(The Lion) — Antisemitism is “a daily reality” for Nikolay Remizov, who chose to run for Saint Louis University’s student government president last fall.
“My campaign materials were defaced with antisemitic imagery, horns and tails drawn on my posters,” he said at a Feb. 26 hearing of the Missouri House of Representatives Higher Education and Workforce Development Committee. “I received hateful comments, threats to my life, and relentless pressure simply for being who I am.”
Members of the Jewish community are working to combat such discrimination through legislation like HB 937, which Remizov supported in his testimony to lawmakers.
If the bill passes, the Show-Me State would be required to designate a Title VI coordinator to “monitor, review, and investigate antisemitic discrimination in public K-12 and post-secondary schools,” according to Jewish advocacy group Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM).
Two Republicans filed the bill: State Rep. George Hruza, the son of a Holocaust survivor, and House Speaker Jon Patterson.
“We have to make sure that our Jewish students can feel safe and comfortable going to school, and they can have their education and not worry about what might happen when they go to class,” Hruza said.
‘Driving Jewish life and religious expression underground’
As previously reported by The Lion, the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) is investigating five major universities after civil rights violations following the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks.
“Too many universities have tolerated widespread antisemitic harassment and the illegal encampments that paralyzed campus life last year, driving Jewish life and religious expression underground,” said Craig Trainor, DOE’s acting assistant secretary for civil rights. “The Biden administration’s toothless resolution agreements did shamefully little to hold those institutions accountable.”
Incidents like these occurred at educational institutions besides universities. For example, parents in California’s Berkeley Unified School District regularly cited “severe and persistent” bullying and harassment of their children.
“Berkeley administrators have ignored parent reports and knowingly allowed its K-12 schools to become hostile environments for Jewish and Israeli students,” the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law wrote in a press release.
“Teachers watched from the sidelines while students shouted vile anti-Semitic chants, such as ‘Kill the Jews,’ ‘F*** the Jews,’ ‘F*** Israel,’ ‘KKK,’ ‘Kill Israel,’ ‘I hate those people,’ and ‘From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free,’ a chant deemed anti-Semitic for its call for the removal of all Jews from the State of Israel.”
The hostility in higher education toward the Jewish community extends to the Midwest, argued CAM founder Adam Beren, who also spoke before the committee Feb. 26 and detailed antisemitic incidents at multiple Missouri universities.
“While nowhere near the problems we have read about in New York, California, Massachusetts, or Washington, D.C,” he said, “Missouri has unfortunately not been immune to antisemitism.”
