Antisemitic Images on Campus

My new essay for The Hill addresses recent antisemitic incidents on American campuses. Here is the gist:

Free antisemitic speech is still antisemitic and indefensible

BY STEVEN LUBET, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 04/22/24

Although anti-Israel activists typically assert that their protests are leveled only at Zionism, some have lately demonstrated a shocking inclination to employ classically antisemitic themes and images.  

Law Students for Justice in Palestine placed posters throughout the law school, as well as on their Instagram account, featuring a grotesque caricature of Dean Erwin Chemerinsky holding a bloody knife and fork, with the caption “No Dinner with Zionist Chem While Gaza Starves.” 

Chemerinsky recognized the image as “blatant antisemitism,” invoking the “horrible antisemitic trope of blood libel” and attacking him for “no apparent reason other than I am Jewish.”  

He wasn’t exaggerating. 

The portrayal of Jews as leering blood drinkers — historically known as a “blood libel” — dates back to Medieval times, and it has been used ever since as an excuse for pogroms, expulsions, and worse. It was a staple of Germany’s Der Stürmer in the Nazi era and can be seen today in its American descendant, the far-right, neo-Nazi publication The Daily Stormer.

You can read the full essay at The Hill.