An orthodox Jewish professor slammed Rutgers University’s administration for letting the campus become a hotbed of bigotry, claiming in a scathing letter she cannot do any work because “all I do is confront antisemitism.”
Rebecca Cypess, a professor for the school’s music department, said she’s been “privy to the details of antisemitic incidents at Rutgers from the classroom . . . to the highest offices at the university,” according to the missive to President Jonathan Holloway and Chancellor Francine Conway.
The toxic climate has prevented her from publishing any scholarly writing, Cypess contended, noting she finds herself devoting all her time to advocating for “students, staff members, and faculty members in distress.”
Pro-terror demonstrators at the New Jersey state school have been caught on video yelling, “Hitler would have loved you” at Jewish students; chanting for intifada and plastering posters featuring a picture of Jewish student all over their dorm.
The toxic culture forced her out, wrote the professor, who is leaving Rutgers to become dean of the men’s and women’s undergraduate colleges at Yeshiva University.
“Throughout this year, I have found it difficult to breathe. I have lost my taste for my job; the joy that I used to feel in working at Rutgers has disappeared,” Cypess wrote.
The music professor also criticized the university for agreeing to numerous demands made by the organizers of the anti-Israel tent encampment, who she says have “held the university hostage all year.”
“They have harassed and intimidated Jews. They have propagated hate, including disgusting, antisemitic blood libels,” she continued.
The professor claimed she, along with the group Jewish Faculty Administrators and Staff, had tried to work “in a collaborative spirit” with the administration to improve Jewish life on campus, but now feels that approach was “misguided.”
“If JFAS had pitched tents on Voorhees Mall, unfurled hateful banners from Murray Hall, and forced the cancellation of hundreds of exams, would our recommendations have been implemented?” she asked.
