INSIDE this week
Standing Against Hate 5
When several antisemitic incidents hit the campus of UConn in quick succession, students – Jewish and non-Jewish – raise their voices and took action.
Lessons Learned 5
Parents at a D.C. Jewish day school raised concerns when they learned that Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump weren’t complying with the school’s COVID-19 protocols. So the Kushner children packed their book bags and went elsewhere.
In Conversation with 8
Alan Zweibel talks about his life as a comedy writer and his poignant and funny new memoir, Laugh Lines: My Life Helping Funny People Be Funnier.
ON THE COVER:
In the new 10-part Israeli mini-series Valley of Tears, which premiered last week on HBO Max, Israeli filmmakers bring to life the 1973 Yom Kippur War – a 19-day conflict that took Israel by surprise and nearly destroyed the country. So traumatized were Israelis who lived through it that most found it too painful to talk about –until now. PAGE 12
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UP FRONT
CONNECTICUT JEWISH LEDGER | SINCE
Students take action after spate of antisemitic incidents hits UConn Storrs campus
BY STACEY DRESNER
STORRS – Three separate antisemitic incidents occurred in the month of October in a University of Connecticut residential complex in Storrs.
On Oct. 7, “The Third Reich” was written on a white board affixed to the door of a student’s dorm room. Later in the month, in the same building, a student reported seeing a swastika carved on a wall near an elevator in the same building. And, lastly, Chanukah and Kwanzaa decorations were vandalized on a holiday display bulletin board in the same complex.
The acts of vandalism were investigated by the police, but so far no suspects have been identified.
In response to the incidents, the office of Residential Life worked closely with the students personally affected, and a discussion on antisemitism was held in the residential building where the vandalism took place.
UConn Hillel began a #StandingUpAgainstHate campaign in which Hillel members spoke about their own experiences with antisemitism and provided education to fellow students about antisemitism and how to combat it.
Still, while UConn’s administration did have some communication with members of Hillel following the incidents, administrators did not condemn, nor address the antisemitic acts with the entire student body.
On Oct. 25, UConn Hillel students launched a petition to address that oversight, which resulted in a letter signed by 311 students that was then sent to the office of UConn President Thomas Katsouleas.
“Previously, the UConn administration has been swift and strong in responding to other such acts of hate on our campus,” the letter stated, citing a July 23rd message addressing the University’s response to anti-Black racism, in which Katsouleas and UConn Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer Franklin Tuitt, “eloquently stated
that teaching and learning is what we do best as a university: ‘Through education and scholarship we address the needs of our students to understand and contextualize the world around us, empower them with that knowledge, and address the misperceptions that underlie bias and bigotry.’”
“The UConn administration that so adamantly, and appropriately, addresses and condemns hate towards other communities on campus needs to equally address and condemn the hate towards UConn’s Jewish community,” said the letter, asking Katsouleas and other administrators to condemn the antisemitism and share details with of the entire UConn community.
Ivanka Trump & Jared Kushner pull their kids from a DC Jewish school
BY RON KAMPEAS
WASHINGTON (JTA)
– Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump pulled their children out of a Jewish day school in Washington, D.C., two weeks before Election Day and three weeks after an outbreak of COVID-19 cases in and around the White House.
“As a Jewish community, we are left wondering why these actions have not warranted the same response,” the Hillel letter concluded. CONTINUED ON
The couple’s children had attended the Milton Gottesman Jewish Day School of the Nation’s Capital since moving to Washington in 2017 after Donald Trump, Ivanka’s father, became president. Their three kids started a different school, the Melvin J. Berman Hebrew Academy in suburban Maryland, on Oct. 19.
“They withdrew from the school,” a spokesperson for Milton, as the school calls itself, said Wednesday in a statement.
A source close to the family said they withdrew because Berman offered more in-person classes during the pandemic. Jared Kushner said in August, amid national debate about whether schools should reopen, that he would send his children to school in person if he could. Berman switched to mostly in-person during September and October after opening virtually, according to its website.
But three parents of children attending Milton, which is switching to fully indoor, in-person classes next week, said the withdrawal came after parents raised concerns that Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and top aide, and Ivanka Trump, his daughter and also a top aide, were seen at events not complying with the coronavirus protocols that Milton demanded of its parents.
The protocols, which the Jewish Telegraphic Agency obtained, are based on Centers for Disease Control