Jewish Students at Odds with Local Organizations in Wake of UMD Anti-Israel Controversy
One afternoon in late April, a University of Maryland junior named Mia Lazarus visited the food co-op in her campus’ student union wearing a blue “I Stand With Israel” t-shirt. As she approached the register to pay for her purchases, the cashier stopped her. According to a May 24th Washington Post column, Lazarus was told, “Your shirt offends me. I won’t ring you up.”
While the Washington Jewish Week ran a feverish story on the issue and an unnamed national Jewish organization sought to stage a protest, Jewish students on campus were interested only in compromise, exposing a deep disconnect between student and local Jewish communities in their reaction to campus controversies.
The co-op where Lazarus was turned away, formally known as the Maryland Food Collective, has a long history at UMD’s College Park campus. Founded in 1975 as a series of vegetarian food stalls, the co-op soon moved to a storefront inside the student union. Today, the co-op is regularly patronized by both faculty and students. Volunteers work alongside paid employees, earning up to $7.00 per hour in food credit. “€œThe décor is right out of the ‘€˜60s,” says Gretchen Metzelaars, the director of the student union. “€œPeople walk in and say, ‘€˜Woah! Time warp!'”
The co-op is also the only Kosher food option in the student union. Perhaps not coincidentally, the Collective claims that approximately a quarter of its membership is Jewish.
The campus was alerted to the April incident by a letter to the editor in the May 2nd issue of The Diamondback, the university’s student newspaper, from UMD sophomore Rachel Bergstein. The letter quoted members of the co-op defending the anonymous cashier’s action, saying, “€œThis is our store, and we want to create an environment that is comfortable for us.” This sparked a campus-wide debate and a full-length article in The Diamondback.
The Diamondback‘s article reported that the co-op was proposing a new policy to define the rights and responsibilities of their cashiers. That proposal read, in part, “€The Co-op respects the right of an individual worker or volunteer to remove themselves from the work environment and to choose not to act as an agent of the store.”
In a May 16th article in the Washington Jewish Week, a co-op member named Christine Cunniff elaborated on the proposed policy. She said that workers who chose not to serve an individual customer for political reasons would do so without informing the customer. Instead, they would discreetly ask another employee to take their place. It would be like stepping out for a smoke.
Cunniff went on to imply that such treatment amounted to a mode of political expression and not discrimination, saying that when the cashier refused to serve Lazarus, it was because of “€œher ideological perspective on the politics of Zionism and not the customer’s cultural, religious, or ethnic identity.”
Jewish student representatives at UMD seemed to accept Cunniff’s definition of discrimination. In the Washington Jewish Week‘s article, Lazarus said that she was satisfied because, regardless of their beliefs, all customers would receive “€œequal service”€\xc2\x9d under the new policy. In a May 24th “Washington Post” column, Avi Mayer, the president of the Pro-Israel Terrapin Alliance, also supported the proposal, saying, “€œI would not want to force anyone to act against their own political beliefs.”
The Anti-Defamation League’s Washington regional director David Friedman believed that the proposal was unacceptable. “€œIt legitimized individuals being very courteous in the way that they discriminated,” he said. “€The Jewish students were trying to appear to be reasonable. It’s difficult to compromise on issues of discrimination.”
Ari Israel, the executive director of the University of Maryland Hillel, defended the reactions of the UMD students. “Some students are comfortable with not making a tumult,”€\xc2\x9d he said. “Overreacting sometimes creates a negative environment.” Israel said that an outside Jewish organization wanted to organize a protest on campus. “€œI was one of the people who discouraged that,”€\xc2\x9d he said.
Instead, Israel and his students worked quietly, speaking to members of the administration and the co-op in order to reach an agreement. On May 21st, after being informed by the administration that their proposal was in violation of the license agreement that allowed them to operate within the student union building, the co-op agreed to a new policy that explicitly prohibits discrimination on the basis of political affiliation.
Outside observers ready to raise hell over a legitimate case of discrimination were puzzled by the conciliatory statements made by Jewish students. Israel does not think a more outspoken approach would have been helpful. “€œWhat’s important at UMD is that the campus culture is supportive of Israel,”€\xc2\x9d he said. “€œIt wasn’t such a major wound. We’ll be doing a lot of pro-Israel activity at the beginning of the school year. It’s the best way to move forward.”
