Looking Straight Ahead, Anti-Semitic Acts Happening From 2020-2030in Portland, Oregon

 Nadene Goldfoot                                            

 Temple at Congregation Beth Israel in Portland, Ore.Courtesy of Congregation Beth Israel posted December 21, 2020;  and another later on about fires.  

A small fire was started outside of Congregation Beth Israel and an antisemitic message was spray-painted on the historic sanctuary’s exterior wall. 

Leaders at Congregation Beth Israel in Northwest Portland reported acts of vandalism on the synagogue’s property on Monday, including remnants of a fire set in front of the building and an antisemitic message painted on an exterior wall. Rabbi Michael Cahana said the Portland Police Bureau was notified and the Federal Bureau of Investigation is also involved in investigating the attack on the historic congregation, which was established in 1858.

 Northeast Portland/Park Rally (August 22, 2021): A gathering commemorating clashes from the previous year took place in a parking lot, resulting in physical altercations and paintball/bear spray usage between the groups. Anti- Semitism from 2020- 2026, driven by a mix of far-right extremist propaganda, localized vandalism, and heightened campus and community tensions were surrounding the Middle East conflict. Data from the Anti-Defamation League and the Oregon Department of Justice show multi-fold increases in reported anti-Jewish bias events, harassment, and structural civil rights and scrutiny.   

Antisemitism in the Portland area during 2026 remains a prominent concern, marked by recent institutional legal settlements, federal civil rights scrutiny, and local cultural flashpoints.                       

Higher Education and Civil Rights Settlements

Reed College Settlement: In July 2026, Reed College settled federal civil rights complaints brought by the Anti-Defamation League and the Brandeis Center under Title VI. The liberal arts college agreed to sweeping institutional reforms, updating its discrimination policies to explicitly state that targeting Jewish people based on a Zionist identity is a form of unlawful discrimination. "Historical and recent demonstrations at Reed College have centered on social justice, free speech, and global conflicts, with key movements including the 1968 Black Studies protest, the 2017 Humanities 110 curriculum sit-ins, and recent Gaza war divestment rallies."



Federal Investigations: Institutional environments across Oregon continue to face oversight. Previous federal inquiries under Title VI involved local universities like Portland State University regarding campus climate and safety during Middle East conflict protests. 

Cleanup at the Branford Price Millar Library at Portland State University is underway, May 6, 2024, after protesters occupied the library for several days last week.
Tiffany Camhi / OPB
The Millar Library Takeover: In spring 2024, pro-Palestinian demonstrations escalated into a multi-day occupation and localized damage inside the Branford Price Millar Library, driven in part by demands for the university to cut ties with military and corporate connections tied to Israel. Jewish students reported feeling isolated, excluded, and unsafe during these actions.  
Protesters occupied the library starting April 29, 2024, temporarily renaming it after a Palestinian poet. Police cleared the building and ended the occupation on May 2, 2024. The university reported $1.23 million in repair costs for the facility. Vandalism heavily affected the physical building, including smashed glass displays, spray-painted walls, and damaged electronic monitors. Safety systems like fire alarms were disabled or pulled down, and furniture was piled up to form barricades. Following four months of repairs, the library officially reopened in September 2024 for the fall term.
Viral Video and Legal Actions: In June 2025, a tenured PSU professor was placed on administrative leave after an off-chain/off-campus video showed her making controversial statements including "I am Hamas". The university called the remarks unacceptable, though a subsequent 10-month internal review cleared her of policy violations, leading the professor to file a multi-million dollar discrimination lawsuit against the university in 2026.
PORTLAND, Ore. (KATU) — The Anti-Defamation League and Stop Antisemitism are giving Portland State University (PSU) and the University of Oregon (UO) poor grades for addressing antisemitism. Both reports say that students are facing high levels of prejudice at school.The organizations are known for pro-Israel advocacy.  Of course, what happens to Israel, a Jewish country, affects we Jews in the US, as the first people attacked by Americans.  Concerns about antisemitism at PSU heightened during last year’s pro-Palestine protests.  Our attackers go by lack of knowledge and belief of the worst of Jews that goes back to bible days, Jews being the world's scapegoat of all things.  They have no knowledge of the Palestinian history or our Jewish biblical and up to date history of Hamas terrorism  except for some religious groups.  But Bob Horenstein with the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland says he has seen PSU president Ann Cudd address the issue.  I take issue with the goals of TV stations who feed people their own outlook on issues-without the proper research.  Their goal is numbers of people watching them and what draws them in.  It turns out  its hatred of Jews.  TV is brain-washing people's minds.  

Fear For Jewish Students at Demonization of Israel in Oregon State U., U of Oregon and Portland State U.

 Nadene Goldfoot                                              

Illustrative photo of an Anti-Semitic graffiti on a building near the University of Virginia campus in Charlottesville. (Courtesy of Michaela Brown) , near Washington DC.

Jewish parents and members of OSU discovered a letter accusing Israel of unfounded accusations. amounting to just plain old anti-Semitism.  Marc Blattner of MJCC alerted me and others to this act."    College students that are not aware of the struggle that Israel has to endure are just full of mis-information that becomes anti-Semitism.  It's a crime that on this level of receiving education, that they remain uneducated about such a topic as this.                                                                    

                                 Cleveland High, Portland, OR in 2010 :Administrators at two Southeast Portland schools have reported finding anti-Semitic vandalism and graffiti on their campuses this fall.  Cleveland High School Principal Ayesha Freeman wrote in a notice to parents Wednesday that a vice principal, a teacher and the building’s head custodian found a swastika and “hateful words” on fliers for the Jewish Student Union one morning in late October. "  Such anti-Semitic acts have been going on for some time.                                                                            

                      A Jewish mother reading a letter just received demonizing Israel   

"As OSU Jewish and allied students, parents, faculty, and alumni, it has come to our attention that an antisemitic and discriminatory letter was sent by ASOSU recently, which cast unfounded accusations, perpetuating the demonization of the State of Israel, the world’s only Jewish-majority state and refuge for expelled Jews of the Middle East, Africa, and of the Holocaust in Europe (and home to approximately half of the global Jewish population). "  

 

 The letter starts like this:  To our Oregon State Community, 

"We condemn the violence and attacks against the Palestinian people by the Israeli armed forces.  Following the Hamas Rights Watch and the Israeli human rights organization, B'tselem, we must call this systemic discrimination and the violence what it is, an Apartheid.  This is colonialism.  this is ethnic cleansing, this is state-sanctioned violence, this is Zionism.  We stand for liberation and justice for the people of Palestine. It goes on.   (https://orjewishlife.com/asosu-letter/) update 12:50am.  

                                                         

This is accusing Israel of practicing apartheid, which is the very opposite of the truth.  Incidentally, that's what people against Jews and Israel seem to do.  Their accusations are the very opposite of the truth.  In fact, it often reflects their own acts against humanity. Here we have students of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology take part in a rally in solidarity with the Palestinian people in Boston last week. Photograph: eiko Hiromi/AFLO/Rex/Shutterstock the headline of this picture was "

US campuses become a growing front in Israeli-Palestinian conflict

                                                          

"ASOSU is every student at Oregon State University.  We exist as an organization to promote academic excellence, encourage the intellectual, social, cultural, and physical development of the student body,"  It is they who sent out this horrible accusation.  What all the colleges or universities in Oregon have done is join the mass in accusing Israel of untrue acts adding up to anti-Semitism in its glory!  

                                     

Well, I know of one student who would not be in agreement;  my grandson, now a veterinarian.  I hope that there are others who are as shocked as he must be to this group of doubting Thomases who have not bothered to read literature in defense of Israel.  

These same students have expressed their fear and insecurity regarding the shifting climate at OSU. Students who identify as Jewish and/or Israeli are struggling to be heard and feel that the dialogue surrounding the current events in the Middle East has been one-sided, alienating, and misinformed.

This   one-sided anti-Israel statement came from the Oregon State University student government. The statement, which went out to the entire student body, has been removed from its various postings on social media, but the damage was done. 

The VP of Equity and Inclusion finally responded with a brief email that the student government statement was made by the outgoing student leadership group and did not represent the views of the university. That is helpful, but as of now the student body has yet to receive any formal public response from the OSU administration (we understand a response from the administration is in the works) nor has there been any outreach directly to Jewish students on campus.

The letter that was wrongfully sent en masse to the entire OSU student body encouraged subscription to organizations like IMEU, which aligns with the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, an international campaign that has perpetrated antisemitism in civic institutions for more than 15 years. 

Representing unequivocal support to their cause creates an incredibly unsafe situation for Jewish and Israeli students on our campus.

 Standing behind organizations that support BDS (and its National Committee which includes terror factions like Hamas) is standing behind the terrorism and the antisemitism they represent. 

                                                           

           Hamas terrorists rule Gaza, "voted" in by Palestinians living in Gaza

 Gaza is currently under the rule of Hamas, an internationally-recognized terrorist organization, seeking Jewish genocide and the destruction of Israel. Hamas uses civilians as human shields and as bait in order to gain global support and to continue taking innocent lives within both Gaza and Israel alike".

Perhaps not surprising, earlier this week the student government at University of Oregon (ASUO) sent out via Instagram an even uglier and more hate-filled statement against Israel. Two days later, the ASUO posted this “apology”. Although it acknowledges missteps by the student government, you can decide if this new statement goes far enough.

"The UO administration has been very responsive to both Oregon Hillel and the Lane County Jewish Federation. The President is involved along with the Dean of Students and the Office of Equity and Inclusion. They see this as a learning opportunity that may potentially lead to new relationships and collaborations."  

                                                     

     A book all college students should read-watch out, no pictures

This actually is more of a defense than an apology.  Jewish students are learning something they may not have been aware of, this horrid anti-Semitism and they are actually in the middle of it today, even more than their parents.  They've probably led a sheltered life from our history.  I do hope they also give all they have to studying   and understand what is happening.  

 

If what happened at OSU and UO is not enough, on Wednesday we learned that the Portland State University chapter of the American Association of University Professors issued this statement attacking Israel.  

PSU-AAUP issued a brief statement on May 20 condemning colonization, occupation, and continuing violence by the State of Israel against Palestinians. There has been an upswell of similar expressions from academic and labor organizations across the country.

At its June 3rd meeting, the PSU-AAUP Executive Council additionally voted to sign on the following statement in solidarity with the Palestinian People:

 Statement on Behalf of Faculty and Staff of Oregon Universities and Colleges in Solidarity with the Palestinian People

June 9, 2021

 The statement purports to speak for all faculty and staff at PSU, which it of course does not. We have already been in touch with the Portland State University administration and several Jewish faculty members are eager to present another voice.

 

Kelly Menachemson, Chair of the Lane County Jewish Federation, shared her feelings with me that on each of these campuses students are upset, faculty are upset, likely alumni are upset, and community members are upset. While this may be happening on campus, this issue extends into the broader community. That is why Oregon Hillel, Greater Portland Hillel, Jewish student leaders and faculty, Lane County Jewish Federation, Jewish Federation of Greater Portland, and other groups are responding.

 

Resource:

https://www.change.org/p/associated-students-osu-petition-against-antisemitism-and-zionophobic-bias-at-osu

https://mail.yahoo.com/d/folders/1/messages/142809

https://www.timesofisrael.com/with-israel-gaza-crisis-students-ask-us-colleges-to-declare-war-on-antisemitism/

https://www.oregonlive.com/education/2018/12/anti-semitic-graffiti-vandalism-discovered-at-2-se-portland-schools.html

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/21/us-campuses-sraeli-palestinian-conflict-universities

https://orjewishlife.com/oregon-hillel-responds-to-anti-israel-message-from-student-government-leaders-at-osu/

Portland, Oregon Going Anti-Semitic With BDS

The college I graduated from in 1958 as a teacher.
Then, full of returning older vets anxious to get an education

Nadene Goldfoot                                            

I would not want to take any classes at Portland State U today.
It has changed so much.  

Portland, Oregon, now known as the Weird City, certainly has changed from the city I was born and  bred in.  I did not know of 
anti-Semitism until high school, when I learned I was not accepted
into certain sororities because of being Jewish, so we Jews had our own.    When I heard someone saying horrible things about Jews, I
would surprise them, since I was a blond Jewess, and ask a point-blank question about their feelings.  Attitudes were improving since 8 years later, my brother was voted in as Student-Body President.Now, I'm proud to say, I hold
dual citizenship since 1980-85; can't remember when we filled out the papers.    Again, anti-Semitism is building up.  

                                                                             

   
 The City Council  is going full steam ahead with BDS against Israel, wanting to be against the Caterpillar Co because they had been working in Israel.
                                                                             
The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement aims to demonize, deligitimize, and destroy the Jewish nature of Israel, with the result of denying to Jews their right of national self-determination.
                                                                               

Reed College, Portland, Oregon
My brother graduated from here, and my son attended his 1st year here. We already have  seen acts of violence and one unacceptable use of derogatory epithets used against Jewish students at some colleges. . Even if some BDS supporters are Jewish, that does not cleanse the campaign of the increasing stench of anti-Semitism. We can fool ourselves and say that BDS campus campaigns are not directed against the Jewish students, but BDS does not target Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, China, Russia, Afghanistan, or Pakistan. Instead, in the name of human rights for Palestinians in the Middle East,
BDS targets only the one Jewish state, Israel, which consistently is rated as having the highest level of “freedom” of the 57 countries in the Middle East.  Can they really say that they’re concerned about human rights?

They are using college and university campuses  and cities across the country to divest their funds from Israeli companies and American companies like Caterpillar that do business with Israel.  They are boycotting Israeli scholars and Israeli universities from any meetings others may be attending.
                                                                             

Why are Americans going along with something that the Arab League started December 2,  1945?  This was during the British Mandate period of 30 years in Palestine that was started after WWI.  The Arabs got wind of the Jewish Homeland planned by the League of Nations and knew the Brits would be leaving in 1948 and the Jews would have their state.                          

Jews from European refugee camps arrived and immediately found themselves in
the War of Independence 1947-1949 fighting Arab attackers.  They had been kept
from Palestine by the British who were given the mandate to help Jews build the Jewish Homeland.

 They had been offered a state for themselves but they had refused it.  Instead they just decided to drive the Jews out.  So the Arab League, made up of 22 Middle East and African countries, broadened the boycott in 1948 to include trade between Arab countries and Israel and all companies throughout the world that did business with Israel as well as their business partners.  

They are in the act of isolating the Jewish state from the international community as well as inflicting economic harm on them.  The Middle East Arab League is made up of Kings and Emirs, and are not Democratic states, which Israel is.  Israel has been the only Democratic state there.  Israel has faced opposition with acts of war against them by these same Arabs since they announced their statehood on May 14, 1948.
                   

Harry S. Truman
President of USA 1945-1953

They were accepted by the United Nations then with Harry Truman voting in favor of their state.

Now the Arabs, mainly the Palestinians living in Gaza, Judea and Samaria are carrying on BDS since their Arab cohorts have lost every war they have fought against Israel, and I might add, Israel won without any manpower from the USA.  It was the men and women of Israel who did all the fighting and who lost their lives.  Gaza continues to lob rockets, mortars and missiles down on  southern Israel to this day.  Fatah and Hamas can't agree as to how they are going to slice the pie that they are drooling over, the land of Israel, so they are usually not cooperative with each other except in demonizing the Jewish state of Israel with false charges of crimes against humanity, especially themselves, and singling out only one country, Israel, for censure and abuse while ignoring other abuses they themselves inflict on each other and Israel.
                                                                             

Negev Bedouin citizen of Israel

Their plan is advertising their need for their state of Palestine while they attack Israel.  They do nothing but feed their population with hatred towards Jews and Israel.  They are not doing a thing to show they would be compatible neighbors of Israel.   They have had no intention of running a country by themselves.  They have  not  been a nation-minded people.  Long ago they reported to Britain and others that they were Syrian-Palestinians; coming  from Syria.  Many of them came from all around the area, but mostly most likely, were from Syria.  They came into Palestine when they heard that Jews had returned and were building in the 1880s, a possible place to find jobs they did not have in Syria or other homelands.
                                                                                                                         

Khaled Mashal b: 28 May 1956 in Silwad,
West Bank
Hamas leader since 1996,
a Jordanian Palestinian

Fatah and Hamas leaders
Abbas and Mashal

When the Arab League told the Syrian Arabs that they were attacking Israel in 1947-1949, they could have their homes when the battle was over.  They were used as pawns by the League, encouraged to leave the area to give the fighters room, and then to return and take over, but the Jews surprised them by winning.  They have been pawns of the Arab League ever since.  And now the rest of the world has joined the League's bandwagon with their anti-Semitic attitude and are joining in on the BDS war against Israel.
                                                                       

Israel's IDF-made up of  units of friends:
Ethiopian Jew, Druze, Christian and Muslim stand together.
Israel has 6 million Jews and 1.7 million Arabs-all citizens of Israel
NO Apartheid in Israel!  And their training Sergeant was most likely a woman!
Any apartheid going on here was practiced by the Brits and Arabs against the Jews.  
We come from the people who created the Golden Rule: Don't treat others as you wouldn't want to be treated.  

My own city, Portland, sucked into such an attitude is truly depressing.  It doesn't say much about the attitude of the many across this great land  during this last 10 years or more, and how they had admired
Israel for a while in 1967 when they won against the great odds of being attacked by many Arab states and coming out of it-by themselves-a winner.  That admiration has been short lived, I'm afraid, by the smell of oil and the fear of an empty tank.  Israel again is the scapegoat of this world while trying to stick up for themselves and survive.
                                                                             

Minor Arab leader Haj Amin al- Husseini of Jerusalem
conspiring with Nazis even Hitler, to destroy Jews in Palestine-
Since Emir Feisal, soon to be a King, okayed the Jews' return

Before anyone complains that anytime anyone criticizes Israel, we call anti-Semitism here, this BDS is so bad and so full of anti-Semitism that our own USA Congress made it illegal for any US company to cooperate with the boycott back in 1976 and 1977, and here we have our city council considering accepting BDS with a meeting called again to discuss the factors of it on the 30th of November at City Hall.

How is this happening?  In 2001, the movement disguised itself in a false veneer acting very moral and spoke as if they were human rightists and falsely branded Israel as a "racist, apartheid state," which people in the UN World Conference Against Racism in Durban concurred with.  Here we do have the most racist people, who can't accept Jews back into their original habitat to join their fellow family members because they are Jews, and many-European at that.  It's the old story of the pot calling the kettle black!  Israel is the exact opposite of an apartheid state.  It was created as a refuge for Jews who have not been accepted into the nations of the world, and were in danger of being annihilated.

The movement grew in strength since in 2005, a declaration of a coalition of Palestinian organizations accusing Israel of racial discrimination.  Israel, made up of Jews from all over the world who were in every little nook and cranny, and 1.7 million Arabs of every description, many of whom suffered from discrimination by other Arab groups. The Palestinian Arabs, for Jews living in Palestine  were Palestinians also up until May 14, 1948,  declared Israel to be breaking international law and called upon the world (people of conscience") to join their boycott and divestment program.

Yasser Arafat founded the Council of National and Islamic forces in Palestine and of course signed on.  This was at the start of the 2nd Intifada in 2000 so they could organize a unified effort among the many Palestinian factions to oppose Israel and coordinate their terror attacks against this tiny Jewish country.  The Council is made up of Hamas, The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) another terrorist group, -General Command, all 3 who are on the list of terrorists in the USA.  Their goal is commitment to the elimination of Jews and the Jewish state through terrorism and violent means.

Since 2002, boycotting Israeli scholars has also been the activity of the movement, and when the Palestinians in 2005 worked to bring it about further, the US Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel was created.  The American group was endorsed by over 800 american faculty and promoted a boycott of all Israeli scholars and cultural and educational institutions.  This violated the most basic principle of academia; THE FREE EXCHANGE OF IDEAS.    It was just like the Nazi's efforts to purify Germany by branding Jews as pariahs, and targeting them for economic and social boycotts.

Hannah  Rosenthal, the US State Department's former Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, has condemned academic boycotts of Israel.  She said, "when academics from Israel are boycotted this is not objecting to a policy---this is ANTISEMITISM."

BDS entering Portland and being considered is destroying what we once had:  a love and acceptance for the citizens of Portland,   Jews especially, and every Portlander no matter what religion they are, should be shocked that Israel is being demonized like they had been in the 20s and 30s in Germany and singled out as the only country in the world  to be censured and abused, while ignoring other human rights abuses that are rampant throughout the Middle East.  There have been other religious ethnic minorities, such as Christians, and Muslim women  whose rights do not match the western world's women.  This movement exposes its bigotry against Jews and should never had been accepted by our city fathers.  .

Resource:  http://www.amchainitiative.org/1842-2/  AMCHA Initiative, Protecting Jewish Students
http://www.mindingthecampus.org/2014/05/the_bds_bullies_take_over/
http://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2016/11/bds-and-1949-green-line-in-israel.html