16 | JUNE 10 • 2021 

statement about the conflict that 
expressed complete solidarity 
with “indigenous” Palestinians, 
accused Israel of ethnic cleans-
ing, and called for a divestment 
of all funding and academic col-
laboration with Israel. Moss, a 
junior, said it “caught the Jewish 
student body completely by 
surprise.
” He and other Jewish 
students have created a petition 
to counter the statement and are 
asking the CSG for an apology. 
“The CSG is supposed to 
be representative of the entire 
student body on campus,
” Moss 
said. “I understand if they want 
to take a stand for Palestinian 
voices, but the statement just 
stirred up a lot of anger because 
it was an uneducated opinion of 
a complex topic.
”
When Hillel attempted to 
approach the CSG on the state-
ment, Moss said the organiza-
tion did not view it as antise-
mitic. 
“There are some Jewish 
members of the CSG, but 
none of them were consulted 
on the statement before it was 
released,
” Moss said. “
All it did 
was stir the pot and spark other 
student organizations to share 
hateful, inaccurate and antise-
mitic messages while Hamas’ 
missiles were flying into Israel.
”
Looking ahead to the fall, 

Moss, a student in the School 
of Kinesiology, hopes the inci-
dent can be used as a learning 
experience and create more 
dialogue between Hillel and 
other campus organizations. 
“There is a surprising 
amount of people posting 
things who are uneducated 
on the topic,
” Moss said. 
“We need to do fewer 
things online and hope this 
semester we can have more 
in-person discussions 
and debates. Social media 
shares a lot of misinfor-
mation.
”

PROFESSIONAL 
BACKLASH
Others have seen a 
backlash in professional 
online groups. 
Brooke Lipman Weingarden, 
38, a physician who lives in 
Orchard Lake, belonged to a 
physician’s mother’s discussion 
group on Facebook with more 
than 70,000 members. Since the 
conflict, she said there seems 
to be a double standard from 
administrators moderating 
comments made by Palestinians 
and Jews. 
“The group is generally 
respectful of all cultures, but, 
lately, like everywhere, there 
have been many posts from 

Palestinian members voicing 
their valid concerns about the 
conflict,
” she said. “But if a 
Jewish member posts a com-
ment of concern of antisem-
itism, their comments are 
removed, they are blocked from 
commenting and are eventually 
removed from the group.
”
Public school teacher Brooke 
Leiberman, 40, of Farmington 
Hills said she believes she 
and other Jewish teachers 

were kicked out of a pri-
vate Facebook group of 
Michigan educators called 
MI Core after they publicly 
contested that other teach-
er members were passing 
around infographics from 
a Palestinian organization 
supportive of the anti-Israel 
boycott, divest and sanctions 
(BDS) movement that alleged 
that millions of dollars were 
being siphoned from Michigan 
classrooms to buy weapons for 
Israel to kill Palestinians. 
The infographic content, 
which alleged that $96 million 
that could have been going 
to use in Michigan schools 
were instead being diverted to 
fund the Israeli military, was 
created by U.S. Campaign for 
Palestinian Rights. 
“The Palestinian movement 
is putting themselves into every 
activism cause,
” Leiberman 
said. “They kicked me out of 
a teachers’ group because I 
was disputing misinformation. 
These are public school teachers 
who are upholding this false 
information being taken from 
pro-Palestinian organizations. 
There is no proof from the state 
that money is being taken from 
state funding to be sent to fund 
Israel military operations.
”
Educator and MI Core 
Facebook page administrator 
Maria Logrosso-Gaitens said 
there had been a misunder-
standing and that people in the 
group were removed because 

Act Against 
Antisemitism

On May 27, elected officials 
across the political spec-
trum, religious leaders of 
Christianity, Judaism and 
Islam, celebrities, ethnically 
diverse leaders and ath-
letes alike spoke out against 
the troubling rise in hatred 
against Jews in “Act Against 
Antisemitism,” a global online 

rally. 
The event was coordi-
nated by a partnership of 
the ADL, AJC, Hadassah, 
the Jewish Federations 
of North America and the 

organizational and rabbin-
ical bodies of Orthodox, 
Reform, Conservative and 
Reconstructionist Judaism. 
Speaker after speaker 
assured Jews they are not 
alone in this fight against 
hatred and urged Americans 
to contact their represen-
tatives in Congress to urge 
action. For more information 
and a ready-to-use online 

toolkit on this campaign, go 
toactagainstantisemitism.org. 
Roz Rothstein, co-founder 
and CEO StandWithUs, said 
the nonpartisan education-
al organization created an 
online emergency situation 
room to provide accurate 
information about the ongo-
ing Israel/Hamas conflict. 
They also have links to letters 
urging Congress to sanction 

An example of the misinforma-
tion circulating on social media

OUR COMMUNITY

continued from page 14

