Several Jewish faculty members at the University of Rochester were targeted in an antisemitic act after they were depicted in hundreds of “wanted” posters plastered around the upstate New York school, officials said.
University President Sarah Mangelsdorf called the incident “disturbing, divisive and intimidating” and said it “runs counter to our values as a university.”
The Department of Public Safety said it was made aware of the posters Sunday night and immediately began removing them. The posters were found in buildings across campus, including classrooms, public safety chief Quchee Collins said in a message to the community.
The posters target certain university staff and professors for alleged war crimes related to the conflict in Gaza, NBC affiliate WHEC-TV of Rochester reported. Joy Getnick, with the university’s Hillel organization, was allegedly one of the people depicted in a poster.
Getnick told the news station that the posters “spread harmful antisemitic ideas about the Jewish people and about Israel” and “further the spread of antisemitic hate on our campus, in an attempt to sow fear.”
Mangelsdorf said in a statement that the school views the posters as “antisemitism, which will not be tolerated at our University.”
“This isn’t who we are. This goes against everything we stand for and we have an obligation to reject it,” Mangelsdorf said.
The Department of Public Safety said that removing the posters has been challenging “because of the strong adhesive used to affix the posters, which in some cases caused damage to walls, floors, chalkboards, and other surfaces.”
“Posters and displays affixed in this manner are unacceptable and considered to be vandalism to University property. Any activities, including the placement of these posters, that disrupt our normal operations and classroom instruction will not be tolerated,” Collins said.
An investigation to determine who put up the posters is ongoing.
The student-run Jewish Voice for Peace, U of R chapter, said the school’s decision to quickly label the incident as antisemitic was “hasty.”
“While we do not know who put up these posters or the intention behind it, we view these posters as an attempt to shed light on administrators and professors’ support for the Israeli military’s destruction of Gaza,” the group said in a statement to WHEC. “These posters highlighted Jewish and non-Jewish administrators and professors and explicitly condemned their support for the Israeli military and government.”
“The administration’s hasty jump to attribute these posters to antisemitism, without any proper investigation, comes across as an attempt to censor any discussion of the University of Rochester’s complicity in the Israeli army’s ongoing genocide in Gaza,” the statement continued. “Antisemitism is bigotry or hatred against Jewish people on the basis of their identity and we unequivocally oppose it, and work to dismantle it along with all forms of oppression. It is not, however, antisemitic to criticize the Israeli government and military that is committing war crimes.”
Since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 numerous antisemitic incidents have been reported at college and university campuses across the United States. In February, swastikas and anti-Semitic language were found written on the River Campus tunnel walls at the University of Rochester.
The symbols were promptly removed, the school said at the time, calling the incident “disturbing” and “hateful.”
