At least 3 reports of vandalism, assault allegedly targeting UM Jewish community in recent weeks
A group of Jewish students at the University of Michigan is planning to create a private security service after three recent, allegedly antisemitic attacks on campus.
The “makeshift security service” will offer escorts to Jewish students on the public university’s Ann Arbor campus, The New York Sun reports.
One of the students organizing the effort is Leo Gabaron, according to the Detroit Free Press
“It’s honestly sad that we’re at this point where we have students who feel unsafe walking around on campus and we have to take these measures,” Gabaron said. “But we just want the Jewish community to know that there are people here for you …”
The students are discussing their security plans with university staff and police, The Sun reports:
Gabaron and other students are organizing what they call a “Shmira,” a title commonly used by Jewish watch groups, which, when translated from Hebrew, means “watching” or “guarding.” The group, he told the Detroit Free press, is meant to help Jewish students feel safe and will be nonviolent. Mr. Gabaron has already met with university representatives and police to discuss the service and is hoping to rally together some 50-100 people to help escort Jewish students across campus.
Further, the head of the Campus Hillel Center, Rabbi Davey Rosen, has been working with the university president to address the rise in antisemitism on campus. “He gets it deeply and all the more so in this moment, since there has been an attack, it can’t continue,” Rabbi Rosen told Fox 2 Detroit. “And they are taking it as seriously as someone can take it.”
Rosen said Hillel plans to offer a self defense class to students as well.
Within the past two weeks, Jewish students have reported three separate attacks on campus.
Earlier this month, a 19-year-old male student said a group of men walked up and asked him if he was Jewish, according to Ann Arbor Police.
When the student replied yes, he was assaulted by the group, sustaining minor injuries, police said. The alleged perpetrators fled on foot, according to police.
Later, however, in “a statement from the university’s Jewish Resource Center, Michigan Hillel had confirmed with the local police that the initial attack was not related to the student’s identity,” The Sun reports.
Last weekend, two more attacks were reported. On Friday, a Jewish student reportedly “was punched outside the home of members of a Jewish fraternity” and taken to the hospital with a concussion, according to The Sun.
On Saturday, “a group returned to the scene and threw glass bottles at the house,” the report states.
In a statement earlier this month, university President Santa Ono condemned the violence.
“Antisemitism is in direct conflict with the university’s deeply held values of safety, respect and inclusion and has no place within our community,” Ono said in the statement.
Another incident allegedly targeting a Jewish regent of the public university occurred in June.
The law office of Regent Jordan Acker was vandalized with pro-Palestinian graffiti, including the words “Divest now” and “Divest or f— off” written in red paint across his Southfield office, The College Fix reported at the time.
Acker described the vandalism as an act of “antisemitism,” noting that he was the only regent targeted.
The vandalism occurred after the UM Board of Regents refused pro-Palestinian protesters’ demands to divest from companies with connections to Israel.
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