Making a difficult choice to stand up for something.

[Estimated reading time: 6 minutes.]

[NOTE: The images used in this post have been publicly shared on Instagram and from media outlets such as ABC News.]

Reposted from the IG account of @tessaveksler (public account).

I’d like to thank everyone who texted, emailed, commented, liked, or called with respect to Tuesday’s post. Although I wish it weren’t necessary, I appreciate the support.

I penned some thoughts on the massacre committed by Hamas back in October. Unfortunately the only thing that has progressed has been the number of casualties as well as the amount of antisemitic attacks around the country, particularly on college campuses.

One of the common displays of antisemitism in the days following October 7th was with people ripping down signs of missing Israelis from public spaces, such as walls and telephone poles. When 9/11 happened, missing person signs were prevalent everywhere in NYC trying to give family and friends hope that their loves ones were still alive. Posting missing people signs wasn’t exactly treading new territory. Yet this continued to happen.

I still have no idea what purpose taking down these signs is (it’s still happening). It doesn’t solve the violence happening in the Gaza Strip. It doesn’t help to create understanding with folks who may not be familiar with the struggles of the Palestinian people. It does promote anger, resentment and fear.

I found out about an incident at UCSB, where the hubs and I act as donors, back in mid-October where students were seen taking down signs of missing Israelis. I immediately reached out to our main contact at the university to understand what they were going to be doing to protect Jewish members of the community, which includes students, faculty and staff.

I was pointed to a statement made by the Chancellor offering support services for those traumatized by the events, but nothing about addressing the hateful acts that were already taking place on campus. Again, this was back in October.

Unlike Ben Sasse, the President of the University of Florida, who said in the immediate aftermath:

“Speech is protected - violence and vandalism are not.”

Fast forward 4+ months….

As I mentioned above, college campuses have been a hotbed of antisemitic attacks on the Jewish community. We’ve seen tons of administrators twisting themselves in knots trying to thread the needle on the violence in the Middle East.

Guess what? It’s not working. You can’t “both sides” hate.

You can acknowledge the human toll of lives lost in the Gaza Strip over the past 20 years while also admitting that the terrorist attack on October 7th against Israelis was abhorrent. But the vitriolic and incendiary language that has been weaponized against the Jewish community - no, you can’t “both sides” that. 

Re-posted from IG account of @tessaveksler (public account). You can also see the contradiction around zionism and antisemitism.

When antisemitic protests have turned threatening and violent, the response from most college administrators has been to provide additional counseling services and provide “education”. Nothing around consequences for threatening and/or violent behavior.

A lack of consequences leads to empowerment to continue the behavior in question. Which leads to what happened over the weekend at UCSB. Through their “both sides-ing” statements, the Chancellor and Vice Chancellors enabled this conduct through their inaction and pandering, seemingly hoping this would magically go away. 

Here’s your friendly reminder, once again, that ‘hope’ is not a strategy.

A student, who happens to be Jewish, was specifically targeted with hate speech by the UCSB Multi-Cultural Center (MCC) with physical signs and via social media.

Re-posted from IG account of @tessaveksler (public account).

For context, Veksler is the Student Body President at UCSB and works in the same building as the MCC. She continues to receive hateful messages in a place she is supposed to be working.

This crosses the chasm from free speech to hate speech. Imagine if this was you or someone you cared about being on the receiving end of these messages.

Re-posted from IG account of @tessaveksler (public account).

My Response

I was pretty upset on Monday as I was processing the posts I saw on social media. The hubs and I value the relationships we have built at UCSB with the organizations that we support. Once again, I contacted our contact at the university and received a response “thanking us for our patience during this challenging time.”

As I read and re-read the email, I was livid. Patience? What about the Jewish members of the UCSB community who have been on the receiving end of this for months? And this same Chancellor had a very different message to the UCSB community around the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and Tony McDade back in 2020. That message was sent with more urgency. To be clear, that’s the way it should be for all acts of hate.

And that is the point. Jews have stood with many marginalized communities in their time of trouble, but over the past few months we have been asked for proof of these atrocities. It took weeks for the UN to acknowledge the brutal crimes against Israeli women. WEEKS! When video evidence existed on the day of the massacre!

It turns out on Monday night the Chancellor sent out a message to the Campus Community, which was forwarded to me by multiple people. As donors and as an alum (hubs), we still have not received formal communication from UCSB on what happened over the weekend. The contents of the message only made me more livid. It had lots of words and said nothing of substance.

They said they were '“distressed to learn of incidents over the weekend…” Distressed. That tells you all you need to know about their response.

I went to bed livid and didn’t really sleep much. I woke up and decided to write an email to the Chancellor. Mind you, I don’t expect anything of substance from this person or his staff in terms of a response. But it’ll be on the record that this shit is not ok and people are watching. I’ll link to the email here (I copied and pasted the email into a Google Doc), in case anyone is interested.

I closed the email with this statement:

You need to acknowledge that the hate speech that prompted your letter [on February 26, 2024] to the community was a result of your passivity.

In the 24 hours since I sent the letter, my understanding is that some actions are being taken. But I don’t have too many specifics as of yet. I’m fairly confident that a Civil Rights complaint will be filed with the Department of Education, as has been done with MIT, Harvard, Penn and the University of Washington.

And given what happened at UC Berkeley over the past few days, I’m guessing they won’t be far behind with a complaint being filed against that university.

Also what happened at UCSB has now made national news. It’s continues to be infuriating that ABC News decided to use the word ‘allegedly’ in the title of the article.

Re-posted from IG account of @tessaveksler (public account).

Like the post above says, it isn’t that she was being “allegedly targeted.” But you do you, ABC News.

How You Can Help

As I said at the top, you can continue to reach out. That is helpful. Call out bias when you see it. Seek to understand more about antisemitism and where it originates from.

Thanks for reading. More to come with a post on wellness culture and the myths it perpetuates.

If you know of someone who would benefit from this post, please feel free to share it.