2,500 Jewish Academics Call Out Trump

Over 2,500 Jewish academics and students denounce Trump for cynical claims of antisemitism

Photo by Chenyu Guan on Unsplash

On Tuesday, a letter drafted by members of Concerned Jewish Faculty and Staff — Boston Area denounced the Trump administration’s “unlawful abduction” of Mahmoud Khalil. Signed by over 2,500 professors, staff members, and students from U.S. colleges and universities, the letter condemned President Trump for “using Jews as a shield to further a naked authoritarian campaign to concentrate power and exert existential terror on American universities and their constituents.”

“The signatories include experts in Holocaust Studies, Jewish Studies, Religious Studies, History, Economics and Public Policy, English and Comparative Literature, Women’s and Gender Studies, Asian American Studies, and Black Studies and hail from dozens of American colleges and universities, including many that have been targeted by the Trump administration for allegedly failing to combat antisemitism,” a press release reads.

The letter also calls on universities to “cease any voluntary collaboration with federal immigration enforcement or organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League, and to defend any community member targeted by the Trump administration.” The letter comes in response to the growing campaign against universities, educators, and students as the administration targets them for exercising their right to freedom of speech and expression.

“I signed this letter because I am disgusted by how the Trump administration is using Jews and antisemitism as a smokescreen in the attempt to silence and criminalize speech, deport activists, and decimate higher education. I refuse to be lectured on what constitutes antisemitism by certified antisemites in the federal administration,” said Marianne Hirsch, William Peterfield Trent Professor Emerita of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University

The letter goes beyond denouncing the Trump administration’s “cynical weaponization of antisemitism and Jewish identity as part of its Christian Nationalist agenda.” The signatories call on university leaders to take several concrete actions such as devoting institutional resources to “free Mahmoud Khalil and defend any other community…