Jewish Family Withdraws Scholarship From Trinity University in Ireland Due to Rampant Antisemitism
“No duty of care to your Jewish students or donors has been shown. This shames the pluralist ethos of the college”
It’s surprising that this is not happening at more schools. Why should Jewish people fund scholarships at schools that tolerate this?
The Irish Times reports:
Family withdraws Trinity bursary in protest over college becoming ‘no-go zone for Jews’
A prominent Jewish family has withdrawn a bursary for disadvantaged students at Trinity College Dublin in protest over the university becoming a “no-go zone for Jews” due to what it calls the university’s failure to protect student welfare.
Dr Edwin Abrahamson, a UK-based consultant paediatrician, helped create the Maurice Abrahamson Bursary last year in memory of his father, a Trinity law graduate who went on to become a successful stockbroker in Dublin.
He wrote to the provost of Trinity this week after the university released a statement on Wednesday in which it pledged to fully divest from three Israeli companies in which it held investments in response to a student protest encampment, and to review other ties to Israel.
“TCD appeared to have yielded to mob rule in their decisions regarding Israel and have allowed the college become a no-go zone for Jews, with terrorist flags flying openly, racist placards and a culture of fear to prevail,” he wrote. “There is complete shock in our community.”
He said in a follow-up interview the “terrorist flag” reference was to a flag for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) – designated a terrorist organisation by the EU – which was waved by some masked students on campus this week.
Dr Abrahamson, a cousin of Irish film director Lenny Abrahamson, said some of the rhetoric used in student protests over recent months was “pure anti-Semitism”, and appeared to have celebrated the October 7th killings in Israel that led to the current Israel-Hamas war.
“The college has not only taken no action but rewarded them, yielding to every demand. No duty of care to your Jewish students or donors has been shown. This shames the pluralist ethos of the college,” he said.
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Comments
Big surprise the Irish are anti semitic , it’s like saying water is wet.
I am glad to see donors taking action to ensure that academic institutions live up to their principals and act ethically. However, most of these donors are merely punishing already wealth institutions, not helping to solve the probem.. When the institutions they attended and supported fail to act ethically consistent with their principals, donors need to do more that withdraw their funds. They need to redirect those funds to institutions that do fulfill their purposes and act ethically. In actuality, there has never been good reason to continue dumping money on wealthy schools other than make the donors look or feel good. Their philanthropy always would have been better directed to improving less wealth institutions serving less elite students thus providing competition to the elite institutions. That’s what I’ve done by ceasing supporting my highly ranked college and directing funds to a more local institution which actually does more to improve the minds and lives of its students. Hopefully, it will eventually move from being merely “good” to being great while continuing to act ethically and remaining true to its principals. If that happens, I will have accomplished far more than someone who merely shoveled dollars to already wealthy schools run by grasping careerists more concerned with wealth and power than the public good.
“Hopefully, it will eventually move from being merely “good” to being great while continuing to act ethically and remaining true to its principals.”
It never does. Largesse always attracts parasites and breeds indolence. The best performers are the ones who are always medium hungry.
Fair point. But my gifts won’t give rise to that problem. They’re substantial by most standards, but not by the standards of the truly wealthy.