Back to the Future:
The Office of Jewish Affairs 1998-2000
by Larry Goldbaum
January 2001
The Office of Jewish Affairs is now five years old. From our modest beginnings in May 1995—when we started out without so much as a chair to sit on, and with no desk, computer, or phone—we’ve helped build many bridges between the Jewish community and the various religious, racial, and ethnic groups on our campus. Here’s a taste of what we’ve accomplished in the past three years.
History of Black/Jewish Relations
A three-credit course on the History of Black/Jewish Relations, co-taught by UMass professors John Bracey and Maurianne Adams, was unveiled in the fall of 1999. The result of a multi-year collaboration between the Office of Jewish Affairs, Office of Human Relations, the W.E.B. DuBois Dept. of Afro-American Studies, and the School of Education, the course took shape during a faculty seminar sponsored by the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities in the spring of 1996. The new course should facilitate a more informed and less emotional dialogue about the thorny issue of Black/Jewish relations.
OJA also provided support for Adams’ and Bracey’s landmark edition, Strangers and Neighbors: Relations Between Blacks and Jews in the United States, recently published by UMass Press. Their book will serve as an important sourcebook for such courses at UMass and elsewhere, providing a subtle understanding of a complex history, in contrast to the polarized debate of recent decades. (See “Friends or Foes?”)
Bridges and Boundaries:
African Americans and American Jews
A major exhibition on African Americans and American Jews, portraying the history of these two communities and their relationship through paintings, photographs, sculpture and other media, was on display at the University Gallery in September and October 1999. “Bridges and Boundaries” was viewed by several thousand people-more than any other exhibit in the gallery’s history.
We are very grateful to our partners—the Dept. of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies, the Dept. of Afro-American Studies, the UMass Arts Council, and the staff of the University Gallery—for the financial, logistical, and moral support which made it possible to bring this exhibition to UMass. (See “Bridges and Boundaries”)
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Freedom Seders
A collaboration between the Black Student Union (BSU), the Jewish Student Union (JSU), and the Office of Jewish Affairs, the 1999 Freedom Seder revived a tradition that had lain dormant for several years.
We’ve continued to nurture the relationships that grew out of that collaboration-for example, hosting a visit by the BSU and JSU organizers to the “Bridges and Boundaries” exhibition last fall. We held a second, equally successful Freedom Seder in April 2000.
The cordial relationships among the Seder’s organizers and participants represents a dramatic turnaround from the “dark days” of the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the relationship between these two communities was characterized by distrust and overt hostility. (See “Students unite at Freedom Seder”)
In June 2000, OJA director Larry Goldbaum presented a workshop on these programs—“Celebrating Unity and Liberation: The Freedom Seder as an Antidote to Black/Jewish Conflict”—at the National conference on Race and Ethnicity.
Roads to Reconciliation:
Peacebuilding in the Former Yugoslavia and the Middle East
Yugoslavia (comprising Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina) and the Middle East have seen more than their share of ethnic violence and hatred. But even in the midst of conflict, there are courageous individuals who are willing to risk their lives in the fight for peace. In the fall of 1998, we brought six such individuals to UMass as part of “Roads to Reconciliation: Peacebuilding in the Former Yugoslavia and the Middle East,” a series of lectures, luncheons, and dinner discussions which brought together people from often-opposing communities in a profound demonstration that, as one participant put it, “the arms of dialogue are more powerful than the dialogue of arms.”
In “Roads to Reconciliation in the Former Yugoslavia,” two Bosnians, a Serb, and a Croat—Muslim, Orthodox, Catholic, and Jew—shared stories of their efforts to overcome the ethnic hatred that has nearly destroyed their countries. Former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic’s “ethnic cleansing” is well known in the West. But less well known are the efforts of the many courageous people—from all sides of that conflict and from every ethnic and religious community—who have taken a stand against the vicious nationalism of Milosevic and others like him. “Roads to Reconciliation: Peacebuilding in the Former Yugoslavia” offered UMass students a chance to hear the stories of those who seek healing and reconciliation, instead of the hate-mongers who have so dominated the news. (See “Old hatreds complicate the fight for peace”)
“Roads to Reconciliation in the Middle East” featured Palestinian and Israeli peace activists, who met with Arab and Jewish students, staff, and faculty, and spoke at a local synagogue about their success in creating grassroots dialogue between Palestinians and Israeli Jews. These peace activists put a human face on a conflict that the western media often portray far too simplistically as “Jew against Arab.”
Muslim/Jewish Collaboration
For the past five years, the Office of Jewish Affairs and the Muslim Students Association (MSA) have cofacilitated a staff workshop on Muslim and Jewish Holidays. In the fall of 1999, we collaborated with the MSA and Campus Activities to create a Ramadan poster to honor the Muslim month of fasting and prayer. The warm relations between leaders of the Jewish and Muslim communities was also evident in the Spring 2000 dialogue between JSU president Hannah Braune and MSA president Rana al-Jammal, sponsored by the Inter-Religious Project.
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Days of Religious Observance
For the past two years, OJA has collaborated with the Office of Human Relations, the Provost’s Office, and the Faculty Senate to clarify, improve, and better inform students and faculty about the University’s policies concerning days of religious observance.
We’ve consulted with the Faculty Senate’s Space & Calendar Committee on ways to reduce the number of Saturday exams, and we’ve helped religiously observant students make special accommodations to enable them to attend Commencement when it falls on Saturday or (as happened in 1999) on the Jewish holiday of Shavuot.
We helped the campus organizers of “Take Our Daughters to Work Day” to accommodate the needs of Jewish families, after learning that the April 2000 event had been scheduled on the last day of Passover (due to an unfortunate oversight by the national Ms. Foundation).
We have also worked with the General Physical Education program to improve their class absence policy, and how it is publicized and implemented, in order to ensure that students will not be penalized if they miss classes for religious reasons.
Outreach and Collaboration
The Office of Jewish Affairs supported the campus-wide Affirmative Action “teach-in” during Fall 1999; collaborated with the Black Student Union, Office of Human Relations, and Auxiliary Services to bring civil rights leader and NAACP chairman Julian Bond to campus to speak on affirmative action in October 1999 (page 18); and worked closely with the Inter-Religious Project, the Asian Music and Dance Program and several campus chaplains to organize an inter-faith dialogue, “Kindle the Fire” featuring Sufi leader Pir Vilayat, Chancellor David Scott, Prof. Julius Lester, and Sister Eleanor Dooley, in November 1999.
Diversity doesn’t end at our doorstep. There is considerable diversity within the Jewish community as well. We’ve cosponsored several programs with the Stonewall Center, including “Chicks in White Satin,” a presentation by Rabbi Julie Greenberg on Jewish lesbian commitment ceremonies, and “Mother/Son,” a poignant one-man play about the relationship between a Jewish mother and her gay son. We also cosponsored a lecture by British anthropologist Tudor Parfitt, who spoke about the recent genetic research on the so-called “Cohen gene,” which seems to substantiate the South African Lemba people’s claim that they are of Jewish ancestry.
Anti-Semitic and Racist Incidents
Swastikas or other racist and anti-Semitic incidents harm all of us. We’ve carefully monitored all such incidents; collaborated with Public Safety, Housing, and the Dean of Students Office to shape clear protocols for how to respond; provided counseling for students; and advised residence directors and R.A.’s as to how to respond to specific hate incidents.
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