UR Faculty Wanted for War Crimes

On Sunday night and early Monday morning, areas around campus at the University of Rochester (UR) were plastered with Wanted posters. These posters had the faces and names of UR faculty and staff, listing their purported crimes those people were “Wanted” in connection with. All of them had to do with the current Israel/Gaza war, for which UR staff are apparently responsible.

I did not know that UR President Sarah Mangelsdorf was committing genocide and ‘despotism.’ When did she find the time? In fact, a surprising number of UR employees have apparently been ‘displacing Palestinians,’ and perpetrating ‘ethnic cleansing’ in addition to their busy schedules in Rochester. 

It should shock no one that these posters disproportionately targeted Jewish UR staff, and that the tropes they used are all from the blood libel playbook. When asked about the posters, UR’s student run chapter of Jewish Voices for Peace said, “we view these posters as an attempt to shed light on administrators and professors’ support for the Israeli military’s destruction of Gaza.” Far from ‘shedding light,’ these posters explicitly criminalize the people portrayed. Literally labeling them as criminals with outsized, almost mystical powers to direct events on the other side of the world.

If this sounds like it came right out of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, it’s because it does. Israel and anyone who supports it (read: fails to sufficiently condemn it, or simply: is Jewish) is now part of the omnipotent cabal of sinister thugs who run the world. Criminal, and unworthy of inclusion in the community where discourse can occur. The posters speak not to the person, but to others about them – advising that this person be ostracized for their purported conduct. The purpose is – at best – to publicly shame a person or group, and more frequently to target them for violence. After all, you don’t have a conversation with someone who is perpetrating war crimes.

It’s an increasingly scary time to be Jewish, and polarized discourse against Jewish faculty and staff only spreads fear and hate. While no students were explicitly targeted in this campaign, these actions can only cause them to feel a need to hide their Jewish identity and support for Israel lest they find themselves on a "Wanted” poster or worse, hunted by an angry mob who has decided to take matters into their own hands.  

These posters help precisely zero people living in Gaza. They do not tell Palestinian stories in Palestinian voices, or build human connections in order to counter violence. They foster no understanding. They make no attempt to build community here in Rochester. They are simply another brick in the ever-growing wall of hate, of anti-Jewish ‘us vs them’ rhetoric that is increasingly defining our culture.

I’m glad the University responded quickly and with clarity that this is not legitimate discourse, but rather anti-Jewish harassment and intimidation. I just wish that harassment and intimidation wasn’t working so well. How many Jewish kids at UR saw their professors, Hillel professionals, and University community members on those posters? How many of them will be thinking about those posters the next time they have something to say about Israel or their Jewish identity? I wish we didn’t live in a time where being publicly Jewish has become a radical act.

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