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In the Safe Spaces on Campus, No Jews Allowed
(Washington Post) Anthony Berteaux - Arielle Mokhtarzadeh, an Iranian Jew at UCLA, arrived at the University of California, Berkeley, to attend the annual Students of Color Conference. The conference has maintained a reputation for 27 years as being a "safe space" where students of color, as well as white progressive allies, can discuss issues of structural and cultural inequality on college campuses. But on the first day, she was horrified when the discussion became an attack on Israel - and soon devolved into attacks on the Jews. "My history was denied, the murder of my people was justified, and a movement whose sole purpose is the destruction of the Jewish homeland was glorified. Statements were made justifying the ruthless murder of innocent Israeli civilians, blatantly denying Jewish indigeneity in the land, and denying the Holocaust in which six million Jews were murdered," she said. "These statements, and others, were met with endless snaps and cheers....It was in that moment, during that conference, that I realized that every identity and every intersection of identity was to be welcomed and championed in progressive spaces - except mine." The most recent FBI hate crime report found that 58% of hate crimes motivated by religious bias were targeted at Jews, who make up 2% of the American population.