Thursday, October 06, 2022
Elder of Ziyon
Is this antisemitic, or tone deaf, or not even an issue?Brooklyn College — which was recently ripped for campus anti-Semitism — scheduled “implicit bias training” for staffers on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year when many of the faithful do not work.The training is mandated for those who serve on job search committees with one of the four Zoom sessions set for 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, the morning of Yom Kippur.“This biases the process against observant Jews and secular Jews who typically attend services on this one day of the year. Such Jews are afforded only three meeting opportunities, while all others are afforded four,” one Jewish professor said. “That sounds like implicit bias to me. Imagine, if that was done to a group that is viewed as a disadvantaged minority.”A Brooklyn College spokesman said an additional training session was being offered on Monday.“While classes are not held on Yom Kippur, the college is open on that day. In addition to these dates, staff or faculty can request an individual training session,” said spokesman Richard Pietras.
I am unclear whether the mandated training is to attend one of the sessions, or to attend all of them. If it is only to attend one session, and Jews still have a choice of three sessions (now four) )to attend, this does not sound like a problem at all to me - that choice of sessions should be plenty and from the Jewish perspective, the college is simply offering an additional session for those who have a free day on Yom Kippur and want to take advantage.
If attendance at all sessions is mandated, however, then this is saying that any Jews who go to synagogue on Yom Kippur would have automatically failed the requirement. The Jewish Press makes that assumption but I am not sure where they got that from. If I'm right, though, this is an artificial issue.
This Brooklyn College page that mentions the training indicates to me that only one session is needed for the mandatory training and it is normally offered three times a semester, meaning the Yom Kippur session is simply taking advantage of a day that non-Jews are probably free.
Brooklyn College has lots of problems with antisemitism. But when the charge is made, let's make sure it is warranted.
Before the 1970s, Jewish students were routinely faced with mandatory exams on Saturdays or holidays. Those days seem to be mostly over. If the college offers a reasonable alternative for Jews, then that's all that should be required. In this case, Brooklyn College added the Monday session after the complaint, so Jews are not excluded at all even if they must attend all four sessions.
There is plenty of real antisemitism to be dealt with. If my interpretation is correct, this is not one of those cases. And publicizing trumped-up charges of antisemitism will cheapen the cases when real antisemitism occurs on campus.
I think that the bigger issue is that Brooklyn College mandates classes that appears to insist that all white people - and presumably all "white-passing" Jews - are inherently, unavoidably and perpetually biased.
Assuming that Jews are racist and oppressors really is antisemitic.
