Faculty members and a student will be hosting “Judaism at the Intersection: A Roundtable Discussion” to discuss different issues surrounding the Jewish community at the Glasscock Library April 30 from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. in Glasscock 311. The event is free to the public and the panelists include Claire Katz, Philosophy and Humanities, Ph.D.; Ashley Passmore, International Studies, Ph.D.; David Brenner, International Studies, Ph.D.; and political science senior Sanna Bhai.

Different topics to be covered include issues facing Jews of color and the connectedness between anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. Assistant professor of German Ashley Passmore said originally, the roundtable was going to focus on anti-Semitism after the Pittsburgh massacre. After some consideration, the roundtable expanded to include topics related to anti-Semitism.

“We also felt the Pittsburgh massacre was not just about anti-Semitism, but it was also about immigration,” Passmore said. “If we look at the kinds of issues the attacker was going after, they were also anti-Muslim and kind of Islamophobic. We decided we wanted to talk about anti-Semitism in the United States and its connections with other types of hate discourses [by] looking at it intersectionality between anti-Semitism and other struggles in this country.”

Passmore said the discussion was split among the panelists to cover the history of these types of discussions, the contemporary situation of Jewish issues and research on the rise of Islamophobia and anti-Semitic speech online. Passmore said she will primarily be talking about issues surrounding Jews of color, specifically their position after the Pittsburgh massacre.

“We [the panelists] all come from different backgrounds and we wanted to hear different voices,” Passmore said. “It’s not just an academic roundtable, we’re not just going to present our research. We wanted there to be enough discussions from audience members and between ourselves to hear from people who are different ages and from different backgrounds and experiences.”
Lecturer of German David Brenner will be facilitating the discussion on what anti-Semitism means. The discussion will serve as an opportunity to open up the question of what it means to be Jewish, culturally and religiously, according to Brenner.
“For the one hand, we do want to show that you’re not alone, that students and others in our community are not alone in their various forms of minority status,” Brenner said. “Also, that we can have a civil conversation, a fairly safe conversation that’s fairly neutral despite our differences and despite the reality of prejudice and discrimination.”

 Passmore said when the panelists originally came together, they decided to do a panel similar to the “Race, Identity and Social Equity,” or RISE, conference. As the discussion of what the roundtable would include progressed, they wanted to include other voices and how anti-Semitism fits with other issues, like Islamophobia.
“Some of these topics are tough and I think some of the ideas are challenging, but for me, I’m not troubled by that at all,” Passmore said. “I actually hope that we can talk about some of the things that are troublesome. I think that people getting together as a community, even in a public way, talking to one another in a face-to-face way, I think that there’s a lot of potential there for recognizing differences but also similarities.”