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(04/30/20 10:00am)
Dear Middlebury community,
Just before the suspension of classes in mid-March, racist and anti-Semitic vandalism was discovered in the bathroom of the Gamut Room. Around the same time, the sign outside the FIC that points to the Jewish center was torn down. While the gravity of these incidents was lost amidst the chaos that has descended on Middlebury and the world over the past few weeks, we feel an urgency to make the campus aware of them. The vandalism of the sign alone is unacceptable under any circumstances, but normally we might have written it off as run-of-the-mill drunken antics. However, the concurrence of both events has us wondering about anti-Semitic intentions.
For those of us who don’t have to deal with discrimination, prejudice and racism on a regular basis, it is easy to forget about it while we are at school. While it is easy to assume that these things don’t happen on our campus, this incident is a reminder that hate is very real and exists even at Middlebury.
Moments of crisis — like the current pandemic — tend to bring out preexisting hatred and prejudices. All minority groups, including the Jewish people, have experienced that backlash at points throughout history. During the Covid-19 crisis, Asians and Asian Americans have been the targets of widespread racism and xenophobia, leading to severely misplaced blame and a horrifying string of physical and verbal attacks. Openly racist violence has not been relegated to pages in history books. It remains a threat to our friends, neighbors and peers every day. As a country, we must not fall prey to these racist and xenophobic tropes. National self-improvement starts at the community level. And so we are calling on our community to change.
We are not asking for a full investigation into the offensive vandalism. Instead, we are asking you, the Middlebury community, to reflect on what kind of place you want Middlebury to be. Many of our peers are already dedicated to making the college a safer and more inclusive place, and we offer our sincere gratitude to them. Everyone should be involved in that effort. Talk to your friends and classmates when you hear them make prejudiced comments. Encourage your professors to create syllabi that center on more underrepresented groups. We want to be a part of a Middlebury where we respect staff enough to not vandalize the campus, and where we appreciate and value the diversity on campus. We should aspire to be a community where hateful acts such as those that occurred before break are unacceptable. To accomplish this goal, everyone at Middlebury has to pitch in.
Signed,
The Middlebury College Hillel Board
This piece was written by Hillel Co-President Ben Dohan ’20.5 on behalf of the Middlebury College Hillel Board.
(03/21/19 9:58am)
Recently, Tamar Mayer, the head of the Hebrew Department, was denied her second request to hire a new Hebrew professor for next year. There is currently only one professor in the department, Oz Aloni, and his contract ends this semester. After Aloni’s departure, students currently enrolled in Hebrew will not be able to continue with their studies and students who planned to minor in the language will not be able to do so. The lack of additional professors will affect all current and future Hebrew students; it will effectively end the Hebrew Department on this campus. As such, the administration’s refusal to hire another professor would be an egregious error.
First and foremost, the Hebrew language department is central to Jewish life on campus. The Hebrew language is an integral part of the Jewish faith, and many students use the language to enrich their spiritual practice or as an entry point to exploring their Judaism. The inclusion of Hebrew within the Middlebury language program makes Jewish students feel welcome and seen in the community. Hebrew allows students to connect meaningfully and academically with a language that is part of their cultural identity. In fact, many Jewish students cite Middlebury’s inclusion of a Hebrew program as a deciding factor in their college search as it represents the vitality of Jewish life on a campus. The decision not to hire another Hebrew professor would indicate to all current and prospective Jewish students where Middlebury’s true priorities lie.
[pullquote speaker="" photo="" align="center" background="on" border="all" shadow="on"]Many Jewish students cite Middlebury’s inclusion of a Hebrew program as a deciding factor in their college search[/pullquote]
Outside of Hebrew’s importance to Jewish students, Hebrew is a rich, fascinating language that deserves to be studied at the top language school in the country. Hebrew is part of the campus’ lively interdisciplinary discourse, and its absence will not go unnoticed. Hebrew is inextricably linked to International & Global Studies (IGS), religious studies and comparative literature, among other fields. How can we offer a Middle Eastern focus in IGS without Hebrew? These crucial academic facets rely on the inclusion of the language.
Some “creative solutions” have been suggested, such as online satellite learning and the Hebrew summer school, but none will replace an in-person experience with a professor. Middlebury, which prides itself on being a language school, cannot claim to include a Hebrew program in its robust language curriculum and then force students to video-call a professor from a different university. Nor should it rely on its remarkable summer language programs; students who are already paying tuition should not have to pay additional tuition or forfeit earning a summer income to attend the Hebrew summer school, especially when they would not have the opportunity to practice their skills during the academic year. This is not an appropriate method for students to acquire the language, and it disadvantages students who want Hebrew to be a part of their year-long academic experience.
It is clear that this decision ultimately comes down to Middlebury’s budget. We argue that the importance of Hebrew cannot be decided by numbers alone. Middlebury is an academic institution; this title implies a commitment to academic excellence above all else and a responsibility to make the campus inclusive to all students. Refusing to fill this position in the Hebrew Department would be a failure on both counts.