Two apparent acts of anti-Semitism took place this past weekend outside a Lawn room belonging to Keenan Davis, a fourth-year College and first-year Graduate Arts & Sciences student. University police filed a report yesterday about the incidents and will continue with an investigation.
Last Friday, between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m., Davis discovered an anti-Semitic slur written on the white board outside his room. He said he could not erase the slur written on the board because it was the Sabbath, the seventh day of the Jewish week during which members of the Orthodox Jewish faith "don't erase writing [because] we don't do creative work." He added that his friends quickly removed the offensive writing for him.
Saturday night, at about the same time the first incident happened, Davis was sitting at his desk working on his thesis when he heard "snickering and someone mentioning a Jewish star," he said. He opened the door to find that the Israeli flag hung outside his door was missing. Davis reported that he saw two males fleeing toward Rugby Road after he opened the door. "That pissed me off a lot to see cowards, vandals, hooligans stealing personal property, something that was so personally significant to me," Davis said. "I am ... threatened as far as my community goes, the way people view the Jewish community."
After the second incident, Davis said he felt compelled to reach out to University administrators.
"Despite the insistence of many, anti-Semitism is not a relic of the past," Davis said in a letter to Dean of Students Allen Groves. "Yet, to find it expressed so unabashedly at The University founded by Mr. Jefferson, author of the Virginia Statue for Religious Freedom, is simply appalling."
Davis said he will meet with Groves later this week, adding that Groves already has made it clear that there will be "an adequate and appropriate response" to the incidents.
"It is flatly unacceptable for anyone to be targeted because of who they are, and we cannot allow acts of vandalism and harassment of this nature to stand unchallenged," Groves said in an email.
Groves also said that he reached out to Davis and the executive director at the Hillel Jewish Center at the University to discuss "ways to support the larger University Jewish community in light of these incidents." In addition, Groves plans to submit reports of the incidents to the University's Just Report It system for tracking purposes.
In his letter to Groves, Davis also alluded to an incident last month at Zeta Psi Fraternity, during which a pledge drank a bottle of soy sauce and ended up in the hospital. What went unnoticed, Davis said, was the meal served to pledges earlier that night, which consisted of dog food, matzo balls and gefilte fish.
"It went unrecognized that the [alleged] hazing involved feeding pledges dog food in addition to traditional Jewish foods," Davis said in the letter. "This juxtaposition is no coincidence, and it is another unacceptable statement of anti-Semitism being made by such a long-standing institution at our university."
Davis said he was conflicted as to whether he should notify the administration of the possible implications of the incident, which to him was "pretty easily interpreted as latent anti-Semitism."\nZeta Psi declined to comment on this issue because of the ongoing police investigation to determine whether the incident constitutes hazing.
University spokesperson Carol Wood spoke about the University's response to last weekend's two apparent anti-Semitic incidents.
"There's no place in the University community for this kind of discriminatory behavior," Wood said. "We take anything like this extremely seriously and [will] get to the core of what happened, to find the people who may have done this."
Groves elaborated on what he hopes the University community will do in response. "Consistent with President Sullivan's charge this fall that we each take personal ownership to create a more caring community, my hope is that students will talk about what has occurred and challenge this type of bias when they observe it," he said. "If you hear a peer making an anti-Semitic slur or joke, challenge that person by pointing out why it is ignorant and wholly incompatible with the values of our community."
Davis expressed similar sentiments about the possibility for the University community to overcome such discrimination. He will be the closing speaker at the Interfaith Vigil of Blessing, which will take place April 13 to celebrate the inauguration of President Teresa A. Sullivan.
"This is the perfect opportunity for people to express solidarity at a time when it's very clearly needed," he said. In his letter, Davis went on to say that he hopes "the student body, faculty and administration will use this event as an opportunity to express solidarity with all faiths, especially in response to this recent series of expressions to the contrary."
Both Davis and Groves expressed optimism about the potential for the community to prevent acts of discrimination.
"The willingness of individual members of the community to condemn this kind of behavior is the most effective tool for prevention," Groves said.
The letter Davis sent to Dean Groves can be found on the Opinion page.
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