Wellesley Fires Hillel Leaders Even as Anti-Israel Activism Rises

Hillary Clinton Alma Mater Cites 'Restructuring' for Moves

By Debra Nussbaum Cohen, The Jewish Daily Forward

(Haaretz) — Soon after the new school year got underway at Wellesley College, posters bearing the images of Palestinian children who were killed or wounded during the Gaza war appeared on dining hall walls.

A large poster, likewise sponsored by the new campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, went up in the student center asking, “What does Zionism mean to you?” with lots of space for people to fill in answers. Within a week people had written “genocide,” “apartheid” and “murder” on the poster at the Boston-area college.

Upset, Wellesley women turned to Patti Scheinman, Wellesley Hillel’s director, and David Bernat, the Jewish chaplain, along with student leaders of the Jewish community, for support. They jointly pushed for a meeting with Wellesley’s SJP leaders.

Both Hillel employees were abruptly fired last week by Wellesley College, with administration officials offering “restructuring” as the reason.

Jewish students dealing with what some say is ratcheted-up anti-Israel and anti-Jewish sentiment on campus are dismayed by the precipitous firing. “It makes me and other students feel like we just lost our support system and are on our own,” said Tali Marcus, a senior psychology major who is co-president of Wellesley Friends of Israel. “It’s really disconcerting.”

Wellesley is one of the prestigious Seven Sisters network of women’s colleges and counts potential presidential candidate Hillary Clinton among its alumnae. Roughly 10 percent of the current student body of 2,100 is Jewish. It has now joined the growing number of college campuses where often-intense anti-Israel sentiment at times bleeds into anti-Semitism, in the view of some there, in the process discomfiting large numbers of Jewish and pro-Israel students.

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