BUZO Student Strongly Condemns Bigotry on Campus

On March 20th, the Binghamton University newspaper, the Pipe Dream, published a tremendous letter-to-the-editor by Kara Dinowitz, a student from BUZO (the CAMERA-supported Emet for Israel group at Binghamton). The letter is reproduced in full below. We’re so proud of Kara and BUZO for taking a strong stance against bigotry on campus!

With the backdrop of increased anti-Semitism currently looming around the world, Binghamton students were faced with our own clear display of twenty-first century anti-Semitism at Chabad’s Shabbat 1500 event on Friday, March 13.

Shabbat 1500 is not a political event and is not about the State of Israel. Shabbat 1500 is an event which celebrates the Jewish Sabbath, one of the world’s oldest religious traditions, which has sustained the Jewish people throughout our triumphant, thriving, and sometimes tumultuous and tragic history.

For somebody to stand outside the Events Center waving a Palestinian flag in protest of a community-wide event celebrating the most sacred of Jewish traditions, targeting the attention of the Jewish students bound to pass by, is anti-Semitism, plain and simple.

Actions like these cross all lines which are often blurred between being anti-Israel yet not anti-Semitic. If we continue to ignore this cancer of intolerance, which is growing globally and right here on our campus, we are doomed to repeat the catastrophic events of the past.

Many students on this campus cry out in the name of justice while simultaneously exploiting the concept of justice. Many students on this campus call for change, but it is they who must turn away from their hateful ideologies in order for real change to occur.

– Kara Dinowitz is a senior majoring in English Rhetoric