Targeted TC Prof Denounces Anti-Semitism

A Teachers College professor whose door was defaced with a swastika decried anti-Semitism at Columbia during a press conference Monday morning on Zankel Steps.

Professor Elizabeth Midlarsky, the targeted professor, addressed about 25 students at the press conference. The Teachers College Jewish Association, of which Midlarsky is the faculty adviser, convened the event featuring Midlarsky, TC President Susan Fuhrman, and student leaders.

In response to the swastika, as well as a string of other bias incidents which have occurred on campus this semester, and as part of a larger City Council-led initiative, University President Lee Bollinger announced in a campus-wide e-mail Tuesday that on November 29, Columbia will participate in a New York City “Day Out Against Hate.”

Earlier in October, a noose was found on Madonna Constantine’s door, a professor in Midlarsky’s department—Counseling and Clinical Psychology—and anti-Semitic graffiti was found in a bathroom stall in Lewisohn Hall. In September, Islamophobic graffiti was found on the walls of a bathroom in the International Affairs Building.

Additionally, on Tuesday night, students discovered an anti-Semitic message scrawled on a page of a book in the Teacher’s College Library. The incident was reported to security by a librarian.

“While we have met these incidents of hate with forceful expressions of protest and a shared determination to defend our deepest values of tolerance and empathy towards others, we welcome further opportunities to do so again,” Bollinger wrote in announcing the Day Out Against Hate. He states that Vice President for Arts and Sciences Nicholas Dirks would be working with students to help plan how Columbia would participate.

“We’re comfortable here, but we’ll never be safe,” Midlarsky said, at the event, of Jews position at Columbia. “Anti-Semitism is not taken seriously.”

In addition to the swastika, Midlarsky received anti-Semitic leaflets denying the Holocaust in her mailbox earlier in the month. The leaflets she received featured a cartoon with a man in a yarmulke saying, “I was gassed six times. No! Eight times. No! Ten times.” Text in the margin read, “PLEASE help us expose THE BIGGEST JEWISH LIE!”

Fuhrman said she deplored the hate crime, and that TC has a “zero tolerance” policy for such incidents. She assured students that the administration is working closely with the New York Police Department and the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish-based anti-bigotry organization.

Midlarsky said that the recent, well-publicized hate crimes are not the only ones she has seen during her 17 years at Columbia, noting numerous incidents of swastikas discovered around campus over the last few years.

“These attacks have not occurred in a vacuum,” Midlarsky said. “During my 17 years here, students have come to me, singly and in groups, crying about the horribly anti-Semitic materials found all over the campus.”

“When our civil society ignored the deep feelings and fears associated with events of this kind, the fears of the segment of our population whose families were depleted by he murderous, swastika-wielding hoards are being ignored, and their feelings are being trampled,” Midlarsky added.

Rebecca Pasternak, TCJA co-president, introduced Midlarsky and announced the creation of the “We Are One” coalition formed to combat anti-Semitism.

Pasternak said that while the coalition supports all victims of hate crime, “It is specifically anti-Jewish speech and activities that are escalating and being swept under the broader banner of unacceptable intolerance in the world today.”

Pasternak condemned the Columbia and TC administrations for being silent on the issue and appealed for stronger action in combating anti-Semitism. “Among us on campus there are professors, administrators, and students in positions of power and influence to denounce such anti-Jewish expressions. With the exception of seldom referenced anti-Semitism, the outcry has amounted to a whisper.” She called on administrators—specifically targeting Fuhrman, Bollinger, and Barnard College President Judith Shapiro—to craft statements decrying anti-Jewish “policies, curriculum, faculty, organizations, and speakers,” and to eventually add the clause to their constitutions.

After the press conference, Midlarsky said that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s appearance was related to the surge of anti-Semitic sentiments. “I do believe there is a connection. But we’ve been getting these flyers for years.” Midlarsky said that she wore a button with Ahmadinejad’s limbs twisted into the form of a swastika to protest the visit, and the pin may have made her a more visible target for hate crimes.

Yonah Blum, Chabad Rabbi at Columbia, escorted Midlarsky to her office and affixed a mezuzah, a scroll inscribed with Jewish prayers often hung in religious homes, on her door. Blum said hanging the mezuzah serves as a “protection to you and to the Jewish community here. ... The symbolism of purity of a mezuzah on this door that had a swastika on it will be a very powerful ... inspiration.”

Joy Resmovits can be reached at joy.resmovits@columbiaspectator.com.