Safe schools for a Jewish kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Anti-semitic and anti-muslim events are both increasing: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/10/30/fbi-threats-jewish-muslim-antisemitic/

I still think most college campuses are perfectly safe for both Jewish and Arab or Muslim students, but I get why people feel uncomfortable. Those threats at Cornell were very disturbing.

I do think there is value in pointing out that it's not just Jews in the US who are experiencing this worrying behavior. Acknowledging that the conflict in Gaza is also increasing violence against American muslims and Arabs is not an "all lives matter" stance -- it's illustrating the broader costs of this conflict and the important of coming together.

You are out of touch. People are marching on campuses with signs a chants to rid the world of Jewish people. This is not safe. This is not acceptable. It is threatening and violent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seems like Cornell was targeted because it has a high Jewish population (about 20%) but would you want your child at a school with very few Jewish students instead? Online posts (as terrible as they are) would not stop me from sending my child to a particular school. We know that bad things happen all over the US to ordinary people doing things we all do.

--Parent of Current Cornell student

I was quite surprised to learn that 22% of the Cornell students are Jewish. It means that about 2/3 of their white students are Jewish, which makes the non-Jewish whites an URM.

What? You are assuming all of their Jewish students are white.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seems like Cornell was targeted because it has a high Jewish population (about 20%) but would you want your child at a school with very few Jewish students instead? Online posts (as terrible as they are) would not stop me from sending my child to a particular school. We know that bad things happen all over the US to ordinary people doing things we all do.

--Parent of Current Cornell student

I was quite surprised to learn that 22% of the Cornell students are Jewish. It means that about 2/3 of their white students are Jewish, which makes the non-Jewish whites an URM.

What? You are assuming all of their Jewish students are white.

Statistically, at least 92% of them are white and over 4% are half-white:

https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/05/11/race-ethnicity-heritage-and-immigration-among-u-s-jews/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seems like Cornell was targeted because it has a high Jewish population (about 20%) but would you want your child at a school with very few Jewish students instead? Online posts (as terrible as they are) would not stop me from sending my child to a particular school. We know that bad things happen all over the US to ordinary people doing things we all do.

--Parent of Current Cornell student

I was quite surprised to learn that 22% of the Cornell students are Jewish. It means that about 2/3 of their white students are Jewish, which makes the non-Jewish whites an URM.

What? You are assuming all of their Jewish students are white.

My Jewish Children(college age) are bi-racial.

[Anonymous]

To OP - I think it's hard to feel fully safe anywhere in the current environment. Antisemitism was already on the rise and the conflict with Hamas just amplifies that. For this I am sorry.

But I also think that the ratcheting up is probably equally seen at any of the schools your child/family would have considered already. (Unless you had paid no attention to how it is to be a Jewish student at school X, which I suspect is not the case.)

As with gun violence, you can't predict where a truly crazy person will act or where an individual student will make a slur or act in a hurtful way. Add that college campuses are a mix of students with all kinds of backgrounds and with varying levels of maturity and self restraint.

None of this makes it any easier, but what I'm saying, is that your child (and you) probably already had a set of schools they thought they would feel comfortable at. If you hadn't already, you can look to the past history to see whether your student thinks they would feel welcome, supported, heard as a Jewish community member. And you can certainly evaluate the pulse of campuses this year as an update.

I know that strength in numbers is one way to evaluate this - having classmates like you can help - but then again - it can put a target on the school as well.

Not sure this is helpful, but I fully empathize.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seems like Cornell was targeted because it has a high Jewish population (about 20%) but would you want your child at a school with very few Jewish students instead? Online posts (as terrible as they are) would not stop me from sending my child to a particular school. We know that bad things happen all over the US to ordinary people doing things we all do.

--Parent of Current Cornell student

I was quite surprised to learn that 22% of the Cornell students are Jewish. It means that about 2/3 of their white students are Jewish, which makes the non-Jewish whites an URM.

What? You are assuming all of their Jewish students are white.

My Jewish Children(college age) are bi-racial.

All Sephardim fall under BIPOC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To OP - I think it's hard to feel fully safe anywhere in the current environment. Antisemitism was already on the rise and the conflict with Hamas just amplifies that. For this I am sorry.

But I also think that the ratcheting up is probably equally seen at any of the schools your child/family would have considered already. (Unless you had paid no attention to how it is to be a Jewish student at school X, which I suspect is not the case.)

As with gun violence, you can't predict where a truly crazy person will act or where an individual student will make a slur or act in a hurtful way. Add that college campuses are a mix of students with all kinds of backgrounds and with varying levels of maturity and self restraint.

None of this makes it any easier, but what I'm saying, is that your child (and you) probably already had a set of schools they thought they would feel comfortable at. If you hadn't already, you can look to the past history to see whether your student thinks they would feel welcome, supported, heard as a Jewish community member. And you can certainly evaluate the pulse of campuses this year as an update.

I know that strength in numbers is one way to evaluate this - having classmates like you can help - but then again - it can put a target on the school as well.

Not sure this is helpful, but I fully empathize.

Also - perhaps seek out Jewish contacts (friends, colleagues, temple members) with students currently at college and ask them how their kids are feeling and what they are experiencing. This could help. I suspect they are all feeling "not great" but you might find some will have found concrete mechanisms to help them deal or that some schools have reached out more pro-actively in ways that they felt were positive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seems like Cornell was targeted because it has a high Jewish population (about 20%) but would you want your child at a school with very few Jewish students instead? Online posts (as terrible as they are) would not stop me from sending my child to a particular school. We know that bad things happen all over the US to ordinary people doing things we all do.

--Parent of Current Cornell student

I was quite surprised to learn that 22% of the Cornell students are Jewish. It means that about 2/3 of their white students are Jewish, which makes the non-Jewish whites an URM.

What? You are assuming all of their Jewish students are white.

My Jewish Children(college age) are bi-racial.

All Sephardim fall under BIPOC.

And, a decent percentage of Ashkenazim too!

[Anonymous]

They’re all far safer than any Gaza school is for a Gaza kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They’re all far safer than any Gaza school is for a Gaza kid.

Yes we know. Jewish people don’t count.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You could just as easily create threads called:

Safe schools for Asian students
Safe schools for LGBTQ students
Safe schools for Black students
Safe schools for female students
Safe schools for Muslim students

How about safe schools in general? Where can our kids go where school is just about school?

I'm afraid OP is just another culture warrior trying to use a sincere worry and throw gas on it for political purposes.

There is a politics forum for that

Those groups may all be marginalized but no one is marching around calling for their murder. Jewish students are under particular threat right now. Please open your eyes and acknowledge it!

Really? No one is walking around calling for the murder of Muslims or in fact murdering them? Do you watch the news? A man murdered a Muslim CHILD for being muslim in IL a week ago. A Muslim pediatrician was murdered YESTERDAY in MD for being Muslim. Police are out here murdering unarmed black people everyday and have been for years? An entire political party is not out here trying to exterminate LGBTQIA people? Please!

+1, a man drove a car into a rally to support Palestinians in Minnesota last week, too.

I think increasingly people only see the harm to the group they are aligned with, and simply choose to believe that it is worse than what anyone else is experiencing. The truth is that violence is increasing against Jews and pro-Palestinian identities in the US and abroad.

I live in Minneapolis. They are still investigating what happened but the preliminary reports presented the driver as an elderly man who was driving home and was unaware there was a protest going on until he was stuck in the middle of it and the protesters were blocking the road. The driver was then surrounded by the pro-Palestinian protestors who proceeded to hit and kick his car and yell at him and spit on his vehicle. At this point it does NOT seem like the driver was intentionally targeting or trying to disrupt the protest or hit anyone w/ his vehicle so your representation of that event is a mischaracterization of what actually happened.

(I am saying this as someone who is generally very pro-Palestinian but this particular situation does not seem like a hate crime at this point so it's not a good example of hate crimes against Muslims/Arabs)

[Anonymous]

Cross Columbia university and Barnard off the list of safe campuses for Jewish students.

Their professors signed a letter defending anti-Semitic student protests on campus.

Can you imagine? Can you imagine being a Jewish college student, in class, and one of these professors discovers you are a Jew?? OMG.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They’re all far safer than any Gaza school is for a Gaza kid.

Yes we know. Jewish people don’t count.

Lives that matter:

- NOT Jewish lives, sadly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They’re all far safer than any Gaza school is for a Gaza kid.

Yes we know. Jewish people don’t count.

Lives that matter:

- NOT Jewish lives, sadly.

Have some perspective, please. Your Jewish kid is infinitely and unequivocally more safe at any campus here than a kid in Gaza is right now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They’re all far safer than any Gaza school is for a Gaza kid.

Yes we know. Jewish people don’t count.

Just putting things in perspective.