Monday, January 21, 2008

Anti-Semitism in Maine

I'm the newest contributor to the blog, so I will begin by explaining myself. I work in a college setting so as a professional, I study the affects of anti-Semitism on college students and have become privy to many cases, published or unpublished.

The biggest anti-Semitism problem which has not been put into any paper, and should, is that there have been several instances of anti-Semitism that have gone unreported as hate crimes or even any crimes.

In December, the University of Southern Maine held a "press conference", which was actually a Chanukkah celebration hosted by USM Hillel and Chabad of Southern Maine. Very few people were actually in attendance where the speakers brought to attention that swastikas had been painted in dorms and signs for a Sukkos party had been ripped down.

This was USM's attempt to rectify the problem: to not tell anyone about it, so there are no printed versions of this account, and to post up fliers in the dorm where the swastikas were painted saying that the university did not condone that type of behavior. All of this just to keep the university from losing the rest of its diversity, since Maine in general lacks diversity.

I know that there were some issues earlier this year with the Jewish student, who painted swastikas on her own door, but that is clearly not the case here. This is a form of vandalism and anti-Semitism. The only reason the university did not report the incident is that the told the Hillel director that they are only required to report violent hate crimes, which is completely false.

Another interesting fact about Maine is that they had the largest number of KKK members in the 1920s. There is a plethora of neo-Nazi memorabilia that has been unearthed at town houses across the state lately.

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