The following summary was provided by Pitzer College Student, Elliott:
To Whom It May Concern –
Starting on September 19, 2014, an Alpha Epsilon Pi brother living at Claremont McKenna had his Israeli flag stolen from someone prying the metal screen from his first-story room. Three days later, on September 22, he noticed that the mezuzah his father had bought for him in Jerusalem was stolen. This was documented in the following on-campus articles: http://claremontindependent.com/jewish-student-target-of-anti-semitic-crimes-on-campus/ and http://tsl.pomona.edu/articles/2014/10/3/opinions/5464-anti-semitism-knocking-at-our-doorposts.
The CMC administration saw them as a bias-related incident, but they did not call it “anti-Semitic” right away.
Immediately after that, AEPi and Chabad on Campus International purchased over 30 mezuzot for the Chi Chi colony of AEPi, sending a strong message to the student body that if one person takes a mezuzah, then 30 more will come up. The story is summarized here: http://www.chabad.org/news/article_cdo/aid/2737137/jewish/Mezuzah-Torn-Down-in-Hate-Crime-30-More-Go-Up.htm.
Not even a month afterwards, the same student who was targeted earlier had his replacement mezuzah ripped off. The CMC administration then labeled this incident as “anti-Semitic.” Here’s the Truth Revolt article on it: I wrote an article about the importance of trying to distinguish anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism following the theft of the second mezuzah: http://claremontindependent.com/redefining-the-lines-2/.
At the start of the spring semester, another AEPi brother had his mezuzah ripped off his doorpost, making it three stolen mezuzot in a matter of an entire academic year. The administration also responded harshly to this.
On February 18th, an individual went to the anonymous social media platform Yik Yak saying that he/she had torn down flyers for an event hosted by my group, Claremont Students for Israel. Following the discovery of the torn flyers, one of my board members wrote on Yik Yak about how unacceptable the action was, and it resulted in a series of anti-Semitic commentary that I posted on Twitter and tagged the AMCHA Initiative in.
On February 24th, Susan Tuchman, the Director of ZOA’s Center for Law and Justice, sent a letter to every President of the five Claremont Colleges (Pitzer, Claremont McKenna, Pomona, Scripps, and Harvey Mudd). There have been no comments since then.
This is the summary of events that have occurred in the Claremont Colleges since the start of the 2014-2015 academic year. Claremont McKenna did not have an Israeli Apartheid Week in 2015.
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