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Toni Airaksinen's avatar

Thank you so much for sharing my work. I have been covering antisemitism for the past decade — ever since I was kicked out of my Barnard dorm for refusing to sign a BDS petition my freshman year. This issue has become incredibly rampant since then and I get dozens of emails a year from students who have been harassed and who are scared to share their stories. But by shining a light on this, may we all find peace with our neighbors 💙💙

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Sandra's avatar

Thank you, Toni. I’m so glad I didn’t go to Barnard back in the 90s. Kicked out of your dorm?!

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Toni Airaksinen's avatar

When I started college at Barnard, 4 out of 5 members of my dorm were in SJP (everyone except me) since I chose to live in the "social justice" house at Barnard, as it was said to be friendlier to people who were the first in their family to go to college, i.e: welfare kids (both of my parents didn't complete high school).

After much harassment and death threats, I ended up schlepping to a different dorm halfway through the semester closer to Central Park to live with a modern orthodox Jewish girl. And that was that! This was a decade ago. I can't imagine what it's like to be Jewish on that campus right now.

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Sandra's avatar

Holy crap, Toni. I’m glad you got out of there. Just the fact of a “social justice” house is horrifying.

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Toni Airaksinen's avatar

Honestly, "social justice" is a fine principle in like most situation. Like every ideology, it can be taken too far.

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Doug Israel's avatar

None of this is academic freedom. These professors are teaching literal lies. Its acceptable because Jew hate has become normalized among leftists in the academy and elsewhere. No one would be allowed to teach that the Ku Klux Klan were freedom fighters. Or anything like that. Nor should they. None of this will be resolved until Universities are taken back by trustees that think the mission is to educate not to indoctrinate in leftist drivel.

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Toni Airaksinen's avatar

👏👏👏

Thank you for reading my guest article and taking the time to comment. It means a lot! 🤗

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carrie's avatar

Saudi Arabia & Qatar have given $Billions to all of our universities & colleges & in return, the schools must hire professors that teach an antiJew, antiIsrael & antiWest theology & develop "middle east" libraries. This dates back to the 1990s. It seems their plan of action has worked for them.

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Dana Ramos's avatar

I would like to witness all the haters heads explode when Israel finishes neutralizing and liberating all the terror states, and the people of Iran, Syria, and Lebanon are celebrating in the streets and thanking Israel while they all rush to sign the Abraham Accords; and peace--REAL peace and prosperity and cooperation-- can finally take hold in the Middle East. That is coming, sooner that you might think.

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Toni Airaksinen's avatar

👏👏👏

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Robin Alexander's avatar

I so hope you are right. I can definitely see the Accords being expanded to include Saudi Arabia, which would be so wonderful. I think someone has to strike Iran where it really hurts and put the current regime out of everyone's misery.

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Dana Ramos's avatar

actually, I think this one is the full video, the other is edited: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyNbSWXpIZ4

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Dana Ramos's avatar

Oh, that is coming very very soon. I will bet you on that. Not long after January 20th (Trump's inauguration). Have you seen Netanyahu's video message three weeks ago to the Iranian people ("preparing" them)? Here you go, if you haven't: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iel0-BqZt4I

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Robin Alexander's avatar

Wow. I had not seen this. Thanks! Just an interesting tidbit: I was an undergrad at UT Austin in the mid 70s. Iranian students (there to study petroleum engineering no doubt) would demonstrate against the Shah all the time, with masks over their faces, as they were afraid what would happen to their family members back home. Well, they got their wish -- as always "be careful what you wish for". I cannot wait for the day. Again, thanks.

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erin claman's avatar

University students, especially freshmen, are like sponges, soaking up everything, including anti-Israel & anti-Zionist, untruths about The Shoah...Universities campuses are no longer places of higher learning & enlightenment. They no longer foster or uphold questioning, learning & discover all points of view.

What are they now?

Universities are now institutions of higher brainwashing, places that spread, like lice, horrifically saturated one-sided untruths (AKA blatent lies.) Students no longer even think to question. They are like like dirty shirts, all-in, no qustions asked.

Here in Toronto, at The University of Toronto's Temetry School of Medicine, there is now an unspoken quota for Jewish student accepted into the faculty. https://temertymedicine.utoronto.ca/reflecting-historic-jewish-student-quotas-toronto-medica

James/Jim Temetry, whose name is synonomous with this faculty, is a Ukrainian-Canadian entreupeneur, business executive & philanthropist. In 2022, he apparently donated $1.000.000 to #LightUpUkraine | UNITED 24 raising funds for 1000 generators to power Ukrainian hospitals.

But,

Temerty has been 'radio silent' in every ways about the October 7 War. He is silent about any funding for the War. He has not spoken about the quota in the faculty of Medicine named after him. He prefers to not comment, even when asked.

And, a final note - these young impressionable minds who take up wearing kafiyas on campus? When you are interviewed for a segment on local, national & international TV news? Take the masks/kafiyas off of your faces; let your parents, your grandparents who may be Shoah survivors and your synagouges see your proud faces! This is NOT a time for hiding! That was supposed to end after WW II!

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Toni Airaksinen's avatar

Thank you Erin, for reading my post and offering a comment. I appreciate it and am glad the article reached so many people :)

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carrie's avatar

It's very odd that a Jew would want to identify with someone who wants them dead.

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Ilana M.'s avatar

Another bunch of Jewish names of Jewish professors? Or are they not?

Are there any who are speaking out against this bigotry?

I’m sure they are, but they might be overshadowed by those vocal non Jewish Jews.

I am really looking forward to a post, at least one, about those who speak against this bigotry and antisemitism/anti-Zionism.

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Toni Airaksinen's avatar

There are TONS of people speaking out about this! One popular group that's easily accessible is Mothers Against Campus Antisemitism (MACA) on Facebook. Many activists and advocates in that group who are spearheading campaigns (letter writing, social media, petitions) to fight antisemitism.

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Ilana M.'s avatar

i'm not on Facebook

Not asking about mothers or families but about faculty. I want to see postings that are addressing their response.

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John R. Grout's avatar

I think the synagogues in Champaign-Urbana would be burned to the ground if they tried to make a stand.

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Toni Airaksinen's avatar

Really, why? I'm not familiar with that area at all.

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John R. Grout's avatar

Extreme left wing academics totally out of contact with reality.

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Robin Alexander's avatar

It's costs but you gotta get expert round the clock security; serious security, and keep speaking out.

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carrie's avatar

Huge bigotry in all of the Midwest

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Jewish Grandmother's avatar

Thanks for keeping tabs and outing these universities and individuals. May you go from strength to strength. I am heartened that at least a few individuals lost their jobs. I hope someone is keeping track as well of the Canadian universities. For sure, we have as bad or worse here. The only story I know well is of a non-Jewish professor who has been on leave for over a year, and is about to be terminated, because of comparing Hamas to the Nazis in a post to someone on the other side of the world. You can read his story in his excellent substack, Freedom to Offend. He is also an occasional guest essayist here on Future of Jewish.

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Toni Airaksinen's avatar

Thank you for reading my article on here! I also track Canadian and European professors and colleges for antisemitic incidents too!

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Ian Mark Sirota's avatar

These schools should lose all federal funding.

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Toni Airaksinen's avatar

Unfortunately, many schools cannot control what their employees post online. As teachers and professors have the same rank in society as doctors and elected local officials, they are often subject to scrutiny. However, the federal government is NOT OK with antisemitism. The Dept. of Ed is investigating an untold number (I'd guess more than 100 schools) for Title VI violations: discrimination complaints. Schools have to comply and remedy discrimination when it happens in their domain and they usually do (sometimes forced).

Otherwise federal funding via Pell Grants and research grants goes poof!

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John R. Grout's avatar

The Urbana (IL) City Council has been dragged by force into anti-Semitic hatred. There is a Donnybrook… yelling, accusations, fights if the police were to look away… at the beginning of each meeting during the public comment period. The two sides spend an hour not arguing about Israel vs the HAMAS, etc… EVERYBODY in the room hates Israel… but arguing with each other what kind of destruction the “colonial enclave” deserves. Kide settles for ethnic cleansing from the mountains to the sea. The other calls for a lllreturn to the Holocaust… death to all Jews

Shndvllcollaborators.

My answer to these haters would point out Sri Lanka… the LTTE was free to start a genocide, but was not free to finish it… the strongest Iparty… the government… finished them instead. It’s like the old joke about the fisherman who has hooked the biggest fish he has ever seen… the point of view that matters is that the fish has been hooked by the most dangerous man he has ever seen. Instead of him pulling in the fish, the fish is pulling the man out.

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Robert's avatar

Inauguration day cannot come soon enough.

Trump will deport every anti-american person on a student visa.

The trump administration will finally bring title VI cases against these institutions and pull the funding for any institution that permits antisemitism to go unchecked.

I'm the meantime, I'm hoping my high-school senior soon ends up in an SEC conference school, rather than the cesspool UC schools in our state.

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Reality Check's avatar

The academic pendulum of antisemitism continues to swing out of control.

Unfortunately, it may not abate even when Israel neutralizes all their regional enemies from its existential war.

My posting below portrays the DEI academic journey to it's ultimate outcome.

https://open.substack.com/pub/briangore/p/north-american-eu-collaborative-academic?r=p9e3m&utm_medium=ios

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Toni Airaksinen's avatar

That's GOOD!

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Gilda Joffe's avatar

The day will come when the radical left rues fact that they ever uttered a word against Jews or Israel, because the next goal for Islamic fundamentalists are the US and Europe and they already have a big head start in Europe. But like the Titanic nobody wants to see the iceberg ahead. Too destructive to their own comfy narratives.

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Toni Airaksinen's avatar

Hey Gilda, thanks for reading my guest post and leaving a comment. You can find my own substack where I post full reports here:

https://toniairaksinen.substack.com/

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jerry kleiner's avatar

Toni, Thank you for a wonderful, fact filled essay pointing out specific events of antisemitism in our education system. The one major criticism I have is that you give the reader no "Call To Action" on any of the events. Who can we email, who can we call, what can we do to fight back?

At a time when we see antisemitism rising to such high levels, we must take every opportunity to fight back. All essays and articles like this should if possible, give the reader a means to fight and have our voices heard.

That is exactly what our enemy does and that is why they are destroying us in the war for Public Opinion. They never miss an opportunity and we seldom take advantage of an opportunity.

Ending on a positive note, There has recently been a big backlash against the Marxist/Islamists teaching of DEI, WOKE, White Colonizer and the rest of the rot which has definitely been the tool of the antisemites and the haters of our Western culture. That and the Trump win should hopefully change what is being taught and what is happening in the schools.

Papa j

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Toni Airaksinen's avatar

Thanks Jerry. You see, I'm a journalist. Not an activist. I don't write calls to action or participate in them as it would conflict with standard American journalistic ethics.

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jerry kleiner's avatar

Hi Toni,

Perhaps I am mistaken, but your essay is an opinion piece. You are not covering the news; you are giving your opinion on what is happening. Giving a call to action in an opinion piece or an op-ed should not, IMO violate any journalistic ethic.

papa j

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Toni Airaksinen's avatar

Future of Jewish wrote the three paragraph intro. The rest of the reporting is sourced directly from my substack. It's called a guest post as a way to credit me for my journalism. I only write straight news on my substack, if you would like to check it out. Here's an investigation I published today on a professor who was falsely accused of antisemitism:

https://toniairaksinen.substack.com/p/i-am-innocent-says-boca-raton-professor

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Dan's avatar

'Jews are Pigs and Dogs', says the racist Rhetoric of the Anti-Zionists. I repeat: Who are the real Racists.

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Laura's avatar

Kick them the hell out of our country. They are an enemy fifth column. Enough of generously handing out student visas, especially those from muslim countries which ought to be cut off completely. They are also a terrorist risk. The only Middle Eastern students which should be allowed in are Israelis.

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"What’s more, never-before-seen footage of the University of Michigan’s Middle Eastern graduation ceremony in May revealed that Dawson chose to create a special graduation ceremony for Middle Eastern students after the October 7th attack on Israel".

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Toni Airaksinen's avatar

Thanks for reading my guest post and being so kind as to comment! I hope you found it informative :)

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Laura's avatar

This actually describes islam. They are always projecting. These professors are sick in their minds and souls. Cut these bastards off from taxpayer funds completely.

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"The symptoms: Violence, in its desperation, is all Zionism can offer the world.”

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Diane Steiner's avatar

Great article, Toni. When I read that you had attended Barnard, my radar went up since this is one of the "chosen" colleges filled with antisemitism. The roots for what we're seeing now goes back to the 1960's and Angela Davis, who was a staunch believer in the work of Herbert Marcuse, and became one of his students. She began the slow poisoning of universities with Marxist rhetoric. After becoming a professor, she invited many from the Black Panthers to speak at the university and Eldridge Cleaver was asked to teach a one-time course. That was the start of the Black Experence program, later becoming the "Black Studies" department. It was all about dismanteling the education system. There were classes on the roots of racism and how history was for white people. This became embedded in universities because oF "white guilt." Now we're seeing the result of their planting, with all the examples you have mentioned. Western guilt on full display in these colleges and those with power too guilt ridden, cowardly, or both to speak up. I am hoping with a new administration that funding for these colleges and universities will be withheld if this mindset continues to go on.

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Toni Airaksinen's avatar

Thank you Diane. Unfortunately, government funding is only a small part of the Ivy League's funding (as well as Barnard, which I believe is financially independent of Columbia). I think the schools would likely not lose funding, as that has been seen as an empty threat in many cases.

And to your points: I do remember posters of Angela Davis and learning about the Black Panthers in my history classes at Columbia (not Barnard).

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Diane Steiner's avatar

I do understand that funding is a small part but we can't sit back and continue. There have been too many generations indoctrinated. I know that Qatar has funded huge amounts of money for Middle East Studies programs. Hence, the antisemitic hate on these campuses of indoctrinated students. What are your thoughts on a solution to change the university environment?

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Toni Airaksinen's avatar

Man, if I had a solution that actually would work.... I think I could quit my day-job!

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Diane Steiner's avatar

I hear you. I just thought maybe you had a few what ifs... Looking forward to more articles from you.

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Freedom To Offend's avatar

I thought it was only happening at my university. I have been suspended almost 14 months for calling Hamas Nazis based on the complaint of the school VP Melanie Spence Ariemma and a professor Wael Ramadan who is the more overt anti semite of the two and calls Hamas noble warriors and openly calls for the elimination of Israel. But because I said I stood with Israel I will be fired - the VP bragged about this well over a year ago to staff.

https://open.substack.com/pub/paulfinlayson/p/is-the-university-of-guelph-the-modern?r=iy2ds&utm_medium=ios

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Toni Airaksinen's avatar

Would you be interested in talking to me for an article? I publish on Substack and at Liberty Affair, a new Polish-American publication

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Toni Airaksinen's avatar

I am the person who guest posted this essay :)

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