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Behind the Aegis

(53,833 posts)
Wed Apr 14, 2021, 04:25 PM Apr 2021

(Jewish Group) U. of Illinois to get a Jewish students' dorm following spate of alleged antiSemitism

A year after the filing of a federal civil rights complaint alleging an “unrelenting campaign of anti-Semitic harassment” at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the school is set to have a new dorm specifically for Jewish students.

Illini Chabad will run the dorm in partnership with the university, the Forward reported. The dorm, which joins a list of faith-based housing options, will have room for 32 students. The bottom floors will serve as the Chabad center and kosher dining hall.

While the dorm is meant to be a place where Shabbat and kosher observance will be easier, it is also intended to be a response to the recent spate of anti-Semitic incidents on campus.

In March 2020, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP filed a complaint with the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights on behalf of students over an alleged pattern of anti-Semitism, including instances of swastika graffiti, vandalism at Jewish centers, and harassment of Jewish and pro-Israel students.

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Behind the Aegis

(53,833 posts)
2. I have dealt with housing like this before.
Wed Apr 14, 2021, 04:35 PM
Apr 2021

It usually starts off with this size, usually an entire floor or wing; and, if there is demand, it will expand. I have overseen two African-American floors, a computer studies floor, a women's studies floor, and a few others that escape me at this moment. One of the African-American floors, expanded into two floors for almost two years and the computer studies floor shrank to a wing.

hedda_foil

(16,368 posts)
3. I hope the level of antisemitic attacks doesn't increase to the point where demand increases.
Wed Apr 14, 2021, 04:49 PM
Apr 2021

I'm 75. I attended U of I, as did my father and grandfather (last name Bernstein) and great uncle Lou Bernstein, who was quarterback of the Fighting Illini football team in 1909 and 1910. (Honest. I just looked up the years!). There is a full complement of Jewish fraternities and sororities and even a non-Greek Jewish sorority that another uncle helped found in the '40s. And there are 3,000 well integrated Jewish undergrads at Urbana-Champaign in total. If it got to the point where a large number of Jewish kids felt they had to seek the shelter of Hillel House there, we would be in far, far deeper trouble than we are today.

I'm not saying it can't happen. Not after the past 4 years. But I pray that this country will not sink so low.

mucifer

(23,374 posts)
5. Chabad is pretty much the fundi wing of Judaism. They try to convert us to ultra orthodox at
Wed Apr 14, 2021, 05:31 PM
Apr 2021

the universities. At least that's how it was back in the '80s in Madison Wisconsin.

We started a Jewish Co-op it was very hippie dippy. Yup I'm still a bit hippy dippy. They wanted to Kosherize our kitchen. We said no thanks. We didn't want to owe them anything or be a part of them.

Here is what Chabad says about LGBT

https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/663504/jewish/Judaism-and-Homosexuality-Do-Homosexuals-Fit-into-the-Jewish-Community.htm

It looks like they are trying to have it both ways.

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