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LETTER TO THE EDITOR:Judaism and tolerance are not mutually exclusive
Letters to the Editor | 5/1/07
Posted online at 11:01 PM EST on 4/30/07
/ Last updated at 6:24 AM EST on 4/30/07
To the Editor:
The Front-page story on minority experience at Brandeis ("Campus divide", April 24 issue) should have been titled, "Some minority students have issues; Jewish majority responsible." None of the self-identified minority students interviewed claimed to have been the target of racial epithets or adverse discrimination, only "strange looks, subtle remarks and misconceptions." According to the article, none were asked to elaborate.
I was intrigued by the student from Queens who admitted she didn't know of Brandeis' Jewish flavor until she arrived on campus. I imagine that her degree of naivete may have been an attention-getting anomaly. Her experience is meant to reveal that her feelings had everything to do with skin color.
If she were a freshman at Grambling-with a predominantly black enrollment historically and intentionally-and a nonblack student shared his sudden discovery at his racial isolation, what kind of looks would she have given him? We're all some kind of minority sometime, and we owe it to ourselves to look at the big picture and get the most of our experience at the university and elsewhere.
As to the allegation that "many minority students" feel that Brandeis' Jewish identity precludes a tolerant and diverse campus-if there is no data to support this, it shouldn't have been included in the story, and if it's really true, it's shameful and should be dealt with in another article and not glossed over as a cruelly anti-Semitic prejudice.
-Harvey Edber
Sacramento
The writer is the father of Features Editor Hannah Edber.
The Front-page story on minority experience at Brandeis ("Campus divide", April 24 issue) should have been titled, "Some minority students have issues; Jewish majority responsible." None of the self-identified minority students interviewed claimed to have been the target of racial epithets or adverse discrimination, only "strange looks, subtle remarks and misconceptions." According to the article, none were asked to elaborate.
I was intrigued by the student from Queens who admitted she didn't know of Brandeis' Jewish flavor until she arrived on campus. I imagine that her degree of naivete may have been an attention-getting anomaly. Her experience is meant to reveal that her feelings had everything to do with skin color.
If she were a freshman at Grambling-with a predominantly black enrollment historically and intentionally-and a nonblack student shared his sudden discovery at his racial isolation, what kind of looks would she have given him? We're all some kind of minority sometime, and we owe it to ourselves to look at the big picture and get the most of our experience at the university and elsewhere.
As to the allegation that "many minority students" feel that Brandeis' Jewish identity precludes a tolerant and diverse campus-if there is no data to support this, it shouldn't have been included in the story, and if it's really true, it's shameful and should be dealt with in another article and not glossed over as a cruelly anti-Semitic prejudice.
-Harvey Edber
Sacramento
The writer is the father of Features Editor Hannah Edber.
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