Much of the campus climate at UCLA revolves around identities and identity politics. Students champion their identities and their communities in a way that the rest of the world should strive to emulate. This reality, while it adds to the tapestry that is the UCLA community, sometimes also adds a layer of complexity and difficulty. We are Bruins. But we are Bruins of varied descents, with complicated pasts, even more complicated presents and excitingly unknown futures.
My “modifiers” on campus this year were Freshman and Jew — two titles that I carry with great pride. Over the course of this year, my Jewish identity was politicized and attacked. And rather than duck and cover, the constant need to defend my identity and my people only reaffirmed my commitment to them.
Anti-Semitism on college campuses has transformed from its traditional form. Swastikas and Nazi paraphernalia still appear on campuses across the nation — including UC Davis, Emory University and George Washington University — and even at UCLA, where a Jewish student’s World Zionist Organization flier was defaced with a swastika.
But this new wave of anti-Semitism is far more complex, nuanced and malicious than any of us would like to believe. The systematic delegitimization, demonization and setting of double standards in relation to the Jewish state has led to the delegitimization, demonization and setting of double standards in relation to the Jewish people. It would be naive not to recognize the clear correlation between anti-Israel, anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic activity on college campuses.
The boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement and its champions on college campuses clearly incite hate against Jewish students and the Jewish people. It is on campuses that legitimize the BDS movement where anti-Semitic Yik Yaks are posted, where phrases such as “Hitler did nothing wrong” can be found etched into tables in the cafeteria, where it is socially acceptable to wear T-shirts that read “Israel Kills” and where it is OK to almost deny a Jewish student a position of leadership based solely on her religious identity.
Anti-Semitism exists. It is alive and well. It has taken on a more nuanced, less detectable form. Yet it exists nonetheless.
As one student so eloquently stated at February’s UCLA Undergraduate Students Association Council meeting to discuss “A Resolution Condemning Anti-Semitism,” “When coming to UCLA, I knew I would have to defend my pro-Israel identity. Never did I think I would have to defend my Jewish identity.” By some wicked trick of faith, the two have become conflated and what may have begun as a fight against alleged human rights violations has transformed into a witch hunt against Jews.
On March 26, state Sen. Jeff Stone proposed Senate Concurrent Resolution 35 (SCR 35), which “would urge each University of California campus to adopt a resolution condemning all forms of anti-Semitism and racism, and would condemn any act of anti-Semitism at all publicly funded schools in the State of California.”
The resolution, in its current form, which includes the U.S. Department of State’s definition of anti-Semitism, is facing scrutiny from Israel’s detractors, who state that the definition limits free speech. The opposition wants to replace the State Department definition with one from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. What these people fail to recognize is the clear cause of the blatant rise in hatred of Jews — the rise of the BDS movement. Jewish students are being attacked — not because they are Jewish but because the Jewish state is Jewish, and they as Jews, have somehow become extensions of the Jewish state and its policies. Our identities as Jewish students on this campus have been politicized, time and again, and this resolution moves to recognize just that.
I am grateful to Sen. Stone (R-District 28) for recognizing what many on my campus, in this country and around the world have failed to recognize for years: that the global Jewish community treads a fine line — even today — between success and vulnerability. The world may have replaced the memories of our people in gas chambers with images of our success, but that doesn’t mean that we have forgotten. I thank Sen. Stone for standing up for a misrepresented, politicized, misunderstood community.
And it is because of that gratitude and because of my Jewish values that I have the chutzpah to ask the senator for more. While it is important to recognize the struggles of our past, to address them in the present, in order to prevent them in the future, it is not enough to recognize the suffering of one people without actively working to do the same for others. Anti-Semitism does not exist in a vacuum throughout the UC system. It thrives in a melting pot in which Islamaphobia, racism and overt discrimination go unchecked.
One resolution defining and urging the UC leadership to address anti-Semitism is not going to undo years of salutary neglect. The University of California has a responsibility to its students to create for them an environment that is conducive and productive to education and understanding — and in that respect, it has failed. Discrimination, bigotry, oppression and intolerance exist in every pocket of every UC.
One resolution, although greatly appreciated, will not change the realities of the deteriorating UC campus climate. But recognition of a problem and a readiness to address it certainly will.
Arielle Mokhtarzadeh is an incoming second-year at UCLA. She is a graduate of Sinai Akiba Academy and Milken Community High School, and is a member of Sinai Temple. On campus, she is vice president of Bruins for Israel and a staff writer for Jewish newsmagazine Ha’am.
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