ACT NOW! NY College Must Stop Funding Antisemitic Events, Rewarding Students Who Participate

“CUNY BMCC’s campus is funding, endorsing, and giving co-curricular student credit for participating in antisemitism,” says non-profit S.A.F.E. CUNY.  This must stop!

By United with Israel Staff

S.A.F.E. CUNY is a non-partisan group that “advocates for systemically discriminated and excluded Zionist, observant, outward, and other Jews and for all protected classes and those historically underrepresented at CUNY.”

Earlier this month, the group publicized a program currently running at CUNY’s Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC), titled “Palestinian Solidarity Series.” The events promote egregious lies about the “apartheid” State of Israel and support for the antisemitic Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

The final event for the series, on March 31, is the screening of “Farha,” a film based on anti-Israel lies, including the alleged murder of a Palestinian family by IDF soldiers, at which participating students will be given credit.

It’s “scary that this propaganda is being disseminated to students” who have limited knowledge about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Dr. Jenna Hirsch, Associate Professor of Mathematics at CUNY- BMCC, told United with Israel.

As noted in a report released by S.A.F.E. CUNY this week, the dwindling Jewish population at the college has been feeling increasingly unsafe.

“In the spring of 2022, at the very height of CUNY’s Jewish communities demanding that the university address its pervasive antisemitism problem, Chancellor Felix Matos Rodriguez hired former Council of American-Islamic Relations-Minnesota (CAIR MN) Civil Rights Director and BDS activist, Saly Abd Alla, as the Chief Diversity Officer at the university, in charge of overseeing discrimination across the university’s 25 campuses,” the report says.

Also according to the report:

– CUNY Chancellor Felix Matos Rodriguez has hired a former CAIR director and BDS activist as CUNY’s top discrimination officer.

– Chancellor Rodriguez has refused to attend two City Council hearings probing antisemitism at CUNY.

– Chancellor Rodriguez incorporates the CAIR-endorsed definition of antisemitism into CUNY’s discrimination process.

– Chancellor Rodriguez has repeatedly rejected adopting the widely accepted IHRA definition of antisemitism.

– James Davis, president of CUNY’s 23,000 member faculty union, is a BDS activist. Davis’s PSC-CUNY union adopts a pro-BDS, antisemitic resolution resulting in hundreds of Jewish union members resignations

(In the summer of 2021, at least 50 CUNY professors resigned in protest from their faculty union after it passed a one-sided resolution condemning Israel and threatening to support BDS.)

– CUNY routinely honors renowned antisemites.

– CUNY School of Law’s faculty unanimously adopts BDS as campus policy.

– CUNY BMCC’s campus is funding, endorsing, and giving co-curricular student credit for participating in antisemitism.

In December 2020, American novelist and philanthropist MacKenzie Scott donated $30 million to BMCC to promote diversity, anti-racism, equity and inclusion. Some of those funds have been used to establish the Social Justice & Equity Centers at BMCC-CUNY, which organized the current series and includes among its staff Nadia Saleh, an anti-Israel activist who serves as program coordinator.

This can no longer be tolerated! All students must feel safe on campus. No student should be rewarded for participating in programs promoting misinformation and antisemitism.

No school that promotes the harassment of Jewish and pro-Israel student deserves funding from the state, city or donors! Make your voices heard! 

For Senator Chuck Schumer, email casework_schumer@schumer.senate.gov. or call (212) 486-4430.

For New York State Governor Kathy Hochul, click HERE.

For Mayor Eric Adams, click HERE.

For Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, click HERE.