March 27, 2023
Dear Students, Faculty, and Staff,
This week, we will welcome special guest Kenneth S. Stern, an internationally renowned expert on hatred and antisemitism and director of Bard College’s Center for the Study of Hate. I encourage you all to attend his talk, “Antisemitism and Binary Thinking: Campus Culture and the Future of Democracy” at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 29, in Stirn Auditorium.
We must not underestimate the persistent problem of antisemitism and its profound impacts on our world. Many of you will be aware that antisemitism is on the rise, with Jews facing increased harassment and violence in the U.S. and globally. In addition to violence against Jews at synagogues and elsewhere, we see prejudice and discrimination against Jews being instrumentalized in political platforms worldwide. I imagine that most of us are also aware of the prevalence of antisemitic tropes in contemporary conspiracy theories, of social media as an amplifier of those tropes, and of the prominence of Holocaust deniers on social media and YouTube.
Antisemitism is a national and global problem, and it is also a local one. Our campus community is not immune. We are committed to inclusivity, we deeply respect diversity, and we are dedicated to education. All of these things combat the intolerance and discriminatory impulse, the “us versus them” thinking, that lies behind antisemitism and other narratives of hate. At the same time, college campuses, ours included, are places of passionate debate, and we know that discussion of, for example, the Israel-Palestine conflict can easily flare into intolerance. Ken Stern has devoted significant attention to how and why on this topic partisan prejudice often extinguishes principled debate in campus culture.
As a community that prizes education and inclusion, we have a responsibility to work against pernicious and systemic prejudice here on campus and in the wider world. I hope that you will join me on Wednesday evening in Stirn.
Michael
Michael A. Elliott
President, Amherst College