Maryland, my Maryland, where it’s cool to hate Jews

The University of Maryland is the alma mater of well-known figures like Google cofounder Sergei Brin and Houston Texans wide receiver Stefon Diggs. Yet, many people know it as the home-away-from-home for 5,800 Jewish students, nearly 20% of the campus population. Perhaps I was blinded by childhood naivety in thinking that my campus would be a safe and flourishing environment for Jewish students like me. Campus life after the devastating tragedy of October 7th radically changed for Jewish students overnight. All latent antisemitism became unleashed. My story is only one of many.

The very next class after October 7th, a student wearing a mask (as cowards often do) justified the attempted suicide bombing of an Israeli hospital, saying that Palestinians simply have no other choice. “What was she supposed to do? What was another option?” I said, “I vote for the option where one does not blow up a hospital.” After that, while at a get-together, someone made a Holocaust joke about ovens towards me. The people around him, including someone I considered very close, laughed and continued a friendship with him. Then, I was told that I just can’t take a joke.  

A few months later, one of my roommates informed me how I should be grateful to her for allowing my mezuzah to stay on the doorframe, and that I need to “stop pushing it.” Then, she and my other roommate, threw a party while I was gone. I came back to find that someone entered my room, ripped my Israeli flag off the wall and stuffed it in the toilet. This was the same flag I took to Poland while visiting Auschwitz. After that, my mezuzah was torn off the doorframe, cracked and neatly laid out on the kitchen table. Subsequently, a pamphlet promoting the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a US State Department-designated foreign terrorist organization, was slid under my bedroom door. It included an illustration of the American and Israeli flags burning. One roommate texted me that “the ‘rape and murder’ of October 7th was debunked and it’s a fact that it is lie spread by the settler colony of Israel.” The other one recorded herself screaming that I am a “Zionist-ass b*tch” after lying to the police, claiming she didn’t even know I am Jewish. 

I immediately reported all of this to the Office of Civil Rights and Sexual Misdemeanor (OCRSM) with time stamped photos, a video, and witness testimonies. To my utter shock, it took the “investigators” 6 months to decide that there was not enough evidence and the students were let off free of any consequences. They concluded that I was subjected to a hostile environment based on my ethnic and religious background in the findings. However, this was still not enough to reprimand the students. 

I contacted the director of OCRSM, demanding to know how she will address antisemitism on campus. She responded with telling me that she stands by OCRSM’s findings and if I feel unsafe, I should seek an escort on campus. This sends a message that it is okay to be antisemitic on campus; just make sure that somebody does not having a constantly rolling video camera in their bedroom and bathroom in case the victim reports you. 

I am also currently experiencing antisemitism from professors in my sociology class. Dr. Jeanette Snider and Dr. Rashawn Ray invite “scholars” to speak about hate crimes, mostly white-supremacist in nature. As such, it is peculiar why Israel was mentioned in numerous lectures, given that the majority of Israelis are not white. Nevertheless, to the esteemed and oh-so-scholarly watermelon warrior Dr. Jessie Daniels from Hunter College, Jews and Israelis are mere extensions of Western colonialism. You can find her spewing antisemitic tropes both in class and online. She has made posts that equate Zionism to Nazism, engage in Holocaust inversion and she visibly scoffed at ADL reports showing the rise of antisemitism. Despite all of this, my professors invited her to speak and when I voiced my justified outrage, I was told that they hear me, but the class is all about getting different perspectives and Dr. Daniels was invited because she is a scholar in her field. They never took responsibility for inviting her and let me know that we will be going to Hillel soon, as if calling for the obliteration of the Jewish state is just a different (yet equally valid) perspective as simply being a Jew. Dr. Snider and Dr. Ray abused their power as professors by forcing students to listen to an hour of a smear campaign against the Jewish people by a terror apologist.

This past year, I learned that no matter how hard you try, the University of Maryland will not hold Jew-haters accountable. After all, the faculty is riddled with them. Instead of listening to platitudes like “I hear you”, I want to see that my voice as a Jewish student matters. It means that the campus expels students who break religious symbols and vandalize property. It means that guest speakers cannot come to a mandatory class and parrot the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as if they are Bible verses. It means firing untouchable professors who hide behind their tenure when they abuse their power.

Maryland, my Maryland, where it’s cool to hate Jews. Maryland, my Maryland, what will you do?