Alumni and students from a prominent college in Ohio are concerned that pro-Palestinian student activists have taken their political views too far — creating an anti-Semitic culture on campus with comments that Israel is a “violent apartheid state” and “Ohio is infested with Zionism.”
As a result, they say, pro-Israel advocates on campus are being harassed for their allegiance to Israel.
More than 200 alumni and students of Oberlin College have written an open letter to the school’s president and board of trustees, asserting that the Boycott, Divest and Sanction movement on campus has become a platform for anti-Semitism. The letter urged Oberlin officials to open a forum where students and alumni who have felt victimized can share their experiences, and to create a task force to address the issue.
Oberlin President Marvin Krislov was set to meet with an alum on Tuesday to discuss the concerns.
“Our greatest concern is that Jewish students at Oberlin who have close connections to Israel are being subjected to anti-Semitic attacks,” Oberlin alumna Melissa Landa, now an instructor at the University of Maryland, told The Washington Post.