People of the Pod University of Michigan Regent Jordan Acker: When Antisemitism Hits Home
What would you do if jars of urine were thrown through the windows of your house in the middle of the night? How would you feel if antisemitic messages were spray painted on your cars? How would you respond if you were targeted simply because you’re Jewish?
In the first installment of a 2-part series, meet a face behind the alarming findings of AJC's State of Antisemitism in America 2024 Report, the first analysis of the impact of antisemitism on American Jews and the U.S. general public for the full-year following Hamas’ October 7, 2023 massacre of Israelis.
In this week’s episode, Jordan Acker, a lawyer and member of the University of Michigan's Board of Regents, shares what happened to him and his family in late 2024 when they were personally targeted by anti-Israel and antisemitic protesters. He criticizes the broader campus climate and faculty’s response, while emphasizing the need for productive dialogue and understanding as a way forward, all the while stressing the importance of standing up to antisemitism.
Resources:
-AJC’s Center for Education Advocacy
-5 Takeaways from AJC’s State of Antisemitism in America 2024 Report
Test Your Knowledge:
-How much do you really know about how antisemitism affects Americans? Take this one-minute quiz and put your knowledge to the test. Start now. Listen – AJC Podcasts:
-The Forgotten Exodus: with Hen Mazzig, Einat Admony, and more.
Follow People of the Pod on your favorite podcast app, and learn more at AJC.org/PeopleofthePod
You can reach us at: peopleofthepod@ajc.org
If you’ve appreciated this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
__
Transcript of Conversation with Jordan Acker:
Manya Brachear Pashman:
For six years now, AJC has published the State of Antisemitism in America Report, and each year the findings become more alarming and sad. This year's report found that 77% of American Jews say they feel less safe as a Jewish person in the United States because of the Hamas terrorist attacks on October 7, 2023. A majority of American Jews, 56%, said they changed their behavior out of fear of antisemitism, opting not to wear a Star of David, or put up a mezuzah.
And a third of American Jews say they have been the personal target of antisemitism, in person or virtually, at least once over the last year. While the numbers alone are telling, the encounters with antisemitism behind those numbers are even more powerful.
Here to discuss these findings, and sadly, his own family's experience with antisemitism in 2024 is Jordan Acker, a member of the University of Michigan's Board of Regents. Mr. Acker, welcome to People of the Pod.
Jordan Acker:
Thank you so much for having me. On such an unpleasant topic, but . . .
Manya Brachear Pashman:
Despite the circumstances, it's a pleasure to speak with you as well.
So I want to tell our audience a little bit about what you experienced in the last year. Last May, the doorbell camera at your home showed a stranger, with their face covered, walking up to the front door, laying a list of demands, signed by the University of Michigan Gaza Solidarity Encampment. Laid those demands on your front porch.
And then a month later, your law office in suburban Detroit was vandalized with anti-Israel phrases, profanity, directed at you personally. And then in December, you and your family awoke one morning to a pretty horrifying sight.
So could you kind of walk through what you encountered last year?
Jordan Acker:
Yeah, absolutely. So you know, what's interesting about this is that as much as I oppose BDS, I was not the person on the board who was speaking about it, the people that were speaking about it were actually my non-Jewish colleagues. We’re an elected body, six Democrats, two Republicans, and universally, we oppose the idea of boycotts, divestment and sanctions, and we said so. We've affirmed this in 2018, we affirmed this in 2023.
And at some point, while we had an encampment on our campus, it remained relatively peaceful to what other campuses have dealt with, until they started showing up at our homes. We had this happen, a list of demands. Ironically, including, defunding the police was one of the demands. And then, you know, it went to a different level, when it went from all of my colleagues to just me getting the treatment.
My office is an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood. They went to my office in the middle of the night and spray painted messages all over it, including profanities. But they caused over $100,000 worth of damage. And I don't think that location was unintentional. I think that as people were waking up in the neighborhood, going to synagogue the next day, they wanted to make sure that people in that neighborhood saw what had been done. It was certainly on purpose.
And what was so disturbing about it was that three student groups actually posted photos of it in the middle of the night on Instagram, before the police knew about it, before we knew about it, and then quickly took them down, obviously, because, you know, they realize this is a crime. And then things had remained relatively quiet through the fall.
Experiences had been much different than prior semesters, until I was awoken about two in the morning to jars of urine being thrown through my window. And this had followed up several instances of similar incidents. On October 7, the president of our university, who's not Jewish, his personal home was vandalized. The Jewish Federation in Metro Detroit was also vandalized. The head of our endowment, a member of law enforcement, all of their homes were vandalized with pretty much the same messages. Ethnic related, calling them cowards, demanding divestment. Of course, the worst part for me was obviously the jars flying through my home. I have three small children, and having my oldest woken up to that was terrible.
But they spray painted my wife's car with messages to divest, but also upside down triangles, which I think most Jews now take to see as a direct threat. That is a Hamas symbol for a target. And as I've said before, I'm not in the Israeli military. I'm not a military target. I'm not a target at all. I'm a trustee of a public university in the Midwest.
And this kind of behavior, frankly, is unacceptable. It's unacceptable from any members of our community, regardless of where you stand on the political spectrum. And frankly, it's deeply antisemitic. And the fact that there's some people that are questioning that, or wonder why, is part of the problem, part of why we've gotten here. It's a deeply troubling time, I think, for American Jews, for a lot of these reasons.
Manya Brachear Pashman:
You said that you are the only Regent who has been targeted in this way any any sense of why.
Jordan Acker:
It's a good question. You know, I think there's a few different layers to this. I think being Jewish is a big part of the layer, obviously. But also a part of it is that I have a public social media presence. It's something I've maintained since, frankly, when I was running for this office. This is an elected office, obviously, in Michigan. And I think that has something to do with it, for sure. But the degree in the manner is very, very different. And it's really hard to understand why it would happen in this particular way.
Again, except for, you know, an excuse to engage in violent behavior. You know what's so disturbing about this, and what is so heartbreaking to me is that, I understand, you know, for those who are on the other side of this issue, who care deeply about Palestinian rights and Palestinians having their own state? I care about that. I'm the only regent that actually met with SJP prior to October 7. Not because we agree on everything. We do not. But because there's some things that we do agree on. And by the way, the vast majority of American Jews agree on.
I think that's what's been so disturbing about everything that's happened since October the 7th in America, is that you probably have no group of Americans that's more empathetic or sympathetic to Palestinians than American Jews. And yet, there's obviously a large group of this protest movement, or the remains of it at this point, that are deeply antisemitic and are using Palestinians essentially as a weapon to go after and to isolate American Jews.
Manya Brachear Pashman:
Are you the only Jewish regent?
Jordan Acker:
I'm not. At the time, we had three actually, of our eight-member board, were Jewish. But our board is almost universally pro-Israel and almost universally opposed to BDS, and has been for a very long time. And there are lots of reasons for that, but this is, you know, perhaps the person who's been most outspoken about this, interestingly enough, is Denise Ilitch, who, you know, if they were looking to attack a pro Israel business. Well, there are two Little Caesars locations on campus. Right, again, this has nothing to do with being pro-Israel. Coming to my office has a very distinct, very specific message that they're trying to send.
Manya Brachear Pashman:
You said there are a number of reasons why the Board of Regents is universally opposed to BDS. Can you explain those reasons?
Jordan Acker:
I think the first one, and I can only obviously speak for myself on this. The board speaks through its pronouncements and its decisions, but the biggest one actually is that, generally speaking, academic boycotts do not add anything to the conversation. They don't get people closer to resolving conflict. They don't even get people talking about conflict. And to me, that's antithetical to the purpose of the American University.
One of the incidents that has most disturbed me over the last few months, other than obviously, the physical violence, but what's disturbed me is a group of mass protesters went to a lecture by a professor named Marc Dollinger, a guest professor on campus, and Marc Dollinger was teaching, as he does, about the relationship between the black community and the Jewish community during the Civil Rights Movement.
And a group of mass protesters came in and said, We don't engage with Zionists here. And what I've told people is actually the second part of that phrase is deeply offensive, but the first part of that phrase, “we don't engage with” is actually antithetical to the existence of the University of Michigan, and should be tossed aside.
We do engage. We engage with everyone, and we especially engage with the people that we disagree with. And so, that kind of speech and behavior is, to me, the most problematic. Because, again, American universities are places where deeply unpopular ideas should be thrown around. That doesn't give it as an excuse for violence, but it certainly is a place for deeply unpopular ideas, or for popular ideas, or for anyone who's different than you. That's the purpose of this.
And yet, this movement has again decided that Jews, or people who are affiliated with Israel are uniquely deserving of being tossed out. And it's unacceptable and it's un-American.
Manya Brachear Pashman:
Is it just this movement, or has the campus climate been changing more and more in recent years, when it comes to a refusal to engage or the treatment of Jews on campus?
Jordan Acker:
I think that. It's a great question. So what I think is that what has changed actually is not the values of the students. Because, look, college students protest lots of things. When I was a student, BDS was an issue 20 years ago. What's actually changed is the faculty. And that's actually what's most concerning to me, is the way that our faculty has behaved, not all of them, and certainly not even a majority or a minority, but a small group, has behaved since this happened. Throughout this process, throughout these protests, any criticism of the methods has been responded to by the faculty as criticizing everything about the movement. And so I think the faculty has actually, frankly, made the situation a lot worse.
You know, one of the things that I that I learn in conversations with other regents and other trustees across the country, and I'll never forget the story, because it's so telling about where we are here, a person was who's a professor at Columbia now, was telling a story about how he protested the Vietnam War. His mentor at Columbia, who was also opposed to the war, after they invaded Hamilton Hall, came up to him and said, I agree with you on what you're thinking. I don't agree with what you're doing.
And we've gotten to this place now for some reason that we can't do that anymore, that our faculty can't say this is bad behavior, period and deserves punishment, while we also may agree with the underlying politics. What has been most disturbing is, is that, for example, our faculty senate still hasn't condemned the attack on the academic freedom of Professor Dollinger, and only condemned the attack on what happened to my family after I called out the Faculty Senate Chair publicly because she feels the need to publicly defend open antisemitism.
And yet, when it comes to the safety of Jews, she's too busy. And it's really disturbing, quite frankly, and it's a disturbing reflection on our faculty. But I will say that since I pointed this out, I've had dozens of faculty members reach out to me and say, Thank you, thank you for speaking out about this. I don't feel comfortable either, but I can be fired. You know, these promotion decisions come from this group of faculty.
So what I would say is, that there's real problems with the way faculty have been responding, and unlike students, they're grown ups, they're adults. And certainly, I don't want to infringe on academic freedom, but academic freedom does not include the freedom from criticism, and they deserve a lot of how we've gotten here.
Manya Brachear Pashman:
That's interesting that you heard from faculty who were grateful that you spoke up. And I’m curious, you said in an interview last year that since the October 7 attacks in 2023 many of us have been asked to distance ourselves from our Jewish identity. And I'm curious if you are hearing that from some faculty, if you're hearing that from students, can you explain what you meant by that?
Jordan Acker:
I will admit that I stole this phrase from Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo, is ‘protest koshering,’ right? And that's a really interesting way, I think, of what has been asked of a lot of Jews, that Jews have to apologize for their heritage or for their love of the people of Israel, even if, like me, they don't like the government of the people of Israel, right? And that's, I think, been a big challenge.
But what I've seen mostly is, on our campuses, it's not so overt. It shows up in students avoiding certain classes, students avoiding certain professors, or students simply not speaking up at all. And again, those are really disturbing breaches of student academic freedom to have to choose. Oh, well, I can't take this class or that professor, even if that professor might be good, because I might be judged differently, or I might have to listen to a completely unrelated lecture about the Middle East.
Or even worse, we've had professors, and frankly, they're mostly graduate student instructors, canceling class and encouraging people to go to protests. It's an unacceptable place to be. And again, part of the issue here with the faculty is, knowing where the border of your own political activism is and your taxpayer funded job is, right? They're different, and we have to get back to a place where we respect both of those. We can't stop someone from going out, engaging politically, nor should we. But the person also has a responsibility to not bring that into the classroom, especially when it's not directly related to their class.
Manya Brachear Pashman:
And so, what specific examples have you heard from students and faculty in terms of wanting to hide their Jewish identity? Are you hearing any examples of people who perhaps aren't wearing a Star of David necklace or aren't participating in Jewish events because they don't want to be identified as such?
Jordan Acker:
I'm not seeing much of that, to be honest with you, and I think that's a great thing. You know, I was really worried about this myself. I attended the last Shabbat dinner at Hillel prior to the end of the previous school year, and there were hundreds of students there, and it felt like any other Friday night. What I've gotten most from students is that they've been annoyed by it, but they haven't necessarily been, they haven't been overwhelmed. It hasn't been like UCLA or Columbia. It's like I said, it's been less overt.
But I do think that there's been some level of, people keep their heads down right. And that's, I think, a big challenge and a big problem here. But I think, again, I think it's worse among the faculty, far worse among the faculty than it is among our students.
I mean, imagine being a Jewish or Israeli professor on campus right now and thinking that someone like this is going to be responsible for your promotion, for your tenure decisions. Those things are highly disturbing, and we see this all the time. Just last night, you know, we see an epidemiologist who people want to protest because he's Israeli.
Well, at some point it says, Well, how is this person able to get a fair shake on their own academic research at our university, if this is what happens every time you know, they're singled out in a way that, frankly, no Chinese student, or Chinese professor would ever be singled out. Because you would know that that would be clearly anti-Chinese racism. Somehow, this seems to be acceptable when it comes to Israelis and to Jews generally. And it's not. And you know, it's a big problem in the academy, quite frankly.
Manya Brachear Pashman:
You had also said in a previous interview that there has been an intense policing of Jews’ ability to determine for themselves what is antisemitic and what is not. Is that one example, are people actually willing to say, Oh, that's not antisemitic, that just because we protest him, because he's Israeli or Jewish, I would do people, is that what people argue or are there other examples that you can share?
Jordan Acker:
Well, you know, I had professors come to me and say, How could you say what happened to your office is antisemitic? How could you say what happened to your house is antisemitic? And I think that, honestly, in a lot of places, it doesn't come from a bad place. I think it comes from a place of not knowing, right? And I think it comes from a blind spot.
And I think that's really the big issue here, is that there's a real lack of education and interest on the far left with, engaging with us. And I think it's frankly, you know, to say, Oh, it's a failure, the far left is not actually doing the Jewish community generally, a service. I think the Jewish community has also, quite frankly, failed when it comes to helping people on the left who are not antisemitic, but have very real, legitimate criticisms of Israel, helping them do so and engage in a way so the conversations are productive, while pushing out actual antisemitism. And that's, I think, a big difference.
I think that we know, and we're very clear, and I know this, having just come back from from Israel about a month ago, that the criticisms of the Israeli government are quite harsh among other Israelis. And I don't think that stopping the Israeli government from being criticized in America is helpful at all either. I think it, frankly, deserves a lot of criticism, just like any other democratically elected government does. But it's the how, it's the what, who's the messenger? How does the message come across, that I think things are really lacking, and people are are really not understanding why it veers so frequently into antisemitism and how to tell people, you know, that language is not acceptable.
The person who was the head of the coalition that did our encampment put out a bunch of posts on Instagram saying that anyone who believes in the Zionist entity should die and worse. The problem, obviously, is her own personal antisemitism, which is obvious. But more importantly, the problem here is that nobody says: that's not acceptable, you're gone.
That, to me, is the biggest failure. Because it says we are not policing ourselves in our own behavior, and it discredits movements. But more importantly, it shows what a utter failure this movement has been in order to get anything for Palestinians without hurting American Jews, which has ultimately been the target of so much of this.
Manya Brachear Pashman:
I want to share more findings from the antisemitism report. The survey found that 81% of American Jews are able to divorce their displeasure with the government from their spiritual connection to Israel. In other words, they say caring about Israel is important to what being Jewish means to them. I think this is perhaps, is what you mean, or maybe it isn't, by a blind spot. I mean, is part of the problem on college campuses, that lack of understanding about the American Jewish spiritual connection to Israel?
Jordan Acker:
I think that's a big part of it. And I think that's I think that's a big thing that we're lacking when it comes to understanding the story of the Jewish people, but frankly, it's a story that could be told on the other side as well, about Palestinian connection to the land and to the region as well. You know when we talk about where Jews pray, what direction we pray, the importance of Jerusalem, the importance of so many places in Israel, and of that spiritual connection. I think that there is a lack of understanding of that.
You know, one of the things that I got out of my own trip to Israel and meeting with Jewish and Palestinian students, was, they understand, and they believe, correctly, in my view, that the protest movement America has simply Americanized a non-American conflict. This is not settler colonialism or, or some, you know, academic theory. These are two peoples with very deep connections to this land who have a very, very difficult challenge in front of them, and it's different.
And I think that, yeah, I think we have failed at that. I think the whole concept, you know, and I've had this conversation with my friends in the Arab American community, the whole concept of not knowing that, you know, they talk about the Nakba and this, you know, ejection of Palestinians in 1948 and, there is some truth to it, but what they don't know or speak about at all is the ejection of the Jewish communities that were also thousands of years old from the Arab world – at that exact same time. And so I bring this up not to say that one group has more of a claim than the other, or one group has more of a claim for having suffered than the other, but to say that we need to talk about both sides of this narrative, and we're not.
And you know, too much of this movement has brought forward Jews who say things like, you know, as a Jew, I blah, blah, blah, and I have no connection to the Jewish community, or in Israel. But it misses out what the vast majority of American Jews say, and the vast majority of world Jewry says, which is, they do have a spiritual connection to Israel. And it's fine not to, by the way, that's your personal belief, but there's been this mistaken belief that that viewpoint is representative of all of the Jewish community, and while it's a small group certainly, it is not the majority at all. Most American Jews do have an understandable connection to the land of Israel.
Manya Brachear Pashman:
Has the conversation on campus been a debate or discussion about the two people who have a connection to the land, or has it focused more on whether Jews have a right to self determination?
Jordan Acker:
So I met with students at Tel Aviv University, Ben Gurion University, and Hebrew University, all three of which have very large Palestinian and Arab and Muslim populations. And they recognize the complexity of the conflict. And when I left there, my first, my big feeling about this was deep embarrassment for the way that our students had or so it's not all of our students, but a group of students had acted, you know, this whole concept of genocide and settler colonialism and and it is completely removed from the everyday experiences and understandings of both peoples.
I think the conversation on campus has been wildly counterproductive. I think it has done no good for anyone over there and has only served to hurt people here. You know, I think there's a lot of folks on the other side who genuinely believe that protesting is helpful for the Palestinian people, and do not understand why these specific attacks are so harmful to American Jews. And I don't think, you know, again, I don't think the American Jewish community has done a great job in helping to educate and to push people into places that are not anti semitic, but I think generally, the conversations have been particularly unproductive that they just put people into camps, and people are not able to listen and talk to each other because they use extremely loaded language, and have are looking for social media points. They're not looking for discussions and understanding.
Manya Brachear Pashman:
Well, I will say that the State of Antisemitism in America report found that a majority of Americans, 85% the same number of American Jews, agree that the statement Israel has no right to exist, that foundational core of anti Zionism, that that statement is antisemitic. So I'm curious, does that give you hope that meaningful dialog is still possible? It still could be on the horizon, or has that ship sailed?
Jordan Acker:
No. I think that. I think no ship has ever sailed permanently. I think we're in a far worse place off than we were before October 7. I think everyone is actually in a far worse place off. It gives me hope and understanding that Jews are an accepted mainstream part of American life, and I think that's for a lot of Jews myself included. There was a feeling that we were being intentionally isolated, that our allies weren't standing up and talking for us at the times when we needed them the most. But I think that it's pretty clear at this point that positions like that are a minority that harassing my family. And engaging in violent behavior. Those are a minority.
You know, the group that has been most that called me first, the leadership of the community called me first when this happened to me, was the Arab American community in Metro Detroit, community that I have long relationships with, good relationships with.
You know, I've had the mayor of Dearborn over for Shabbat dinner, and I appreciate and love those and cherish those relationships, but I think that it is totally separate from the question of Israel in whether Jews have a right to exist in America as full citizens, right that we don't have to take we're only citizens if we take certain positions, right? I think that's what, to me, that is most hopeful about, is it shows that that particular position is rejected by the vast majority of Americans. And I think that's a really good thing for American Jews at a time when world Jewry is in a pretty precarious state.
Manya Brachear Pashman:
You mentioned that you have three young daughters who awoke to that vandalism in your home that morning. How are they processing all of this?
Jordan Acker:
It's been really hard. You know, I think trying to explain to a nine and a seven year old why someone would do this to your family is really difficult. My seven year old said to one of her friends that there are people who are trying to bully daddy. And I guess that's true, and in the technical sense of the word, I think that that's right, but I think that it's really a challenging thing.
You know, my girls are fortunate to go to great public schools with Jews and non-Jews. They're fortunate they do gymnastics in a very diverse community on the east side, which we love. So they get to see and know people of all races, colors, religions, you name it. I mean, Detroit is a remarkable and diverse place, and to think that they were being singled out, I think, is something that they can't quite put their heads around, because it doesn't exist to them. You know, for them, you know, the black girls that they do gymnastics with are the same as the Lebanese girls who they do gymnastics with, same as the Jewish girls they do gymnastics with.
It’s just, can you complete your round off, right? And that’s where I'd like them back to being again. But it's really, really challenging when you've had something like this happen to you. So because the sound is so visceral and it's just so violative of your family, and frankly, of the way America should work, it's, it's, that's why I said at the beginning of this pod, it's un-American to engage in this kind of violence. It's the kind of violence that the Klan would engage in. And you know, that's why we have laws like here we do in Michigan to prevent people from masking in public like this. It's for this exact reason, because that's what the Klan did. And we have to toss it out because it has no place in our society, period.
Manya Brachear Pashman:
Jordan, thank you so much for joining us and for kind of explaining the situation on University of Michigan's campus, but also your own family's encounter.
Jordan Acker:
Thank you so much for having me, and for your wonderful CEO, I have to end this with a Go Blue, and thanks again.