“How are things on campus? Are you and your students safe?” We’ve heard those questions a lot over the past year, as concerned community members read troubling accounts in the news.
Certainly, there are reasons for concern. What might be a surprise to the community is that there are also reasons for hope. From our positions at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, we felt drawn to share why we still believe in the university and see it as an important part of the fight against antisemitism.
Let’s start with some troubling truths. Antisemitism is a serious issue on our campus. We have heard reliable reports of antisemitic words and actions, and at times witnessed them ourselves. On many campuses, including ours, words like “Zionist” have been used as a slur. Jewish students have felt unsafe expressing their support for Israel, or even their Jewishness. A threatening Instagram post over the summer from several student groups further heightened those fears. Meanwhile, protestors have called on the university to cut all ties with Israel — a demand we have vigorously pushed back against, and which, if implemented, would seriously affect both our program and our professional relationships. And at times, senior administrators have made serious missteps, some of which they felt the need to walk back.
There are encouraging truths too, though, many of which emerge quietly, behind the scenes. UWM has generally been responsive to our concerns about safety and other key issues. In fact, the UWM chief of police was the first person outside our program to reach out to us after Oct. 7. We have had similarly positive interactions with many senior administrators about the fast-moving events of the past year. We don’t always see eye to eye — which is par for the course in a university, particularly one as large and diverse as ours — but we feel welcome to voice our concerns and advocate for our program and our people.
In our long experience at UWM, we have found our colleagues and students to be overwhelmingly kind and supportive. Tense events over the past year notwithstanding, we still feel that way. While sometimes the loudest voices draw the news cameras, we have had much quieter, positive interactions with colleagues who have checked in on us, offered their support, and asked about our families. And something that doesn’t generate headlines are the countless positive interactions that take place in our classrooms. Those are spaces where students from many faith traditions come together to gain a better understanding of Jews, Jewish history and culture, and Judaism. The topics we grapple with are often sobering and at times contentious, but the conversations we have about them with our students are, almost always, carried out in a spirit of mutual respect and a quest for truth and nuance.
It’s not clear from the images in the news, but nuance is actually one of the things that universities do best. We teach nuance, especially in the humanities. We encourage students to think complexly about issues, to look beyond headlines, slogans, and generalizations, and to wrestle with history, narrative, and media. This work happens in places the news cameras don’t go — our classrooms, office hours and walks with students between buildings.
Nuance and complexity aren’t only what we teach; they are points of faith for us. We believe that human knowledge is advanced through people of different backgrounds thinking and talking together; that civil discourse is a core value of democracy; and that expanding one’s view of the world by hearing the stories of other people is one of the greatest gifts of education.
Like all articles of faith, sometimes ours are tested. That has certainly been true over the past year. We believe that people with differing opinions can share their views respectfully, but that has not always been the case since last October. We too have felt the impulse to retreat in pain to our own community, to reject nuance, to stop talking to people whose words may hurt us. It is our students who bring us out of that place, who remind us that the stakes are too high, the need for nuance, conversation, and connection too great. Contrary to the images in the news, we find the students in our classroom eager to learn, to think in new ways, and to make an impact in the world. As Jewish studies professors who teach mostly non-Jewish students, we know that what we do makes a difference in how students think about Jewish identity, antisemitism, Zionism and other core ideas we explore in our courses.
Universities are flawed but they remain one of the few places where people sit in a room with people from other parts of the state, country, and world and discuss ideas and worldviews. The work we do every day in our classrooms and with students remains the strongest defense of democracy and the free exchange of ideas that fuels it. It also remains one of the best defenses against antisemitism at universities like UW-Milwaukee with a strong Jewish studies program and Center for Jewish Studies.
We know our community is hurt, disappointed, and worried, and still we plead: Don’t give up on the university. Engage with us. Come back to our classrooms as an auditor (free for people over 60). Join us at a Stahl Center for Jewish Studies event and be reminded why universities, including our own University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, are worth fighting for.
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Joel Berkowitz and Rachel Baum are director and deputy director, respectively, of the Sam & Helen Stahl Center for Jewish Studies at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
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From our positions at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, we felt drawn to share why we still believe in the university and see it as an important part of the fight against antisemitism.
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