We, the undersigned members and supporters of the MIT Jewish Alumni Alliance, are keenly aware of your recent attention to the impact that initiation of Federal penalties will have on universities that continue to engage in civil rights violations. Your address of March 4th to the MIT community focused primarily on the threat to money streams and to cash flow to MIT, while also announcing a hiring freeze. A significant driver of current Federal hostility toward institutions of higher education, including MIT, results from the sponsoring by these institutions, of events that champion hate speech against Jews which serve to foster and worsen an environment already threatening to the Jewish community. The position of the Federal government on …
We would like to thank you for condemning the actions targeting Professor Daniela Rus and her laboratory and we hope that those responsible will be promptly identified and appropriately disciplined. We must, however, point out that the egregious actions targeting Professor Rus have been enabled by the pervasive and hostile atmosphere of antisemitism and harassment of Jews that has been allowed to flourish on the MIT campus, with a noticeable acceleration since October 7, 2023. This poisonous atmosphere persists because MIT leadership and administrators have been unable or unwilling to take actions necessary to squarely address and decisively eliminate this antisemitic scourge.
As Rosh Hashanah 5785 approaches, the members of the MIT Jewish Alumni Alliance (MIT JAA) are reflecting on the past year and thinking of the year to come. The Year 5784 was a trying time for Jews at the Institute. After the horrendous terrorist attack of October 7, MIT, along with many other universities throughout the US, saw numerous incidents of antisemitism across its campus. These incidents traumatized, terrorized, and marginalized MIT’s Jewish students and larger Jewish community. With threats for more already being posted, this year could see a heightening of tensions and an increase in safety concerns.
One ill-considered decision will often lead to the creation of a pattern of ill- considered decisions. Over the past few weeks, based upon actions taken as well as published written statements and public addresses made by you with the support of certain of your institutional leaders, institutional administrators, institutional faculty, and the MIT Corporation Board, you have elected to assist, indefinitely prolong, and structurally reinforce the establishment of an anti-Israel and anti-Semitic encampment within the open-access campus grounds of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. During this unsanctioned occupation of Kresge Oval, occupants of this encampment have continued to harass MIT’s minority religious Jewish community and, …
While many renowned American universities – including those a stone’s-throw from MIT – have demonstrated to America and to the world what a university under the control of its president and its university administration looks like, MIT’s president has opted to cede control of her campus to an unsanctioned encampment and to interlopers. Rather than remove the unsanctioned encampment and those within it who wish to promote immoral equivalency of the perpetrators of the debased crimes of October 7 with the victims of the mass homicides, the violent and depraved sexual crimes, and the human mutilations, and who further, wish to advance Hamas-faked civilian casualty figures long-ago debunked by the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, …
We have watched in dismay and horror the ongoing Antisemitic riots taking place at Columbia University, where rioters openly declare their support for Hamas with slogans such as: “We are Hamas!” and with arrowed signs pointing directly at Jewish students stating: “Al-Qasam’s Next Targets.” Jewish students have been repeatedly intimidated and assaulted. They have been subjected to Antisemitic bullying and to disruption of their campus academic and Jewish lives. They are also the target of the racist chants “We don’t want no Zionists here” and calls for their extermination ”From the River to the Sea.” The situation at Columbia has resulted in Rabbi Elie Buechler advising Jewish students there to “return home as soon as possible” because …
When we met with you in February, we were encouraged by your stated aim to establish open communication and a long-term trusting relationship with the MIT Jewish community. We believed at that time that you were sincere when you declared that you wanted Jews to feel at home on the MIT campus. We acknowledge the recent temporary suspension of the Coalition Against Apartheid (CAA) Student Group for its having violated MIT policies as a step forward. Recent events, however, indicate that antisemitism at the Institute continues unabated, despite your declared aspiration to establish a safe and secure environment for all. It is evident that your staff—with no consequences—continues to subvert the intent of your decision to temporarily suspend …
In the past three months, MIT Jewish alumni, including the MIT JAA (MIT Jewish Alumni Alliance), have sent numerous open letters to MIT President Sally Kornbluth and the MIT administration, asking them to take concrete measures to combat antisemitism on campus. All these letters have been ignored by the MIT administration. Instead, the January 3rd statement of President Kornbluth outlining steps to address antisemitism establishes a series of bureaucratic committees to delay and to dilute any concrete action. For example, rather than confirm that students who participated in the November 9, 2023 protest and deliberately violated MIT rules have been appropriately disciplined, President Kornbluth’s statement indicated that a new faculty …
We are a growing group of MIT Jewish alumni and MIT allies writing to express our alarm over the congressional testimony of President Kornbluth of December 5, 2023, the subsequent public relations fallout, and the continued failure of the MIT administration to address the growing antisemitism on MIT’s campus. Calls for genocide of any group of people, including Jews, constitute bullying and harassment. Such calls originating from MIT’s campus should never be tolerated by the MIT administration and should instead be met with swift disciplinary consequences. Yet, during the congressional testimony of December 5, 2023, President Kornbluth implied that calls for genocide of Jews may not constitute bullying and harassment under MIT’s code of …
We are a growing group of MIT Jewish alumni and MIT allies who are united in our grave concern and alarm over the growth of antisemitism and an increasingly hostile environment for Jewish and Israeli students, faculty, and staff on MIT’s campus. Since the barbaric attack perpetrated by Hamas terrorists on Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023, antisemitism in the United States has risen to unprecedented levels. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has reported that incidents of harassment, vandalism, and assault against Jews have increased by 388 percent since October 7, 2023 over the same period last year. Outbreaks of antisemitic incidents have plagued many college campuses, where administrators have shown either inability or unwillingness to …