Since its founding nearly six decades ago, the University of Maryland, Baltimore County — better known as UMBC — has established a national reputation for academic achievement in many disciplines, as well as of being a center of diversity and inclusive excellence.
But many in UMBC’s Jewish community are concerned and alarmed about an associate professor’s recent anti-Israel letter to the university’s president, Dr. Valerie Sheares Ashby, and the campus community. The open letter was co-signed by more than 130 individuals, including more than 40 UMBC faculty members and staff as well as students.
In the three-page missive, the author, Dr. Mejdulene B. Shomali, an associate professor in UMBC’s Department of Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies, takes issue with a previous note posted Oct. 12 by Dr. Sheares Ashby titled “Caring for Our Community” in the wake of the Hamas terrorist attacks in southern Israel that left 1,400 dead, more than 5,000 injured and 240 held hostage in Gaza.
“We appreciate your email acknowledging the urgent crisis and offering care and support,” Dr. Shomali wrote. “However, the content of the email does not adequately communicate UMBC’s dedication to social responsibility and social justice. … We send you this letter insisting on the need for an equally contextual and humanizing view of the Palestinian struggle for dignity and liberation.”
In the letter, Dr. Shomali — who on her online UMBC profile is described as a “Palestinian poet” — challenges Dr. Sheares Ashby’s characterization of the current Israel-Hamas crisis as a “war.”
“In what war does one side have unequivocal control of the other’s water, electricity, resources, and borders?” Dr. Shomali wrote. “In what war can one side target civilian dwellings, universities, journalists, hospitals, medical aids, ambulances, and evacuation routes while the other counts its dead? Israel is not at war with Hamas. It is committing genocide on Palestinians. … To describe the violence perpetrated by the Israeli state against Gazans in particular and Palestinians more broadly as anything but genocide is an erasure at best and a disregard for Palestinian life at worst.”
Dr. Shomali goes on to touch on the historical dimensions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including the formation of Hamas and the 16-year blockade of Gaza by “the apartheid state presided over by the Israeli government.”
“Hamas is a resistance movement which uses armed struggle as a means for liberation,” she wrote. “Israel’s occupation of Palestine is now, and has always been, the root cause and source of the violence and death we are witnessing.”
Dr. Shomali wrote that claims of antisemitism by Jewish groups and the pro-Israel community are merely a diversionary tactic employed as “a common weapon to silence Palestinians.”
The letter calls on UMBC to discontinue its ties with such companies as Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin that have relationships with Israel’s defense complex. “Partnerships with such companies call into grave question UMBC’s mission of excellence, social responsibility, and social justice. We ask UMBC to divest from institutions which actively perpetuate and profit from war mongering.”
Dr. Shomali compared the plight of Palestinians in Gaza to the historical and contemporary struggles of Black Americans.
“We know that Black communities are significantly impacted by Israeli violence. We see this in the Israeli government’s training of U.S. police officers and both forces’ use of dehumanizing and anti-Black language to demonize resistance, to make perpetrators of victims,” she wrote. “We ask that UMBC lead in the civil rights tradition which it has long championed. We ask UMBC to spearhead educational campaigns which outline the history of Israeli apartheid and Palestinian resistance.”
In response to a Jmore inquiry to Dr. Sheares Ashby, Angela Paik, UMBC’s interim vice president for communications and marketing, wrote, “We are aware that various recent statements, whether written or spoken, by members of the UMBC community have caused additional concern and anxiety. Several members of UMBC’s senior leadership recently communicated with our campus community about these concerns, reaffirming our shared values and expectations and providing practical guidance and resources for care, support, and the work to engage in constructive, respectful dialogue.”
Since the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in southern Israel, Paik wrote that Dr. Sheares Ashby, who became UMBC president in August of 2022, and other members of the university’s leadership have engaged directly with students, faculty and staff members from the Jewish, Muslim and Palestinian communities on campus.
(Approximately 1,200 Jewish students are enrolled in undergraduate and graduate classes at UMBC.)
“We continue to work closely with individuals and organizations across campus to promote respectful discourse, civility, and the consistent adherence to university policies,” she wrote. “As is true on many other campuses, we also are attending assiduously to the safety and security of our campus and would respond promptly to any reports of harassment, discrimination, or threats.”
Paik confirmed that Dr. Sheares Ashby’s office received Dr. Shomali’s letter and “offered to attend any events or activities held by those who signed the letter. Our aim at UMBC, today and every day, is to provide a learning environment that is safe, supportive, and inclusive, in which we value and are inspired by one another to work across disciplines and differences to help address the world’s most vexing challenges.
“We hope that environment and that mission make all of our alumni proud and are as inviting as ever to students of all backgrounds.”
In a message posted Oct. 26 to UMBC’s Jewish community, Aliza Silverman, interim director of the campus Hillel group, and Danielle Baron, the organization’s director of Israel and engagement, referenced Dr. Shomali’s letter.
“We are aware of inflammatory and hurtful statements that are circulating within the UMBC community,” they wrote. “We are pained at any demonstration of support for Hamas, a terrorist organization with the stated aim of killing Jews that this month conducted the bloodiest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.
“There can be no justification for the vile atrocities and human rights abuses committed against defenseless Israeli civilians, most of whom were women, children, babies, and elderly. And there is no justification for the spreading of false information and baseless accusations about Israel, the erasure of Jewish identity and connection to the Jewish homeland, or the use of antisemitic rhetoric here on campus. This serves only to endanger the Jewish and Israeli members of our UMBC community, and that cannot be tolerated in a campus environment that aims to be welcoming and inclusive.
“At this time of shocking grief for the global Jewish community and amidst the explosion of antisemitism in our country and around the world, we hope our community can show up in solidarity with us and that campus can remain a safe space for Jewish and Israeli students to live and learn without fear.”
This Thursday, Nov. 9, from 6-8 p.m., the UMBC Hillel will host a representative of the Anti-Defamation League to discuss combatting antisemitism on campus. For information, visit my3.my.umbc.edu/groups/umbchillel/events/123190. The UMBC Hillel will also send students to the March for Israel on Tuesday, Nov. 14, at the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
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