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by Sam Douglass
Information for In Committee news reports are sourced from GoldenDomeVt.com and the General Assembly website. Maggie Lenz’s name was misspelled in an earlier edition. VDC regrets the error.
The Senate Committee on Education heard testimony Thursday from a number of advocates and individuals with lived experience being Jewish and experiencing antisemitism in Vermont. This testimony wasn’t in regard to any particular bills in the committee but was to build general awareness of antisemitism in schools and familiarize lawmakers with the issue.
Testimony began with Maggie Lenz, the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor on behalf of Shalom Alliance, an organization dedicated to fighting antisemitism in K-12 schools and communities. While Lenz spoke briefly, she passionately explained that antisemitism on Vermont social media is ongoing and blatant, with examples she received from as recent as late Wednesday evening that described Jewish people as “hook-nose hinies.”
The next witness was Rabbi David Fainsilber who represents the Greater Stowe region Jewish community with many of his families traveling from surrounding rural areas. Coming from a large metropolitan area, he was unprepared for the antisemitism he had found in Vermont. Jewish students have reported to him that in public schools there are often an uncountable number of swastikas drawn in the bathrooms, that antisemitic stereotypes are repeated frequently, and he told the committee a report of one student where classmates were creating a puppet of Adolf Hitler and a Jewish person in a burning house. Fainsilber also testified that some students have begun hiding their Jewish heritage and expression due to the recent growing anti-Israel sentiment in schools.
In preparation for his testimony on Thursday, Fainsilber gathered together groups at his synagogue to brainstorm ideas for the committee to best combat antisemitism. The students he gathered spoke with him about widespread ignorance and seek a balanced approach in public schools, especially with how schools address holidays.
The committee then heard testimony from a number of Jewish students in high school and college who shared similar stories and experiences to ones that Rabbi Fainsilber recounted in his testimony. One student shared a story of a swastika made of feces smeared onto the bathroom wall. Another student shared stories about other students making jokes that made light of the Holocaust or antisemitism.
The ongoing tensions and fighting in Israel has made the situation worse as one student testified, “Since October 7, many Jewish students have also experienced antisemitism framed through global events, including being told that they are not welcome in certain spaces because of real or perceived connections to Israel or seeing language that erases Jewish identity entirely.”
While the testimony Thursday wasn’t directed in favor or opposition to any bill, there have been bills that express similar ideas introduced into the Vermont Statehouse over the 2025-2026 biennium.
A bill, H.310, was introduced in 2025 by Fmr. Representative Casey Toof (R-Franklin 8) and aims to fight the same antisemitism expressed by the witnesses in the Senate Education Committee. The bill clarifies the legal definition of antisemitic harassment and directs the Secretary of Education to create training and curriculum to bring Holocaust awareness into our schools. Vermont is the only state in New England without mandatory Holocaust education in its public schools.
This policy was referenced and supported by the witness in the Senate Education Committee. Rabbi Fainsilber in particular lamented the situation which he views as incomprehensible. “I shared earlier that I’m third generation of Holocaust survivors. I personally had 200 relatives murdered in the Holocaust in Poland. So I can’t comprehend how a child in Vermont can graduate high school without having learned about the Holocaust, to learn about Nazi horrors in age-appropriate ways so that it will never be repeated, to learn that the US closed its borders to Jews before the Holocaust, to learn about other genocide’s perpetrators,” said Fainsilber.
Since the attacks of October 7 2023, anti-Isreal and pro-Palestinian sentiment has become a rallying cry for activists and the city of Montpelier itself has been subject to weekly protests on its street corners over the past few years. However, antisemitism in Vermont isn’t restricted to schools or its major cities, and even non-Jewish Vermonters are feeling its sting. Recent reporting from Vermont Daily Chronicle detailed the antisemitic comments and death threats leveled at a bipartisan coalition of legislators who visited Israel on a legislative trip. This group of lawmakers faced calls for resignation and were ruthlessly targeted with death threats.
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Categories: Faith, Race and Division, Religion
The state of Vermont will have to deal with the Epstein problem before they start any more confusion or division.
Didn’t know there was a “problem”
For whatever reason, as I see it mostly having to do with jealousy of a general track record of high ambition and success in life among Jewish people, there has always been some level of latent anti-Semitism in Western society. But more recently the victim-worshipping, merit-shunning Left has promoted the storyline that white people are “colonizers” who should be ashamed of their ethnicity and males are oppressors in “the patriarchy”. Now that the “palestinian issue” has become a cause celebre in pop culture with the requisite flags and keffiyeh scarves as popular as purple hair, Jewish people, regardless of their feelings on Zionism, are portrayed as their oppressors, and the gloves are off on publicly assailing them. Remedying this hatred goes well beyond just Holocaust education. This overdue awareness of local anti-Semitism should be viewed as part of a broader manifestation of recognizing the wholesale destructiveness of the entire leftist agenda that opposes all that is decent and beneficial in a merit-based human society.
As a Christian, I consider myself half-Jewish, and see anti-Semitism as a personal affront to my faith. As a conservative, I consider the propaganda, gaslighting and culture of victimhood of the Left an affront to my ideology.
Thou shall not covet is in both bibles, but is the main program for cultural marxism, of which Saul Alinsky was a great disciple and whom did he dedicate his book to______________ on page …..
Christians most certainly are not jealous of the Jews, if anything they have compassion for them, like others who have never taken the time to read the Book of John. The most Jewish thing one could possibly do is believe in Jesus Christ, to become a messianic jew, you give up nothing and gain everything.
Same is true for most Vermonters, who have never been introduced to Jesus Christ, which is why we have so much (in general) hatred in our state.
Neil, I’d welcome your comments about vthope.club/stories.html as an introduction to Bible stories that most Vermont children have never been exposed to, yet it is the #1 best-selling book and has been for centuries. Most are Old Testament characters, but there is a link at the bottom to expand the 1 story of Jesus to about 12.
Sam Douglass, I am so glad to see you are still keeping a high profile on public concerns. Thank you for bringing to the light this topic that needs exposure even if it doesn’t have a Bill to go with it.
I was born in 1945. My Dad was in the Coast Guard on the Pacific Coast. I was brought home to a small apartment in my grandparents home on Germain Street, Burlington, in the north section of the city. At the time I was there, there was a large population of Jewish people in the area. My Mom use to shop at their stores and I remember a special treat in a bar of ground nuts I think. As a child, my Doctor was a Jewish Physician, and I remember my Mom telling me how (Dr. Sussman) told her, “not to worry about the bill”, he knew she would pay him when she could”. Through my years, reading and movies, opened my eyes to the atrocities of WWII and of what evil really is. It is disturbing to me to see this antisemitism in this Country.
The difference is Zionism period. There are Zionist Jews and Zionist Christians and it’s the Zionism that’s the problem. The zionists are depraved murderers and if that’s antisemitic then so be it. The kids should be taught the difference, THAT’S what should happen! There’s a difference, learn about it not the lies Netanyahu has been feeding the ignorant ones that believe him. Try looking at Gaza.
You can disagree with the government of Israel, but being a ‘Zionist’ simply means you believe in the Right for the Jews to have a homeland in a place where they have literally lived for thousands of years. To call all Zionists ‘depraved murderers’ (meanwhile completely overlooking the brutal attacks of October 7) is an outrageous and completely anti-Semitic statement. The call for removing Jews, ‘From the River to the Sea’ may sound poetic to the crowds chanting it, but it’ is actually and truly a genocidal statement if there ever was one. Hamas does not want a ‘Two State Solution’, They simply want all Jews to be exterminated, ‘from the river to the sea’. Meanwhile, Israel is the only Country in the entire Middle East that allows Jews, Christians and Arabs to live equally side by side. It’s the only Country in the Middle East that allows Gay people to exist, as well. The hypnotism of a huge group of people, otherwise somewhat intelligent, being taught to hate Jews openly, is truly a sad thing to see.