OSU Hillel Executive Director Joseph Kohane told New Voices via email that the administration issued two statements condemning the songbook in response to a recent Wall Street Journal article.
Kohane told New Voices that, less than 24 hours after the Journal article was published, the OSU Hillel was already working closely with the school’s administration to educate the marching band about the Holocaust and “its continued meaning and grave significance to the Jewish community today.”
According to the Journal, the marching band’s 2014 edition of the songbook included a song with references to furnaces used in concentration camp crematoria and the trains that deported Jews to concentration camps. In the book was a song called “Goodbye Kramer,” sung to the tune of “Don’t Stop Believin’” and including the lyrics “searching for people livin’ in their neighbor’s attic” and a “small town Jew … who took the cattle train to you know where.”
“The program will take place at Hillel and will draw from many sources including the experience of Hillel staff and students in facilitating reflection and discussion around big questions and sensitive topics,” Kohane said.
He added that the program will include “presentations by Holocaust survivors and children of survivors, and of currently enrolled Jewish students who can articulate the immediacy of the [H]olocaust to them, 75 years removed from the end of the war.”
An introduction to the songbook stated that while some of the songs could be offensive, students should disregard the vulgarity and “act like you got a pair and have a good time singing them.”
Joely Friedman, a student and president of the Society of Professional Journalists at Ohio State, said she doesn’t feel the vulgarity can be disregarded.
“I am disappointed in my classmates,” she told New Voices over Facebook message. “Their actions are not representative by any means of the amazing student body at Ohio State, and it’s a shame that they felt the need to behave in such an unnecessary and foolish way.”
Friedman, who is Jewish, said she plans to use this incident as a learning opportunity for journalists at the school and “bring in speakers to campus to talk to us about how reporters should approach writing negatively about something they are connected to.”
She added that local journalists will be invited to speak to student journalists about dealing with what could be perceived as a conflict of interest, such as writing about the university incident while an enrolled student.
“It’s important that good journalists can write truthfully about what is going on, even if it means that they are negatively portraying their own affiliations,” she said.
“As good journalists, we have a responsibility to share the news with others, even if that news casts a bad light on ourselves.”
Wendy Cohen, who graduated from Ohio State in 2012, told New Voices via Facebook message that she never felt uncomfortable as a Jewish student.
“I know a few Jewish students who were in the band and hadn’t heard about it when I was on campus. I haven’t spoken to any friends about it,” she said.
“But I can tell you OSU has a great Jewish community on campus and although there were some minor incidents here and there, I never felt uncomfortable being openly Jewish.”
Correction: This article previously stated that Joely Friedman is not Jewish. She is.
New Voices regrets the error.
Jackson Richman is a student at The George Washington University.
