Five years ago on this day, I was teaching a class about the origins of anti-Judaism in the Hellenistic world when a Polish-American student raised her hand and said to me, “I am proud to come from a country with no history of antisemitism.”
Malka Simkovich
1,262 posts
Malka Simkovich
@Malka_Simkovich
Editor-in-Chief of the Jewish Publication Society | Jewish Studies Faculty at Yeshiva University | Council Member, President Herzog's Voice of the People
- Replying to @Malka_SimkovichI’ve never shared the whole story publicly (and probably won’t do so for a long time). But I’m traumatized by it every day. Very short moral of the story: antisemitism exists. When something happens to your colleagues, stand up. I’m grateful every day to my colleagues who did.
- My first cab after landing in Israel last night was with a Bedouin driver who spent a half hour telling me about his son who serves in the IDF (and showing me pictures on his phone while speeding down the highway) and going on and on, in Hebrew with a smattering of Arabic, about
- Replying to @Malka_SimkovichWhen I responded by gently pushing back with some concrete examples, she burst into tears. That night, I received the first of dozens of harassing emails that were part of a campaign to get me fired. These emails were sent to my institutions’ president, dean, faculty, and me.
- Replying to @Malka_SimkovichWhen the President of the institution did not act quickly enough to fire me, she reported me to the Polish Consulate, who conducted an investigation into my anti-Polish activities. Among the accusations against me: I had used the phrase “Polish concentration camp” (I had not).
- Replying to @Malka_SimkovichThe incident divided the class into two parts: those who vocally supported her, and those who were horrified by what was happening but were too afraid to speak.
- I'm Dr. Malka Simkovich, a professor of Jewish Studies. I'm not a doctor that saves lives - just a historian who specializes in Jewish life in the Land of Israel during the Second Temple era (515 BCE – 70 CE) with a particular focus on Jewish attachment to the Land of Israel inI’m Professor Robert Howard, a clinical academic psychiatrist in London. I’m calling for the immediate release of Dr Hassam Abu Safiya and all other medical and allied health professionals from Gaza currently detained by Israeli forces.
- A Jewish man, someone I know, was shot on his way to synagogue by a man who screamed Allahu Akbar while shooting at police who arrived shortly after. The Jewish man only survived because the shooter's gun temporarily jammed. Chicago police are currently not charging the shooter
- Yes Dave there are lots of Jews in Hollywood because 1. They were excluded from nearly every other major industry and 2. They brought technology with them from Europe to advance the field of movie making. That’s not a conspiracy. That’s survival
- Yesterday afternoon, my children and their friends were playing outside our house. It was a beautiful Passover afternoon and my husband and I, along with close friends of ours from Boston, were enjoying quality time in our kitchen. As our children played, a school bus pulled outThe story you're not hearing is about the feeling within the Jewish community, expressed vocally in synagogues the last two days, that American Jews have been abandoned by the country's leaders to the whims of ignorant, entitled thugs who are behaving like Brownshirts on campus.
- Replying to @RzczNIEpspltI don’t want anyone to ever feel pressured to apologize on behalf of someone else in their ethic, national, or religious group. Nevertheless, your comment means a lot to me- thank you
- Replying to @Jerseyguy427wow...that's awful. just to clarify, I didn't find my student's initial claim to be antisemitic (though it was naive and easily refutable). The antisemitism came in her reaction to my response, which drew from conspiracy theories and accused me of having powerful sway over others
- I just left my house in Skokie and passed a car adorned with Palestinian flags and the Hamas flag. The drivers had their windows halfway down and were wearing Hamas headbands. They were laughing and yelling, though I couldn’t hear what they were saying. I live in a neighborhood
- I'll never forget the time that I was teaching Catholic graduate students about blood libels, and one student shook his head and said, "Wow, isn't it terrible how that bad apple ruined it for all the Jews." When I asked him what he meant, he said, "It's just sad that all the JewsAt London’s prestigious university @ucl, an academic is teaching the blood libel AS FACT. For the ignorant, Jews do not use any gentile blood at Passover - this is a conspiracy theory which started in the UK around 800 years ago. I’m genuinely amazed that today it is being
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