Jewish educators and pro-Israel supporters at Rutgers University are concerned about the effects after the first faculty union there approved a BDS (boycott, divest and sanction) measure late last week calling for the school to divest from Israel, stop investing in Israel Bonds and stop working with companies that do business with Israel.

The vote by the Rutgers branch of the American Association of University Professors-American Federation of Teachers (AAUP-AFT), which represents some 5,000 people, passed with 58% of those casting a ballot voting in favor of the measure, 38% of voters saying no and 4% abstaining. According to the union, 42% of those eligible to vote did so. The measure was also approved by the Adjunct Faculty Union, by a vote of 62%-34% with 4% abstaining. Only 24% of those eligible to cast their vote in the AFU did so.

The Jewish Faculty, Administrators and Staff Association at Rutgers (JFAS-Rutgers) condemned the vote, saying it “brings great shame to our university” and “has led many people at Rutgers to conclude that they are working in a hostile environment.”

The resolution is rooted in tendentious claims and outright falsehoods, and if implemented “would discriminate against Israeli scholars and violate academic freedom, a core value that the union had vowed to uphold,” JFAS-Rutgers said, adding that measure “compromises the union’s values through its single-minded, politicized focus on Israel, neglecting the world’s worst offenders of human rights and international law such as China, Russia and Saudi Arabia.”

The BDS resolution was written is a style similar to official government proclamations with the use of wording such as “whereas” and “therefore be it resolved.” It included numerous falsehoods, accusing Israel of being an apartheid state and committing “scholasticide in occupied Palestine.”

The measure also called for Rutgers to end its ties to Tel Aviv University (TAU), which signed a memorandum of understanding with the New Jersey university to increase collaborations and establish a TAU presence at the HELIX, Rutgers’ innovation and technology hub being built in New Brunswick.

With the passing of the resolution, Rutgers becomes the first school in the nation to approve a BDS measure after the national AAUP in August reversed a long-standing policy opposing academic boycotts. Todd Wolfson, the president of the AAUP-AFT at Rutgers and a professor in the media department at the universities, also serves as president of the national AAUP.

In a letter to union members announcing the voting results, Wolfson and Bryan Sacks of the Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union wrote, “Our unions have many fights ahead of us. We need to work together to resist the Rutgers administration’s ongoing attempts to undermine our contract victories. … Whether you agreed or disagreed with your colleagues about divestment, they are your allies in those fights ahead.”

They signed the letter saying, “Together we fight, together we win.”

According to Tammi-Rossman Benjamin, executive director of AMCHA Initiative, which documents antisemitic activity on U.S. campuses, the timing of the BDS vote is “no surprise” given that Wolfson leads both the Rutgers and national AAUP and is a founding member of the Rutgers Faculty for Justice in Palestine.

“The vote exposes a toxic new partnership that allows Faculty for Justice in Palestine, a group whose 170 chapters have been linked to soaring rates of violent campus antisemitism, to escalate its antisemitic activities with impunity by cloaking itself in the academic legitimacy of AAUP and harnessing the bullying power of the AFT (American Federation of Teachers), one of the most powerful teachers’ unions in the country,” she said.

The AMCHA Initiative recently released a report that ranked colleges and universities in the United States on the presence of and activity by anti-Zionist faculty. Rutgers came in as the 11th-worst school out of more than 700 schools, following behind schools like New York University and the University of California, Los Angeles. It also earned a ranking of “5-Extreme” for the level of “influence of its anti-Zionist faculty on campus life,” said Rossman-Benjamin.

The State of New Jersey has laws that prohibit organizations and companies that divest from Israel from doing business with the state government. Rutgers is a state-funded university, and has one of the largest Jewish student bodies with some 6,000 students and graduate students among its various campuses.

New Jersey Assemblyman Gary Schaer (D-Passaic) reacted strongly to the voting results, telling The Jewish Link he is “appalled” by results of the voting and that the “AAUP-AFT has supported Hamas terrorism directed against the only democracy in the Middle East.”

Schaer continued: “Given the status of the turbulent society we live in today and the alarming rise of antisemitism, I fear for the safety of Jewish students, and all students, at Rutgers University. This reaffirms the validity of the recently concluded U.S. House Education and Workforce committee hearings on antisemitism, which reveal the lack of accountability for university leaders, including Rutgers, to address campus antisemitism and the subsequent hostile environments they have created for Jewish students. I have yet to understand why New Jersey taxpayers fund antisemitic and anti-American hate speech.”

While anti-Israel advocates may be cheering the results, Sarah Livingston, who coordinates the Faculty Against Antisemitism Movement at the Academic Engagement Network and worked closely with Jewish staffers at Rutgers, said they are “not the sweeping victory the other side would like to claim. Thirty-eight percent voted no, and only 42% of eligible faculty voted from the AAUP-AFT and only 24% from the AFU. By no means are these huge wins.”

However, Livingston continued, “make no mistake—there is a clear correlation between the passage of BDS resolutions and a rise in antisemitism on any campus. This resolution has created nothing but divisive rhetoric and conflict, pitting colleagues against each other. It violates the academic freedom of students and faculty, detracts from the union’s mission, demonizes Israeli academia, and has the potential to badly damage the integrity of Rutgers reputation.”

She added that it is now up to the university to ensure that an academic boycott is not implemented by the supporters of the BDS measure, which would violate the school’s policy against BDS.

Rossman-Benjamin fears that the vote will echo far beyond the walls of Rutgers University.

“The vote will surely embolden anti-Zionist faculty, at Rutgers and nationwide, to push for the implementation of an academic boycott of Israel, or academic BDS, whose goal is not simply to cut off ties with Israeli universities and scholars, but to rid U.S. campuses of Zionism and Zionists, with dire implications for the vast majority of Jewish students and staff.”

Faygie Holt is an award-winning journalist whose articles have been published worldwide and translated into several different languages. She is the author of two middle-grade book series for Jewish children, “The Achdus Club” and “Layla’s Diaries,” both available from Menucha Publishers. Her next book, “Baylee’s Yellow Party,” is geared to new readers and will be released soon. Learn more at faygieholt.com.