Rochelle Ford, president of Dillard University in New Orleans, has found herself in the middle of America’s intense national debate on U.S. support for Israel. were accused of antisemitism in late 2022, the new president of Dillard University, a historically Black college, worried the relationship between Black and Jewish Americans was being tested.
“All the alumni I was talking to were trying to figure out what’s going on. Is the president trying to get a big donation?,” said Leslie Grover, a 1998 graduate who remembers the center from her time on campus. Many in the Black community see a parallel between the historical mistreatment of Black Americans and the plight of Muslims in Israel and Palestine, she said.
“The fact that the entire Black community isn’t standing with us, to me, says either they just don’t know, or they’ve been brainwashed to hate Jews,” she said the That meant Ford would need outside donors to help relaunch of the university’s National Center for Black-Jewish Relations. During that time, Ford was also traveling the country raising money and building relationships with peers at Yeshiva University, a private Orthodox Jewish university in New York City, and Brandeis University in Massachusetts, which was founded by the Jewish community.
Berman said he agreed to have Yeshiva partner with Dillard on the center, which he considers a critical opportunity to strengthen the bond between the Jewish and Black communities. “I ask you to join me in pausing to acknowledge that there have been too many innocent people in Gaza and in Israel who have died,”Her speech was “brave,” said Bill Hess, a member of the Dillard’s board of trustees, whose family has had a four-generation long relationship with Dillard, starting with his great grandfather Julius Rosenwald, a part-owner of Sears, Roebuck and Co., who used his fortune to support education for Black Americans.
Spencer said she supports Ford’s efforts to revitalize the center but is worried it will conflate issues facing Jewish Americans with those facing Israel. “The center needs to focus on the hate that is currently being spewed towards Black people and towards Jewish people,” she said.