By: centraljersey.com
Evan Grossman
Staff Writer
EAST WINDSOR – Two local women have formed an interfaith tag team in the fight against anti-Semitism.
Psychiatrist Naomi Vilko of East Windsor, and college professor Bonnie Galloway, of Lawrenceville, are teaching an eight-week college-level course called Israel Inside/Out at Princeton Theological Seminary and Beth El Synagogue.
Dr. Galloway, a member of the Lawrenceville Presbyterian Church, is an adjunct professor at the College of New Jersey, Rider University and Mercer County Community College. She has taken up the fight against anti-Semitism because of the lack of women’s rights in the Middle East attribution. She said the same Islamic radicals who call for the destruction of Israel are also supporting the mistreatment of women in places like Saudi Arabia and Palestine.
In Israel, Dr. Galloway sees a democratic oasis in the Middle East and an ally Americans should stand behind. She explained how women’s rights are threatened when women are being stoned to death in some Islamic countries, or punished for wearing lipstick in others.
"It turns my stomach," she said. "It’s got to stop."
The pair met at a women’s group and their multimedia course, which is also offered online through Jerusalem Online University, covers 4,000 years of Jewish history. It is the first time the course is being offered in person in the United States.
"The reason I feel it needs to be taught is there is a lot of misinformation about Israel," Dr. Vilko said.
Much of that misinformation, according to a new documentary, has fueled an increase in anti-Semitic incidents on college campuses across North America. On Monday, "Crossing the Line: The Intifada Comes to Campus," which is part of the course Dr. Viko teaches, was screened at Beth El Synagogue. In the film, militant Muslim groups are shown holding rallies at colleges in the United States and Canada with speakers calling for the destruction of Israel, praising suicide bombings and trying to recruit impressionable college students to join their cause. According to the film, incidents have turned violent in some cases, such as one attack on two students at Temple University in 2008.
The documentary explores an organized effort by Islamic radicals to spread hate on campus behind a wall of misinformation that compares the Israeli government to Nazi Germany and Apartheid in South Africa.
"It’s a fairly serious situation," Rabbi Raphael Shore, the film’s producer said.
Mr. Shore is travelling to synagogues around the country to show his film in an attempt to educate the public. Dr. Vilko arranged for Mr. Shore to visit Beth El Synagogue this week to screen his film for people who are not enrolled in her course.
"This film was designed, even thought its part of a course, it’s designed as a stand-alone film to do an event like this," he said. "It’s targeted mostly to the Jewish community and Jewish leaders should understand what’s happening out there."
Mr. Shore believes the issue is much greater than just anti-Semitism, and that denouncing Israel is just the beginning of a growing movement.
"This is something all Americans should be concerned about," he said. "It’s anti-western sentiment. It’s anti-American sentiment. The Jews may be on the front line, but it doesn’t stop there." egrossman @centraljersey.com.

