AN OPEN LETTER FROM CONCERNED CHRISTIAN AND                        JEWISH ALUMNI, PARENTS, STUDENTS, AND FRIENDS IN                           SUPPORT OF UVA JEWISH  STUDENTS AND ISRAEL

 

March 8, 2024

Dear President Ryan, Provost Baucom, Vice President of Student Affairs Bonner, Dean of Students Acampora, and the Board of Visitors:

On October 7, Hamas invaded Israel and brutally murdered over 1,200 innocent men, women, and children. Scores more were mercilessly tortured, gang raped, beheaded, and burned alive. Hamas kidnapped over 240 including infants, elderly, men, and women. The majority of these hostages remain captive in inhuman conditions and are subject to daily torture and sexual assault.  In response to these horrific attacks, Israel did what any other country would do: it fought back to defend itself and to rescue the hostages.   

Those students and faculty who support Hamas are condoning a terrorist organization whose core premise is the destruction of Israel and the eradication of the Jews worldwide. Below are direct quotes from “The Covenant of Hamas”:

·       “Israel will exist and will  continue  to  exist  until  Islam  will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.” 

·       “The Day of Judgment will not come about until Moslems fight Jews and kill them. Then, the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the rocks and trees will cry out: 'O Moslem, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him.” 

·       “There is no solution for the Palestinian problem except by Jihad. Initiatives, proposals, and international conferences are but a waste of time, an exercise in futility.” 

·       “The [Peace] initiatives, so-called peaceful solutions, and international conferences are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement. Those conferences are no more than a means to appoint the infidels as arbitrators in the lands of Islam.”

The Students for Justice in Palestine at UVA are in direct violation of two Commonwealth of Virginia laws:

1)     Prohibition against the wearing of masks, dating back to the KKK days; and

2)     Overt support of a designated terrorist organization, Hamas, which is expressly prohibited.

President Ryan and his Administration for those two reasons alone should have taken action against SJP. He now knows they are also openly persecuting Jewish students and has done nothing.

 

The Grounds have not been spared this tsunami of antisemitism.  Jewish students and faculty have been harassed.  They have been forced to remove and hide their religious garb and jewelry.   Antisemitic faculty have held indoctrination events where speakers have questioned whether the beheadings, immolations, and gang rapes of October 7 are immoral. Other faculty have encouraged students, in writing, to join Jew-haters in a foreign-led boycott of Israel (BDS), an act prohibited by law in 37 states and by the federal government.  Students and non-students have marched across Grounds, wearing masks in blatant violation of Virginia law (§ 18.2-422), chanting slogans calling for the ethnic cleansing of half the world’s Jewish population.  University-chartered student groups that advocated for a referendum in support of an economic boycott of the only Jewish-majority nation have repeatedly violated University election policies.  Faculty have violated UVA’s faculty political policy to support antisemitic activities.   

Despite UVA’s robust response in other incidents of prejudice towards other minority groups in the past, the UVA Administration’s response to antisemitic acts on Grounds has been silent. The attempt to brush the overt antisemitism at UVA under the rug has occurred at all levels. Despite student groups breaking VA’s law that prohibits masking to conceal one’s identity in broad daylight, the UVA police refuse to arrest anyone, and Student Affairs refuses to ban the University-chartered groups from Grounds.  Faculty who cancel classes to encourage students to participate in antisemitic events are not punished.  Organizations that violate election rules are permitted to continue with their referendum campaign unabated.  Board of Visitors members who demand that these issues be discussed in open session are threatened by the Rector.   The president has failed to acknowledge antisemitism on Grounds, much less condemn it.  In a disturbing act that seems to have been engineered to mock calls for action, President Ryan appointed two faculty members to a religious diversity task force who have said October 7 needs to be viewed in “context.”

The signatories to this petition unequivocally support the rights of Jews to protection from discrimination and harassment at UVA.  We commit to solidarity with our Jewish friends and allies in Israel, across the world, and on our campuses. We condemn the faculty and students who demonstrate against Israel and call for a ceasefire that allows Hamas to regroup and attack Israel again.

We will end with a demand. President Ryan, you know the facts. Jewish students are being harassed and threatened. Don’t just provide vacuous platitudes to these students, parents, and alumni who are demanding immediate action be taken. Protect the UVA Jewish community and prosecute those students who are violating the University standards of conduct. The time for moral equivocation is over.  Take action now.

18th-century British Parliamentarian Sir Edmund Burke said it best: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” President Ryan, your motto is to make UVA “great and good.” Follow through on this promise and do something to stop anti-Semitism on the Grounds of Mr. Jefferson’s University. Immediately.

Here are two key links that provide pertinent background for this:           1) Background history of the Hamas-Israeli conflict:   https://thejeffersoncouncil.com/app/uploads/2024/03/Background-history-of-the-Hamas-Israeli-conflict.pdf                                                       2) Transcript of the UVA Jewish parents and students with President Ryan and other senior administrators:   https://thejeffersoncouncil.com/app/uploads/2024/03/Parent-Student-UVA-Administrator-2-14-2024-Antisemitism-Meeting.pdf 

Sincerely,

Thomas M. Neale

College ‘74

K. Stewart Evans

College ’68; Law ‘72

NOTE: The co-signatories are alumni, students, and friends of all faiths who support the UVA Jewish community and Israel