Columbia Professor Replaces Swastika With a Mezuzah
The Columbia University professor whose office door was defaced with a swastika has replaced the symbol of hate with a mezuzah.
At a rally of students and faculty on the steps of the university's Teachers College yesterday, the professor targeted by the anti-Semitic attack last week, Elizabeth Midlarsky, said that while Jews at Columbia are comfortable, they will never be safe. She said she was affixing the mezuzah, a small parchment scroll in a box, to her office door as an affirmation of her Jewish faith.
Ms. Midlarsky, who researches the Holocaust, linked the recent surge of anti-Semitic incidents on campus to the university's decision to host President Ahmadinejad of Iran on campus in September.
"These attacks have not occurred in a vacuum," Ms. Midlarsky told reporters yesterday. She said that twice in the last month she has received materials in her mailbox denying the Holocaust. Jewish student leaders yesterday pressed the president of Columbia, Lee Bollinger, to amend the university's constitution to condemn anti-Jewish "policies, curriculum, faculty, organizations, and speakers."
The president of the Teachers College, Susan Fuhrman, said the college had a "zero tolerance" policy for anti-Semitic and racist incidents.
A spokesman for Columbia did not immediately return inquiries for comment last night.
Last month, a noose was discovered hanging from the office door of a black professor, Madonna Constantine, and anti-Semitic graffiti was found scrawled in bathroom stalls of two academic buildings on campus.
