northwestern University law profs argue that NU's "deal" with the Trump admin violates the First Amendment and federal antidiscrimination law.

Moreover, the grant freeze Trump imposed on NU was unlawful and should have been challenged in court.

www.theuniversityunderthreat.org/updates?fbcl...
Updates
2025.12.08 | Northwestern Law Professors Detail Legal Violations in Northwestern/Trump “Deal” For Immediate Release December 8, 2025 Download this document as a PDF here Northwestern Pritzker School...
www.theuniversityunderthreat.org
December 9, 2025 at 4:17 PM
Northwestern University law profs argue that NU's "deal" with the Trump admin violates the First Amendment and federal antidiscrimination law.

Moreover, the grant freeze Trump imposed on NU was unlawful and should have been challenged in court.

www.theuniversityunderthreat.org/updates?fbcl...
Updates
2025.12.08 | Northwestern Law Professors Detail Legal Violations in Northwestern/Trump “Deal” For Immediate Release December 8, 2025 Download this document as a PDF here Northwestern Pritzker School...
www.theuniversityunderthreat.org
December 9, 2025 at 3:25 PM
Rümeysa’s abduction was a travesty and a crime. Hopefully this finally allows her to simply be a PhD student again.
A federal judge in Boston on Monday ordered U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to restore Turkish national Rümeysa Öztürk's record in a critical online database used to clear student visa holders for work in the US.
Federal judge reinstates Öztürk’s online record so she can resume work at Tufts University
A federal judge in Boston on Monday ordered U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to restore Turkish national Rümeysa Öztürk's record in a critical online database used to clear student visa holder...
www.wbur.org
December 9, 2025 at 1:43 AM
“It has been heartbreaking to see legacy Jewish institutions stoke the flames of Islamophobia… motivated by perverse logic that they can only secure safety of Jewish Americans at the expense of our Muslim brothers & sisters, as if dignity were a zero-sum game.”

www.tuftsdaily.com/article/2025...
Op-ed: Establishment Jewish institutions are betraying and weaponizing my religion - The Tufts Daily
In sixth grade, my middle school scheduled its first dance for a Friday night during Sukkot. My family kept Shabbat and would spend the evening in our Sukkah, twin reasons why I couldn’t realize the q...
www.tuftsdaily.com
December 5, 2025 at 11:35 PM
Let's be clear, there is no evidence this professor's actions were motivated by antisemitism, or that he even knew there is a synagogue in the vicinity.

Yet again, the Trump admin is exploiting antisemitism fears to persecute immigrants.

www.bostonglobe.com/2025/12/04/m...
Visiting Harvard Law professor on probation for firing BB gun near Brookline synagogue agrees to leave country, feds say - The Boston Globe
The Brazilian man's visa was revoked after his arrest. He agreed to leave the US of his own accord rather than be deported.
www.bostonglobe.com
December 5, 2025 at 11:02 PM
Today at 4pm: Teach-in on protecting campus expression in the Greater Boston area, by Massachusetts Peace Action, @aaup.org and @aft.org

masspeaceaction.org/event/protec...
Protecting Campus Expression in the Greater Boston Area
Freedom to Speak, To Teach, To Learn, To Research; With Security and Affordability A Teach-in with the AAUP/AFT campaign leading up to a national Day of Action on May 1, 2026.
masspeaceaction.org
December 5, 2025 at 5:09 PM
Northwestern's deal with Trump "is not and never has been about antisemitism. It is about punishing universities and the higher education sector. It is about repressing political opponents."

Capitulating to these deals makes us all less safe.

www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/03/o...
Elizabeth Shakman Hurd: Northwestern’s deal with the federal government is not about antisemitism
Northwestern’s agreement with the federal government is about punishing universities and repressing political opponents.
www.chicagotribune.com
December 3, 2025 at 10:38 PM
“What might have been a model for the nation offers a cautionary tale that leaves Massachusetts even less equipped to contend with antisemitism in the Commonwealth and beyond”

--CJFS co-founder @jpygold.bsky.social

www.boston.com/news/politic...
Here’s what the state’s antisemitism commission found — and what it thinks we should do about it
Massachusetts' Special Commission on Combating Antisemitism unanimously approved its final report last month, receiving mixed reactions.
www.boston.com
December 3, 2025 at 10:29 PM
“The Resolution states that “protections of Title VI apply to all individuals equally,”…and yet goes on to single out Jewish students for a special, disputed definition of their group membership (“shared ancestry”) and special protections.”

This kind of “protection” makes everyone less safe.
December 2, 2025 at 2:23 PM