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4/4/21 Minutes
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General Body Meeting Minutes

April 4th, 2021 at 9:00 PM

  1. Roll Call
  2. Open Forum
  3. Executive
  1. Resolution on Defining and Condemning Anti-Semitism
  1. Reports
  1. President’s Report
  1. Past Meetings  
  1. University Council Steering
  1. Upcoming Meetings
  1. Council of Undergraduate Deans
  2. Provost’s Office
  1. Vice President’s Report
  1. Initiative Updates
  1. COVID Care Package Distribution
  1. Upcoming Meetings
  1. UA Steering
  1. Speaker’s Report
  1. Member of the Week
  1. Treasurer’s Report
  1. Budget Allocation with New Numbers
  1. Secretary’s Report
  1. Annual Report
  1. Project Highlights  
  2. Completion Reports

Executive

Resolution on Defining and Condemning Anti-Semitism

Authored by: Samuel Kim and Yarden Wiesenfeld

WHEREAS, the University of Pennsylvania educates students from diverse backgrounds, including those who are often underserved and underrepresented; and

 

WHEREAS, the University of Pennsylvania assumes fundamental responsibility for the economic, social, cultural and overall health of the communities it serves; and

 

WHEREAS, Jewish students constitute an important part of the broader Penn community, yet remain distinguishable from the majority by common ethnic and cultural characteristics; and

 

WHEREAS, the Jewish community is thus a distinct and significant cultural community within the University of Pennsylvania which the University of Pennsylvania is charter-bound to support, protect, and defend; and

 

RECOGNIZING THAT, in recent years, there has been a record spike in attacks against Jews across the nation, including, but not limited to:

 

●      Kansas City, MO: Jewish Community Center (JCC) shooting (2014)

●      Charlottesville, NC: Demonstration of White Supremacists with chants of “Jews Will Not Replace Us” (2017)

●      Pittsburgh, PA: Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting (2018)

●      Poway, CA : Chabad Synagogue Shooting (2018)

●      Jersey City, NJ: Shooting at a Kosher Supermarket (2019)

●      Monsey, NY: A knife-wielding man stormed into a rabbi’s home and stabbed five people while they celebrated Hanukkah in an Orthodox Jewish community (2019)

●      Brooklyn, NY: During the months of December 2019 – October 2020, there were 39 attacks against Jews.

 

FURTHER RECOGNIZING THAT this takes place within a national context where hate crimes against Jewish individuals and institutions account for 58% of all US anti-religious incidents and offenses, with Jews comprising only 2.1% of the United States population; and

 

NOW, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, the Undergraduate Assembly, on behalf of the student body, stands in solidarity with the Jewish community and unreservedly condemns all forms of anti-Semitism, both on and off campus; and

 

THEREFORE, BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, the Undergraduate Assembly calls upon the University of Pennsylvania to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) official definition of anti-Semitism: “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities;” and

 

NOTING THAT, the International Holocaust Rememberance Alliance’s working definition of anti-Semitism has been recognized by the United States under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, by numerous other countries, such as Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Canada, Austria, Scotland, Romania, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Moldova, Greece, Cyprus, North Macedonia, Serbia, Argentina, the European Parliament, and Albania, by internationally recognized institutions, including the Global Imams Council, and by universities around the world, including Pace University, Arizona State University, and Florida State University, among others; and

 

 

THEREFORE, BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED, the Undergraduate Assembly shall send a copy of this resolution to President Gutmann, Provost Pritchett, and other key members of the University administration.

 

 

REFERENCES:

●      https://azjewishlife.com/how-can-jews-be-both-an-ethnic-group-and-a-religion/

●      https://www.holocaustremembrance.com/resources/working-definitions-charters/working-definition-antisemitism

●      https://www.adl.org/what-we-do/anti-semitism/antisemitism-in-the-us

●      https://www.adl.org/education-and-resources/resource-knowledge-base/adl-tracker-of-antisemitic-incidents

●      https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime/2018/topic-pages/incidents-and-offenses

●      https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jewish-population-in-the-united-states-by-state

Reports

President’s Report

  1. Past Meetings  
  1.  University Council Steering
  1. On Wednesday, March 31st, Mary and I attended UC Steering where we gave a status report on current UA initiatives and heard reports from other university leaders. That was the last UC Steering meeting of the year.
  1. Upcoming Meetings
  1. Council of Undergraduate Deans
  1. On Wednesday, April 7th, I will attend the Council of Undergraduate Deans. We will finalize the 2023-2024 Academic Calendar, decide on Dean's List for 2020-2021, and discuss plans for Summer and Fall 2021. The next CUD meeting will be on May 12th, which is when I will introduce the new UA President to the council!
  1. Provost’s Office
  1. On Friday, April 9th, Cabinet will meet with the Provost’s Office. We plan to discuss publicity and accountability regarding the CRC Program review; diversity within faculty from the lens of recruitment, retention, and anti-bias training; and plans for the Fall 2021 semester.

Vice President’s Report

  1. Initiative Updates
  1. COVID Care Package Distribution
  1. We have a big delivery coming on Wednesday. We’ll need students on site at Houston Hall to assist with getting boxes in place and organized. If you know you have some time during the day, please shoot me a text!
  2. The last of our care package items are arriving! We’ll be working with SPEC to do a mass distribution event on College Green this Friday, April 9th, from 9am-6pm. We’ll be giving out the following items: beanies, bluelight glasses, coloring books, webcam covers, phone wallets, grocery totes, masks, camping chairs, picnic blankets, and frisbees. I will be emailing out all of the details on how to sign up to help out. We really need all hands on deck! Treat this like UA Airport Shuttles :)
  1. Upcoming Meetings
  1. UA Steering
  1. UA Steering will be meeting for the last time this Tuesday, April 6th, from 7:30-8:30pm. We’ll be joined by the deans of our four undergraduate schools, Dr. Julie Sochalski (Nursing), Dr. Russell Composto (Engineering), Dr. Diana Robertson (Wharton), and Dr. Paul Sniegowski (College), and we’ll discuss topics such as online learning, faculty hiring, the new schedule revamp, and plans for the Fall 2021 semester.

Speaker’s Report

  1. This week’s MOTW is…

Treasurer’s Report

  1. Budget Allocation with New Numbers
  1. Budget Committee met last week to deliberate and decide what the updated allocation should be. The new allocation is $2,700,970 and will be posted on the UA site.

Secretary’s Report

  1. Annual Report
  1. Here is the form to submit your annual report contributions. It is incredibly important that you submit according to the format outlined in the form. If you worked on a project as a group, only one member of the project team needs to submit a report. These are due on Today !!! (April 4th). If you have any other questions, please let me know!

Submission Format:

Project Title [Bolded]

Project Member(s) Name School’Year [Italicized and comma separated if multiple members]

A concise summary of your project written in the third-person that captures the project’s goal/objective, the administrative offices/contacts you interacted with, and one of three endings: a summary of it completion/implementation, an explanation of why it was infeasible/failed, or an outline of  next steps for ongoing/long term projects. This should be no longer than 4-5 sentences.

Example Submission:

Daily Texting Mental Health Check-ins

Tristan Maslar W’24, Pranav Tadikonda C’24, and Nicholas Kuo SEAS’24

Tristan, Pranav, and Nicholas have begun setting up work using the data from the survey project on a texting service. Currently in the process of laying out the foundation, the service will be an optional sign up for students of the University, and will send daily morning and evening texts asking the participant how they are feeling on an overall scale. Based upon the response given by the user, using predetermined numerical values, the service will respond giving resources fitting the participant’s need. The three hope to have the service up during the beginning of the Spring ‘21 semester, and are looking right now for funding options.

Minutes

  1. Roll Call
  1. Members of the public
  1. Sam Kim, Yarden Wiesenfeld, Ben Moss-Hortwitz, Elsa Wefes-Potter, Rachel Steinig, Marissa Ephron, Zane Pasha, Selene Bonczok Sotelo, Mahdi Bouchekouk
  1. Open Forum
  1. Mercedes
  1. Mercedes: So initially, Yarden and Sam reached out to me about this issue, I wanted to make sure people from both sides came to speak before we decided on the resolution. Sam and Yarden authored the resolution, and others are here to oppose it.  
  1. Jonathan: I sent this into Slack, PAGE and Penn Non-cis did a trans language guide and how to be more inclusive here. I would greatly appreciate it if you would look at it and share it. Here
  1. Executive
  1. Resolution on Defining and Condemning Anti-Semitism
  1. Sam: Good evening, thank you President Mercedes for inviting me. I’m a senior majoring in business.
  2. Yarden: Hi I’m Yarden, a senior in college majoring in biochem. This year we witnessed a former professor using a Nazi phrase and salute in a zoom conference. Administration and the student body responded quickly. This attack on jews was obvious and identifiable to all.
  3. Sam; This incident is not an outlier, there has been an increase across the US. in 2019 there was a larger increase (gave number). Pennsylvania has the largest number of antisemetic incidents in the country.
  4. Yarden: Not all incidents are as clear as the one a few months back, for this reason it is important to have a working definition. The definition presented by (org) has been endorsed by Biden, Obama, Trump, and has been adopted by 26 colleges across the nation, NYU, UCSB, etc. It is our turn to adopt a definition to define acts of antisemitism.
  1. Q&A
  1. Jonah: Where have you first heard about this incident, what's your background and why are you the two that are bringing it to the table.
  2. Yarden: I personally am a Jew and I feel like while there are very blatant acts of antisemitism that we can clearly respond to, I think there are many more subtle forms of antisemitism that are less identifiable. It is clear that antisemitism is on the rise in this country and again also within Pennsylvania and Philadelphia. That's why it is necessary to have a definition in our charter to inform people and prevent hate.
  3. Sam: For me, I would say that coming to Penn a lot of close friends I made, people I consider family are Jewish, they have always been open to sharing their culture. When I was here when Trump was elected, a lot of incidents have been occuring. I want to be an ally and it is important to address this issue not only when these violent incidents occur, it is important to be proactive.
  4. Joanthan: Someone mentioned bringing this into our charter, what did that mean. What is the goal of the resolution. I guess I'm more so confused about putting this into a charter.
  5. Yarden: So, this directly means taking the resolution we have drafted and putting that into legislation, passing it by a vote of the majority. I'm not super clear how that works in the UA, but it is the resolution as we have drafted it.
  6. Selene: Are you guys part of any groups or clubs at Penn.
  7. Sam: I’m a part of Students supporting Israel, Penn Players, I was involved in Penn students against gun violence but that is inactive this semester.
  8. Yarden: I’m the former chair of the conservative jewish community. Which is conservative in terms of the religious affiliation. I was also part of students supporting israel.
  9. Allan: Hi thanks for coming, could you tell me, when you referenced the IRIA definition in the resolution, do you only want to include that section if its not the entire IHRA definition.
  10. Yarden: We are including exactly what is included.
  11. Allan: There is something in the chat and that is purposely not being included?
  12. Yarden: That is not in the definition itself, but it is examples to identify the context.
  13. Ben: Hi Yarden, could you clarify what is your position with students supporting israel.
  14. Yarden: I was the co-president.
  15. Elsa: The examples are not included, but by the understanding of the IHRA definition, the examples must be included.
  1. Opposition
  1. Rachel: Just to address what Elsa is saying, the IHRA includes the definition which is with the resolution but also includes 11 examples which are integral to the definition. So, this definition of antisemitism is very controversial. It is taken with the examples that have been used to criminalize speech that is criticizing the israeli government. I will first talk why it is not an effective definition as a jewish person, and if it were adopted it wouldn't do much to stop anti semitism. I will also reference the Jerusalem definition of antisemitism. In IHRA it talks about a certain perception, it relies on ambiguous terms, doesnt mention discrimination, etc. So even disregarding Israel and Palestine, this definition is not helpful or comprehensive enough. Lastly, many progressive jewish groups oppose this definition.
  2. Marissa: In addition to all of that, we are really concerned about the possibility of the definition to criminalize all support for palestiean rights in an issue that is very nuanced and one of the longest on going conflicts that is huge today. This has a problem of potentially criminalizing or censoring classes, professors, etc. Many people have argued that this definition is used to stifle not only criticism against israel but also support for palesteanina rights. As someone who is jewish as well, I believe I have benefited from taking a class at Penn that explored the nation of the conflict and I am worried that if it is adopted that many will be suppressed or silenced. The vagueness is a point that is used to be stronger in legal cases to be stronger in any case. When you just read the definition itself there is not a lot of substance there. It is not a strong definition to protect jews. The examples are supposed to be vague to be weaponized in many situations. There are neoconservative groups that are attacking groups that are supportive or palenestian rights groups. This allows groups to deny anyone critical of Israel access to campus resources. Many things could be censored under this definition. Equating criticism with antisemitism has important work. (She was talking fast, I did the best I could - Carson)
  3. Yarden: I would first like to speak to the point of it censoring, firstly the definition does not censor, there is no legality here, there is no something put in stone to address antisemetic incidents, it is a tool for education. You are welcome to discuss and criticize. We as a nation have talked about ways in which we need to create a line where criticism passes into hate speech. The definition is just trying to come up with a way of creating that line. I will also go to Rachel’s point, 85% of American jews are zionist. 85% of American jews would also view the claim as Israel does not have the right to exist as antisemtitic. Although there are a portion of jews who do not feel this way, there are a lot who do. So when a lot of people. (Janice cuts her off because this is Q&A for opposition)
  4. Ryan: Is it mentioned on the IHRA that if it does not include all 11 examples it is not their definition.
  5. Rachel: That was sent in the chat
  6. Micah: I would ask towards Rachel and Marissa, as progressive jews have there been any mainstream resolution of antisemitism that has ever been looked into that you would be looking at for an alternative. It is clear the people in favor of this are proposing, is there anything alternative from your end?
  7. Ben: Around 200 experts in middle eastern arab studies, just released a definition that gets to the issue. The jerusalem definition changes, I will copy and paste into the chat. It clarifies that anti semitism is discimrination, hostility, etc of jews. The basic definition of IHRA is if there is anything against Israel it is antisemetic, but the other definition is a little different.
  8. Marissa: I think for me, what is important here is recognizing antisemitism is akin to all other types of racism, recognized through several UN movements and resolutions. Having a separate definition that is used to criminalize descent to Israeli state policies, well it is very clear it is politicized in all the wrong ways. I trust members of the UA would understand what racism and antisemitism is. IHRA definition is used a lot of the time against progressive jews and others.
  9. Sam: My question is that the IHRA does not tell what organizations should do, what should be legally prohibited.  It is simply a tool for distinguishing hate, etc. There is no criminalization here.
  10. Marissa: I would say that is irrelevant, there are several websites that are run by neoconservatives to attack and suppress anyone who criticizes Israel, it affects peoples careers, livelihoods, and most of the time people are afraid to speak out because of this. It has been used in several cases in legal arguments and that's before it has even been adopted.
  11. Yarden: I was going to ask, which definition the entire community proportionally supports, the IHRA definition or the JD definition.
  12. Rachel: I think evident by this meeting, there is a lot of contention by many members of the jewish community. That's why I don’t think it is appropriate because there is a lot of intra community debate about this.
  13. Mark: I’m a little bit confused, there are a few references to israels. The only bit of is that the state of Israel is racist, but I do think that is antisemetic. I’m confused about what is contentious here.
  14. Marissa: If we are talking about double standards here, why can we say any other state is racist, or see if states are engaging in racist practices, we can do that with any other state to see if there is oppression occurring. Palestinians are absolutely oppressed and I’m confused why that's not a double standard.
  15. Mark: That's because Israel has been much more demonized than other states. When you have organizations like the UN when it makes condemnations 90% of the time against Israel when there are many other bad actors. Israel being singled out for many things, I think it has become that criticism of israel is not inherently antisemetic, but has become that.
  16. Ben: Yea, so the question you asked initially is really important, its not talking about israel, why is this a conversation about israel. Kenneth Stern wrote this, he wrote a ton about the difference between the language in what the piece says and how it is used. In the 2010s Israeli groups have used the language in the definition to attack speakers, protests, etc. He worries that some will avoid teaching modern Israel because of the definition. I don’t think Israel is an issue that the UA should be voting on, but this is a question about a certain definition that has historically been used for free speech.
  17. Jonathan: My question is, have you had your own discussions outside this meeting to discuss this resolution and has it been productive.
  18. Daniela: I’m just wondering if the side proposing the definition is just trying to include only the part that is in there.
  19. Marissa; I found out about it today and was upset, so that's why I’m here. We have not talked to the other side.
  20. Yarden: We wanted the definition to remain in the charter. The JDA definition is far more partisan than the IHRA definition is, it leans in the direction of only targeting right wing anti semitism. I am democratic and liberal but I think both sides and both types of anti semitism exist. The JHA definition is not created  in Jerusalem, it's created in Germany and London I believe. When Ben talks about an author, it is one out of many and many have spoken out against him.
  1. Pro/Con
  1. Jonathan Neutral: Hi, my thought and my opinion is that the UA body is not educated enough on this topic to make a decision regarding this definition. These two opposing sides should show up with a compromise on the definition so it impacts them in a positive manner. I do think it has really important aspects as well.
  2. Yarden: My opinion is that yes, we should pass this. We are happy to educate and that is the intent of the IHRA resolution to educate on antisemitism in many forms as I have talked about.
  3. Allan Con: From what I have heard from the con side, the denial of the right to self determination is the problem and if that was excluded and it wasn't the IHRA definition, it could be a working definition tonight.
  4. Regan Neutral: I’m neutral because, I think this is an extremely important issue, however for me I am a jewish individual even I don’t feel like this time in the GBM is enough to do this issue justice, for me I feel like it requires more time due to the complexity of the issue.
  5. Sam Pro: I’d just like to say this isn't meant to be political, just to stop hate speech and stop a marginalized community, just for us to be proactive. I think we need to listen to the people, when 85% of people say something is racist you need to believe that, you’ll
  6. Zane: Neutral: The issue is this is political, it prevents people from having free speech.
  7. Ryan Neutral: I think this issue is well above the pay grade of the UA, entire nations and countries have not figured it out. It's conversations that need to happen behind the scenes. We can’t change that definition. I really appreciate all of the comments, I think it is a little too much for our body to weigh one way or the other.
  8. Mark Neutral: I’m neutral solely because I don’t know what the necessity is, if we are going to be doing so, the idea of a state being inherently racist is antisemetici. To say China or the US who have done bad in the past is wrong.
  1. Motions
  1. Mercedes: Motion to table to next session, we want to be educated (said more and gave points on why it should be tabled).
  2. Janice: Discussion is officially tabled (Passed by vote)
  3. Mercedes: For those who came, thank you for coming. I encourage you to come up with something we can adopt and support that is inclusive of the entire jewish community. Thank you so much for coming.
  1. Reports
  1. President’s Report
  1. Past Meetings  
  1. University Council Steering
  1. Mercedes: We had the last UC steering, we talked about focus issues that will be talked about next year. We did submit some of the topics, I linked that in the agenda last week. The next UC meeting is also coming up.
  1. Upcoming Meetings
  1. Council of Undergraduate Deans
  1. Mercedes: I believe this is the meeting where we finalize the 2023-2024 academic calendar, it is just the calendar and not add drop deadlines, we will also talk about deans list 2020-2021. We will probably not have the deans list. We also are talking about plans for the summer and fall of 2021. The next CUD meeting is on May 12th and I will introduce the next UA president there. If you want to talk about P/F or other deadlines please let me know now. Please connect with me offline on academic deadlines for next year, it was very big for AI, tori if you have things we should keep in mind please let me know before wednesday.
  1. Provost’s Office
  1. Mercedes: We play on discussing CRC review, anti bias training. We shared the document with WAB, DAB, and others. We are lastly going to talk about plans for the fall 2021 semester.
  1. Vice President’s Report
  1. Initiative Updates
  1. COVID Care Package Distribution
  1. This week we are wrapping up the covid care package project, on wednesday we have a delivery coming of our chairs. We have 300+ boxes of them, Katie let me know they would like to have students on site to assist, I don’t know exactly when it is coming, if you know you have time please let me know. I imagine it will be day time, if we can have a couple be there that would be great. We are trying to distribute everything on Friday as a part of spring fling, I am coordinating that with SPEC, I have all the details ready to send to you. We are trying to have a distribution on college green from 9 am, etc. We need a lot of people to help out, staff tables, etc. If the weather is ok and this does end up happening, we need everyone to help out. Normally we have UA airport shuttles twice a year where you are required to sign up, since we don't have that I would love if you brought that energy to this. We have been working on this for awhile. We will interact with students, etc. I will send out that info soon.
  1. Upcoming Meetings
  1. UA Steering
  1. Mary: The last UA steering is this tuesday. I don’t think they usually come to steering, but it's cool to bring them. I still have to send them the agenda tomorrow morning, so if you have a pressing question let me know. We will discuss online learning, faculty hiring, asian studies program, and schedule revamp for the fall.
  1. Speaker’s Report
  1. Member of the Week
  1. UA Spent 5 minutes gassing up M&M.
  1. Treasurer’s Report
  1. Budget Allocation with New Numbers
  1. Nikhil: Budget has increased to 2.7 million, we were able to fund everyone's requests in full. We had a 800 request for Janice. We had a caveat that if utilization returns to lower levels, for the 2023 allocation it could be lowered. All the remaining of the increase will go to SAC and other student groups on campus.
  1. Secretary’s Report
  1. Annual Report
  1. Project Highlights  
  2. Completion Reports