Other stories: New Holocaust Center at Florida Atlantic University; Anti-Semitism Investigation at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
SAN DIEGO (SDJW) –Following in alphabetical order, by educational topic, are news releases of direct interest to the Jewish community.
College Fair to Showcase Jewish Campus Life at 200+ Universities
Hillel International: Responding to the challenges of a resurging pandemic, Hillel International is launching its first-ever virtual Hillel College Fair for high school students this month, a free online event gathering 215-plus college and university Hillels across North America to showcase Jewish campus life. The fair is expected to draw up to 2,000 participants from the U.S. and Canada.
With college tours and applications disrupted by Covid-19, Hillel is providing high school students with a deep dive into Jewish campus life between Nov. 22-24. The fair includes a packed calendar of interactive events for prospective students featuring current Hillel students, staff and parents, plus a range of college professionals. From plenary-style sessions to question-and-answer sessions to small group conversations, attendees can create their own itinerary and personalize their experience with the sessions that matter most to them.
Campus staff will help prospective students navigate the world of college admissions and think through what kind of Jewish experiences they might hope to have as college students, while representatives of Masa Israel Journey and semesters abroad in Israel programs will offer a glimpse into living independently through an international lens. The fair will also offer access to more than 500 scholarships just for Jewish students and give students a chance to hear from current college students about Greek life on campus with Jewish fraternities and sororities.
“High school students would normally be touring college campuses this fall, meeting Hillel students and professionals and learning about Jewish life on campus. But that’s largely impossible this year because of the pandemic. So we’ve created Hillel’s first-ever virtual College Fair to provide students a unique and convenient way to explore the diversity of Jewish life on campus,” said Hillel International President and CEO Adam Lehman.
The fair begins this Sunday, Nov. 22 with a national kick-off featuring Hillel leaders, students, and parents. The event continues Nov. 23 with admissions counselors and culminates Nov. 24 with representatives of Masa Israel and abroad programs, as well as Jewish fraternities and sororities.
More than 500 high school students across the continent have already signed up, and Hillel expects some 2,000 students, parents, and guardians to join a session over the course of the event.
For more details and to register, visit the virtual Hillel College Fair website.
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Ethnic Studies in California
Jewish Community Relations Council (of the San Francisco Bay Area): A major California Jewish group today (Tuesday, Nov. 17) announced its review of the California Department of Education’s proposed revisions to the forthcoming Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum, saying that many of them proved encouraging, though additional changes were still needed.
The suggested revisions will be evaluated at the Nov. 18-19 meeting of the Instructional Quality Commission, an advisory body to the CDE. Then, another 45-day public commentary period will commence, before the curriculum’s March 2021 adoption deadline.
“We are encouraged that the California Department of Education has proposed that lessons on the Jewish American experience be a part of this model curriculum for all the state’s public schools,” said Tyler Gregory, executive director of the San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Community Relations Council, the central public affairs organization for the Bay Area Jewish community.
“Although further changes to the curriculum are still required, our review shows that the state has proposed holistic and equitable changes to the curriculum that protect our community and other communities by including language that seeks to prevent discrimination against any group in the classroom.”
The JCRC will continue to press for changes that are important to the Jewish community throughout the revision process.
The final version of the educational plan, created by Assembly Bill 2016, will be determined by the State Board of Education.
To stay informed of the latest developments about the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum, please visit www.jcrc.org.
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Holocaust Center Wins Financing at Florida Atlantic University
Florida Atlantic University officially announced today that it has received its largest gift in school history – a $20 million gift from benefactors Kurt and Marilyn Wallach. This transformational gift will create the Kurt and Marilyn Wallach Institute for Holocaust and Jewish Studies housed in FAU’s Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters.
A portion of this landmark gift will be used for the construction of a building or building addition in a central location on FAU’s Boca Raton campus. This will serve as the hub for Holocaust, human rights and Jewish studies education programs; allied programs related to creating greater interfaith and interethnic understanding; and will encourage enhanced collaborations to strengthen the prominence of these programs. The gift also will create an endowment to support the future establishment and operation of the new institute, which will integrate and coordinate research, service and/or educational offerings in these disciplinary areas and related programs with a mission to deter hate, bias and discrimination.
Kurt and Marilyn Wallach share a lifelong commitment to educating on the Holocaust to ensure the lessons of this horrific point in our world’s history remains relevant today and to future generations.
“We speak for those who cannot speak. We remember all the victims including our family members who perished needlessly,” Kurt Wallach said. “No one should ever be subjected to such horror. We hope that through the education we can provide that lives will be saved and history will not be repeated.”
Kurt and Marilyn Wallach are managing partners for K&M Capital and general partners for Kurtell Growth Industries, Ltd., a real estate investment corporation.
Kurt Wallach’s parents, along with Kurt, 7 years old at the time, and his two siblings, fled Magdeburg, Germany in 1933 when his father, Mark, learned that the Nazis were targeting him for assassination. The family escaped to Scheveningen, a seaside suburb of The Hague in Holland. Then in 1936, once again sensing impending danger, Mark secured passage for his family on the Queen Mary to New York. The family then boarded a train to Cleveland, where Mark’s brother lived, to begin a new life in the United States.
Kurt Wallach was 15 years old when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and he enlisted in the Navy on his 18th birthday in 1944, serving through 1946 in Panama and the Pacific. He attended Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree, and then completed graduate credits toward the Master in Arts in Hearing and Speech Pathology, a profession he never practiced, going instead into the business world.
Wallach enjoyed early success, founding, owning and operating “Kurt Wasco of Cleveland,” specializing in aluminum windows and doors. In 1956, he sold the company prior to moving to Florida, and then established Kurtell & Co. in Miami. In 1971, he renamed the company, Kurtell Growth Industries, Ltd. In 1986, they moved the company to Vero Beach.
Wallach has authored several books including Remembering Mark: A Biography of a Father; Kurt’s Journey; and Tennis: The Whole Game: its plots, its shots, and its nots.
He also wrote three textbooks on the atrocities of the Holocaust: The Killing of the Jews; Murder Beyond Madness; and Man’s Inhumanity to Man, beginning at the age of 87 years and completing his last book at the age of 93 years.
“We are honored and grateful for Kurt and Marilyn Wallach’s enormous generosity,” said FAU President John Kelly. “This historic gift will ensure that Holocaust, Jewish studies and human rights education will continue to build bridges of understanding and empathy for generations to come.”
The Wallachs are founding supporters of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and sponsors of the Indian River County Humane Society. They serve as board members for the Exchange Club Center for the Prevention of Child Abuse of the Treasure Coast, Inc.
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University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign under investigation for anti-Semitism
The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced it has opened a formal investigation into a complaint alleging Jewish students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) have faced an unrelenting campaign of anti-Semitic harassment. OCR evaluates all complaints it receives, but it only pursues investigations in those it determines warrant a more thorough examination.
The complaint OCR will investigate was submitted on behalf of UIUC’s Jewish students and alleges that UIUC has allowed a hostile environment to proliferate on its campus in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It was prepared by Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP together with the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, in consultation with the Jewish United Fund and Hillel International.
“All Jewish college students deserve the right to learn and live in a safe, welcoming environment, free of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel harassment,” said Mark Rotenberg, vice president for University Initiatives and Legal Affairs at Hillel International. “As we continue to work collaboratively with our colleagues at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to address the problem of anti-Semitism on campus, we appreciate this step taken by OCR to ensure that the rights of our students to a campus free of harassment and discrimination are protected.”
“Jewish and pro-Israel students at UIUC have been subjected to anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist harassment for far too long. We are very appreciative of OCR’s careful review of the complaint and correct determination of the necessity of a thorough and comprehensive investigation. This significant and critical development reaffirms the seriousness of the harassment and discrimination Jewish students face on a regular basis, and the importance of ongoing action by the university,” said Alyza D. Lewin, President of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law. “We are pleased to have begun recent work with the University. At the same time, there is much work to be done, and that is why OCR’s involvement and expertise is vital. We look forward to working with UIUC to implement the important, initial steps it has agreed to, and to cooperating with the Department of Education’s investigation to ensure the best outcome for the University of Illinois community. Both tracks are critical to help achieve a discrimination-free academic setting for Jewish students.”
In response to recent OCR investigations, numerous universities, including Williams College, the University of North Carolina, Duke University and NYU, have agreed to implement steps to combat rising anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination threatening Jewish students on their campuses.
Yesterday (Monday), the University of Illinois, in coordination with a number of Jewish groups, announced preliminary steps to address the anti-Semitism described in the complaint. The university issued a statement with the Jewish groups condemning anti-Semitism, acknowledging the severity of the problems at UIUC, and recognizing the importance of Zionism to Jewish identity. The university also pledged to work with the Jewish community to implement concrete remedies. The Jewish groups noted that the “statement and the commitment it demonstrates is important, however it is only a first step” and they “look forward to ongoing collaborative work with the Chancellor and his team to convert the objectives…into action.”
“While we commend the Chancellors office and the University for the steps they are taking, we know this is a first step, and there is lot of work still to be done. With OCR opening an investigation, we hope that both of these actions, working simultaneously, will create a campus where Jewish students and all students can feel safe and at home,” stated Rabbi Dovid Tiechtel, University of Illinois Chabad Center for Jewish Life.
The OCR complaint outlines how Jewish and pro-Israel UIUC students have been subjected to an alarming increase in incidents of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism over the past five years. It details how numerous swastikas have been found on UIUC’s campus, Jewish ritual items such as menorahs and mezuzahs have been vandalized, and windows of Jewish fraternity houses have been smashed by bricks. It also describes how members and supporters of Students for Justice in Palestine at UIUC publicly glorify members of U.S. government-designated terrorist organizations, harass UIUC Jewish and pro-Israel students with epithets like “Nazi” and “white supremacist,” and advocate the expulsion of Zionists from campus. In some instances, as described in the complaint, UIUC employees have been complicit in fostering a hostile environment.
The complaint also makes clear that UIUC can comply with Title VI—and protect those who are the victims of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism on its campus—without running afoul of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
“Some will attempt to excuse the bullying of Jewish and pro-Israel students as free speech against an unpopular political opinion, however that is a false and misleading narrative. Jewish students’ expression of support for the Jewish homeland grows out of their ethnic identity as Jews,” added Lewin. “Jewish students at UIUC and elsewhere are being marginalized, ostracized, bullied and harassed if they won’t publicly disavow their ancestral and ethnic heritage. They are being told that they must abandon their love of Israel to hold office, to join committees, or just to be accepted as worthy. That is textbook discrimination, and it must stop.”
The UIUC students on whose behalf the complaint was filed are legally represented by Baruch Weiss and Avishai D. Don of Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP.
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Preceding culled from news releases sent to San Diego Jewish World.