Students gathered at the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library on Tuesday to discuss the intersections and intricacies of antisemitism and Islamophobia in a polarized political climate.
The discussion was part of an event series hosted by San José State’s Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion concerning the escalating war in the Middle East.
Approximately 41,000 Palestinians according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, and 1,200 Israelis according to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs have been killed in the war.
The series aims to encourage students to navigate issues and educate themselves surrounding Israel and Palestine and the various discourses emerging from military violence in the area in critical and empathic ways, according to its “About This Event” page.
On Nov. 13, the InterGroup Dialogue Program plans to hold the second installment of the series, “Bridging Perspectives: Understanding the Israel-Palestine Conflict,” according to the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion page.
The discussion at the library was co-led by Marium Mohiuddin, a Muslim-American journalist and communicator alongside Zack Ritter, a Jewish educator who pursued his Ph.D. at UCLA, focused on East Asian international students and racial stereotypes.
“The idea is we're trying to create environments in which individuals and groups can feel welcome, respected, supported, valued, to fully participate,” Mohiuddin said.
Both Mohiuddin and Ritter said they became involved in Muslim-Jewish relations after seeing how the struggles of the two communities overlapped and identifying missing bridges of dialogue between them.
“Between antisemitism and Islamophobia, we found there's a lot of similarities within these communities,” Mohiuddin said.
The Anti-Defamation League reported 8,873 cases of antisemitic hate crimes, harassment and vandalism in the U.S. in 2023 while the Council on American-Islamic Relations recorded 8,061 anti-Muslim cases, rates surging by over 100% in the last three months of 2023 for both groups.
Ritter discussed how antisemitism has evolved in current discourses in the form of conspiracy theories such as the “great replacement theory.”
“(It’s) this notion that white-presenting Jewish folks are teaming up with Black and brown folks to take over the world and replace white Christian bodies with Jewish bodies, Black and brown bodies,” Ritter said.
Ritter also described the way the “great replacement theory” incorporates Islamophobia in its rhetoric. He cited the Tree of Life Congregation, which was raising money for the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Service to assist Muslim immigrants in getting to the U.S. when it was targeted by an antisemitic shooter.
Robin McMahon, a sixth-year history student, said it’s difficult to have a nuanced and critical conversation about Islamophobia, antisemitism and the Israel-Hamas conflict in online forums because individuals are isolated in echo chambers and primed for hostility.
“The algorithms are designed to put ‘like’ with ‘like,’ ” McMahon said. “If you like something, if you engage with it, you're going to see more of it. And that's not true in the real world.”
Alex Luu, a first-year graduate student in the counselor education program at SJSU, said the open discussion with other students and the speakers was refreshing and enlightening compared to the reactionary environments he’s experienced online.
“One of the key things that I learned from the presentation was that it is okay to still think about your thoughts on a situation or an incident,” Luu said. “Because very often on social media, it's very quick to formulate thoughts, and also with the vast information that we have, It's also very quick to assume many things.”
Students entered the event saying they felt “tense” and “touchy” talking about issues of Islamophobia and antisemitism in the current political atmosphere. Students concluded it with a dialogue about how to resolve those conflicts and build bridges with each other.
“Another thing is also developing empathy,” Luu said. “Given the post-pandemic world, we're always quick to assume, always quick to judge. Just taking that time to understand, listen, and emphasize with the speakers, I think that's going to help me a lot.”
