Campus Leader At Major California School Snubbed Rabbi Over Antisemitism Concerns

A rabbi who contacted the chancellor of the University of California, Davis, a hotbed of antisemitism, about taking concrete steps to address the problem was reportedly given the stiff-arm when the campus official realized the rabbi wanted him to do more than pay lip service to the idea.

Among other elements of antisemitism on campus, the university’s faculty includes Jemma Decristo, an American Studies professor who threatened “Zionist journalists” on social media with emojis of a butcher knife, axe, and blood. “Another American Studies professor, José Manuel Santillana Blanco, who publicly celebrated the Oct. 7 massacre, was hired post facto with full knowledge of his views. He holds the prestige-sodden title of ‘University of California President’s and Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow,’” the Washington Free Beacon noted.

Universities are filled with so many lunatics bc schools recruit radicals and then make it impossible to fire them.

It has been 15 months since UC Davis learned about this insane threat from Assistant Professor Jemma Decristo. They opened a case based on it but still have not… pic.twitter.com/pS7nP8I243

— AG (@AGHamilton29) February 24, 2025

Rabbi Pini Dunner of the Beverly Hills Synagogue visited the UC Davis campus in late May at the request of Jewish faculty upset about the pervasive antisemitism on the campus. After witnessing multiple instances, he subsequently published an article—”Davis and the Battle for Jewish Identity”—”detailing my experience and sounding the alarm,” he writes in the Free Beacon. He then shared the article with the university’s chancellor, Gary S. May, who responded, “Antisemitism has no place here at UC Davis. I have always spoken out forcefully against it. … Antisemitism is antithetical to our values. … It will not be tolerated.”

Happy birthday to our leader of the Aggies, Chancellor Gary S. May! We appreciate everything you do for UC Davis. #GoAgs pic.twitter.com/e7HYgffRlX

— UC Davis Athletics (@ucdavisaggies) May 17, 2025

Dunner then delineated some specific issues in an email, prompting May to suggest a “healthy and productive conversation … with a goal of mutual understanding and shared experiences: including journalists from the Davis Enterprise,” Dunner writes.

“I replied that I was open to meeting, but made it clear I wasn’t interested in platitudes or PR. I would attend the meeting to represent Jewish students and faculty who are being actively marginalized. I listed several reasonable proposals for the chancellor: that the university should adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of anti-Semitism, enforce basic campus policies, protect Jewish and pro-Israel students from harassment, and hold faculty accountable for incitement,” Dunner recalls.

After “two weeks of silence,” Dunner writes, and an attempt to contact May, “I received a curt dismissal: ‘Rather than pursuing this invitation further, we have elected to focus on our existing engagements with our community instead.’”

Dunner continues:

Chancellor May reached out because he thought I’d be another box to check on the UC Davis DEI bingo card—a cooperative rabbi who would smile for the cameras and endorse the status quo. But once he realized I was serious—that I wasn’t going to be pacified by “Jewish advisory councils” or “Solidarity Shabbats”—he abruptly pulled the plug. The invitation to “dialogue” was never sincere. It was textbook damage control.

“The greatest irony of all is that Chancellor May claims to value dialogue and inclusion while shutting down anyone who dares bring uncomfortable truths to the table,” Dunner notes. “He says he welcomes ‘respectful discourse.’ But when I respectfully pointed to faculty glorifying mass murderers, masked agitators harassing Jewish students, and open calls for violence going unpunished, he recoiled.”