Jewish students look to battle ignorance after reported UK student use of Nazi salute

Ever since she began following the account, Melanie Gelernter feared she’d see her school mentioned.

“I always sort of had a fear in the back of my brain. I just hope I never see UK’s name under there, at the bottom of the post like that,” said Gelernter, a Jewish student at the University of Kentucky, in reference to @jewishoncampus, an Instagram account that gives voice to reported instances of antisemitism at colleges across the U.S.

Early this month, UK was tagged at the bottom of one of the account’s post. An anonymous UK student, who had a Star of David necklace and a tattoo in Hebrew, told the account that some of his fraternity pledge brothers were using Nazi salutes in greeting.

“After telling them I was actually Jewish, they continued to do it even more, laughing about it,” the post stated.

At the university, the post triggered a referral to the Office of Student Conduct, UK’s student disciplinary arm, the Kentucky Kernel first reported. The post also began conversations among Jewish students and faculty about seeking accountability and battling what they see as the main source for the antisemitism they’ve seen around campus: Ignorance.

“I don’t know certainly the motivations behind the students who made the comments and the gestures and everything but I think ignorance certainly plays a large factor,” said Justin Sadle, UK’s director of Jewish Student Life. “At times when there’s something that you don’t know, or it was foreign to you or whatever it might be the ridiculing, or making jokes based on the very limited knowledge you have can be an unfortunate response.”

Last week, UK’s Interfraternity Council, the ruling body of most of the university’s fraternities, posted a statement on the council’s own Instagram account expressing disgust about the behavior of some fraternity members involved in a particular incident, but did not describe the incident.

“We completely condemn any and all anti-semitic, anti-black, anti-asian and anti-brotherhood actions,” read the statement from Brandon Brown, the council’s vice president of diversity and inclusion. “As leaders in the IFC community, we understand that change can not come without an increase in education, training and practices of diversity and inclusion in our community.”

Gelernter, the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor and the president of Kentucky Hillel, a Jewish student organization said she was “completely disgusted and just really upset by it” and was “taken back twofold” because the alleged incident had occurred at UK and within Greek life, a section of student life that Gelernter is very familiar with.

Both Gelernter and Sadle said they’d spoken with the student at the center of the post, who is also a member of Hillel, largely to check in with him and provide him with a path to report and handle the incident within the university.

Gelernter has also since gone into conversations with the university’ Fraternity and Sorority Life office. Two years ago, Gelernter served as the diversity and inclusion chair for UK’s Panhellenic Council, the central governing body for many of the university’s sororities. She added that the incident is made more upsetting by how much she knows that the Fraternity and Sorority Life office has worked at making Greek life generally just more inclusive.

“So in a lot of ways, I was extremely upset, because it really sort of hit that intersection,” Gelernter said. “My identity on campus really has been a Jewish Panhellenic woman.”

Within her own experience at UK and within Greek life, Gelernter said she’s felt largely comfortable in sharing her Jewish identity and that most are very welcoming. A few comments she’s heard have been to the contrary, but largely Gelernter attributed those to ignorance.

Sadle said the main way to combat that ignorance is through “more students knowing about what Judaism is, what the Jewish people are, and certainly in this case, knowing about the Holocaust.”

There’s strong interest and a plan to draft a letter to the university from Jewish students in the coming week that points out a rise in anti-Semitism both nationally and at the university, said Gelernter who added that there’s a student committee already working at it.

In terms of education, Gelernter said they’re working to bring in a Holocaust survivor to speak of their experiences. Zeta Beta Tau, a Jewish fraternity that will come onto campus in August will be incorporated.