Joy Getnick first learned that she was “wanted” in early November.
She was among a handful of faculty and staff at the University of Rochester targeted by ‘Wanted’ posters that sought to connect them to the state of Israel’s actions against Palestine.
“I believe that the targeting of Jewish faculty and staff, and me, using that antisemitic language -- and targeting me because of who I am -- if that’s not antisemitism, what is?” Getnick said.
Getnick is the UR executive director of Hillel, a Jewish campus life organization with branches at 850 colleges globally. The posters led to the arrest of four university students on felony criminal mischief charges, and sparked international media coverage.
The students, back in court on Wednesday, all have pleaded not guilty.
The posters accused faculty of everything from censorship to genocide. Getnick, for example, was accused of “racism, hate speech and intimidation,” for allegedly claiming pro-Palestine protesters were inherently violent.
Getnick has called the allegations untrue but declined in an interview to discuss the posters in detail. She was also called out for her affiliation with Rochester-Modi'in, a volunteer group between Rochesterians and the Israeli city Modi’in-Maccabim-Reut. Rochester-Modi'in is part of the Partnership2gether network, an organization that aims to connect North American Jewish people with Israelis.
“This wasn’t the start of or part of a conversation, this was the targeting of people, and that is not an opportunity to speak across differences,” Getnick said.
Antisemitism v. Protest
Since just about the start of the Israel-Hamas war, the University of Rochester, like many colleges across the country, has played host to a series of protest actions.
The ‘Wanted’ posters were the latest in that stream of events, and likely the most contentious. The four students arrested — Naomi Gutierrez, 19, Samantha Escobar, 21, Jefferson Turcios, 21, and Jonathan Bermudez, 19 — are facing up to seven years in prison if convicted.
A fifth, unnamed individual is allegedly still under investigation, according to a university spokesperson.
UR originally considered hate crime charges. But the penalties the students are facing are unrelated to the content of the posters. Rather, the students are charged due to the adhesive used to post them damaging black boards and walls, to the tune of over $1,500.
Getnick is unambiguous that she thinks the posters were antisemitic. But the views among Jewish people on campus are not monolithic.
"I fully agree that it is not antisemitic to critique Israeli policy," she wrote in a recent opinion piece published by the UR student newspaper, Campus Times. She continued: "I also agree that, of course, one has a right to disagree with UR Hillel’s view on Israel or Zionism, or with me personally. But that isn’t what this is. ... When someone targets me, they target me in my role, which targets Hillel. This impacts Jewish students and hurts the ability for Jewish student life on our campus to fully thrive."
Jewish Voices for Peace at the University of Rochester is a student organization that has rallied in support of the students and served as one of the leading protest voices on campus.
“As a Jewish student, I am really disturbed that the university would repeatedly label this an act of antisemitism when it doesn’t really seem like there has been much input from the wider Jewish community on campus about that label,” said Miller Gentry-Sharp, a junior and co-president of JVP.
Gentry-Sharp said the posters did not exclusively target Jewish faculty and staff, nor did they attack faculty based on Jewish identity. He said he thought the posters were meant to start uncomfortable conversations, but did not threaten the safety of Jewish people on campus.
“Universities are a place to grapple with difficult ideas and difficult concepts,” he said. “So, for some students, yeah, they might hear phrases like, ‘From the river to the sea,’ and they might feel unsafe, but that doesn’t mean students chanting that makes them unsafe.”
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From the outset, the university has framed the posters as an antisemitic attack.
“We view this as antisemitism, which will not be tolerated at our university,” President Sarah Mangelsdorf said, in a statement earlier this month. “This isn’t who we are. This goes against everything we stand for and we have an obligation to reject it.”
Members of JVP have said that the university has been unwilling to foster dialogue among students and has instead focused on using punishment against protesters.
“The university’s approach to what they would call safety is very much carceral solutions, and getting the Department of Public Safety involved,” said Nora Goodman, a junior and member of JVP. "We don’t see that as the way to increase safety on campus.”
The members of JVP said they do not see the posters or their content as attacking based on Jewish identity.
Getnick, meanwhile, deferred to an editorial she wrote for The Campus Times when asked how the posters fostered antisemitic tropes. ///
She, for example, argued accusing her of racism is antisemitic.
“Accusing me of racism and intimidation plays into the antisemitic stereotype that Jews are all-powerful, and of whatever opposing race one wants us to be,” Getnick wrote. “In Germany, Jews were regarded as powerful non-white others. Some in the United States (such as those who marched in the Charlottesville ‘Unite the Right’ rally in 2017) still see Jews that way — as powerful non-white others looking to “replace” good white Americans, while others see us as part of a white power structure responsible for societal oppression.”
Back in court
On Wednesday, the four students appeared in Rochester City Court with their lawyers. It’s their last appearance for the year, with all four set to appear back in court on Jan. 13.
Derek Wild is the attorney representing Turcios.
“These charges in New York, criminal mischief in the second degree, they do certainly have the ability to carry hefty penalties on the back end,” Wild said. “But we’re all working together diligently to try to resolve this without going that route.”
To be convicted of the criminal mischief charge, the state is required to prove the students intentionally caused the extensive damage alleged by the University of Rochester. Wild declined to comment on the defense on that charge.
For Lina Abdou, a junior and friend of the four students —who are all first-time offenders and reportedly high-achievers at the university, both academically and in volunteer work—the trial stands a testament to the university’s handling of student protest and unrest. She also said that incidents that have made students feel unsafe have also been neglected by the University.
“Arab students here on campus, we’ve been getting a lot of harassment and a lot of hate,” Abdou said. “And these acts have been reported to the bias incident report and the community concern reports, that the school has encouraged us to do, and it’s just been crickets after that.”
“I’ve heard also from my Jewish friends and peers that they’ve been getting a lot of hatred also,” she continued. “This has been making everyone unsafe.”
