Editor’s note: Letters to the Editor and open letters reflect the opinions, concerns and views of University of Wisconsin-Madison students and community. As such, the information presented may or may not be accurate. Letters to the Editor and open letters do not reflect the editorial views or opinions of The Daily Cardinal.
We are Jewish faculty, staff, and students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who stand with the peaceful and righteous coalition of student activists calling for the university to divest from Israel. We join our Muslim and Muslim-allied colleagues, Jewish Voice for Peace–Madison, and the over 2,000 faculty, staff, students, alumni, and donors who signed the “Statement in Solidarity with Student Protest from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Community,” in demanding that the university allow student activists to express their freedom of speech for Palestinian rights. In a climate in which “Jewish safety” is being used to justify repression of student activists fighting against genocide, we refuse to have our identity as Jews weaponized against our own values. We also refuse the conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism. We will not be silenced or intimidated by specious claims that to stand against war, genocide, occupation, and ethnonationalism is to discriminate against ourselves.
The national student movement for divestment and ceasefire is deeply aligned with Jewish values of peace and justice for oppressed peoples everywhere. At encampments on university campuses across the U.S., Jewish activists have held Passover seders — an ancient celebration of liberation from oppression — with their Muslim and Christian peers. Our support of the encampment is an expression both of our pride in being openly Jewish and our condemnation of Israel's brutal occupation of Palestinians. We feel the presence of our ancestors when we say: "Never again."
We also care about the safety of Jewish people in our community. That is why we insist that any conversation about Jewish safety on campus must take into account the safety of Jewish protesters for divestment and ceasefire, who, along with all protesters, the University has placed at risk of violence by inviting the police onto campus to make arrests. We urge university administrators to consider that when anti-Zionist discourse is presented as a violent suppression of the free speech of others, it contributes to a chilling political climate that targets faculty, staff, and students — especially those who are Muslim, BIPOC, and Jewish — for doxxing and undermines the flourishing of free expression on campus. We insist that Jewish safety is impossible without the safety of all others, on our campus and beyond.
This is why we condemn in the strongest possible terms the University's choice to call in the police to forcibly arrest and assault our students and colleagues. Instead of supporting our rights to peacefully protest, the University leadership has turned to police violence against students, faculty, and staff. We refuse to allow our identity as Jews to be used as an excuse for such violence. We implore the administration to choose peace and justice over entrenching cycles of violence on our campus community and across the world.
Antisemitism is real; we know because we have experienced it here in Wisconsin. We have not forgotten that neo-Nazis marched through downtown Madison just last year. We expect UW-Madison to protect its Jewish community from antisemitic violence, hate speech, and harassment. But we also expect the university to distinguish between antisemitism and criticism of Israel, between Jews and Zionists, between an identity and a political stance. Our safety and our freedom of expression — as well as those of our colleagues and students — depends on it.
See the full list of updated signatures: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XpK2VkmuYzn9QDOBMUUhSERFTYWYh6YNUi0CZfP5a8s/edit.
In solidarity with the students,
Dr. Michael M. Bell, Philip David Lowe and Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor of Community and Environmental Sociology
Dr. Jill H. Casid, Professor, Departments of Art History and Gender and Women's Studies
Dr. Alex Dressler, Professor, Department of Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Dr. Lisa H. Cooper, Professor, Department of English
Dr. David Zimmerman, Professor, Department of English
Dr. Leema Berland, Professor, Curriculum & Instruction
Dr. Nancy Kendall, Professor, Educational Policy Studies
Dr. Noah Weeth-Feinstein, Professor, Curriculum & Instruction
Dr. Giuliana Chamedes, Associate Professor, Department of History
Dr. Walter C. Stern, Vilas Associate Professor, Department of Educational Studies & Department of History
Dr. Max Besbris, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology
Dr. Sunny Yudkoff, Associate Professor, Department of German, Nordic, and Slavic, and Jewish Studies
Dr. Leah S. Horowitz, Associate Professor of Environmental Studies
Dr. Sarah Ensor, Assistant Professor, Department of English
Dr. Adam Y. Stern, Assistant Professor, German and Jewish Studies
Dr. Amanda Shubert, Teaching Faculty, Department of English
Dr. Julia Greenberg, Lecturer, Department of Psychology
Dr. Samantha Bosco, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology
Anika Rice, MS, Phd Student, Department of Geography
Tsela Barr, Assistant Director of the Middle East Studies Program
Julia Tanenbaum, Processing Archivist
Dr. Joshua Garoon, Assistant Professor, Department of Community & Environmental Sociology
Dr. Susan Nossal, Academic Staff
Sarah Linkert, Institute for Regional and International Studies
Alyssa Rooks, Student
Hannah Francis, MS, PhD Student Department of Soil Science
Courtney Parker West, PhD Student, Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis
Jamie Goldin, Undergraduate Student
Dr. Sharon Lezberg, Community Development Educator, UW-Madison Extension Dane County
Diane Mayerfeld, Outreach Specialist, Division of Extension
Stepha Velednitsky, Academic Staff
Hannah Kass, Joint PhD student in the Department of Geography and the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies
Dr. Elizabeth Feder, UW Population Health Institute, Academic Staff
Dr. Ruth Goldstein, Assistant Professor, Department of Gender & Women’s Studies
Dr. Lola Loustaunau, Assistant Professor, School for Workers
Dr. Leigh Senderowicz, Assistant Professor, Departments of Gender & Women's Studies and Obstetrics & Gynecology
Daniel Levitin, PhD Student, Department of Mathematics
Beth Wendt, Academic Staff
Anonymous, Graduate Student
Becca Owen, Graduate Student
Abra Vigna, UWPHI
Anonymous, Graduate Student, Interdisciplinary Theatre Studies
Sara Gia Trongone, Graduate Student/TA, Sociology
Claire Dolan, Undergraduate Student
Gabriel Shapiro, Graduate Student
Taviah Levenson, Undergraduate Student
Mia Kurzer, undergrad student
Meghann Norden-Bright, PhD Student, Sociology
Isaac, undergraduate student
Olivia Onek
Sydney Widell, BS ‘20
Chloe Rosenstock, PhD Student/Sociology TA
Anonymous, Sociology PhD Student
Emma-Claire LaSaine, PhD Candidate, Department of Sociology
Lily Katz, Population Health Specialist
Gabo R Ochoa Samoff
Arielle Link, Graduate Student
Micah, graduate student
Adrianna Gorsky, Graduate Student
Bianca Barredo, BS ‘24
Cathy Loeb, emerita academic staff (WI Center for Education Research)
Abby Widell, UW Madison Alum
Ila Schrecker, alum ‘23
Anonymous, undergraduate student
Becca, UW-Madison Student
Lily Z. Shell, Ph.D. Candidate and Lecturer
Everett Tretcher, UW Population Health, Academic Staff
Kaylae Allison, undergraduate student
Emma, undergraduate student
