In response, IU’s AEPi chapter reached out to the Emory chapter to show its support and raise ?awareness.
The house was defaced with spray painted swastikas after the Jewish holiday, Yom Kippur.
The AEPi Beta Iota chapter at IU posted a photo Thursday of members holding a “We stand with AEPi Emory” sign with the caption “We will stand with our brothers at Emory University and fight against any forms of Anti-Semitism.”
“It is frightening to see that anti-Semitism still exists today on college campuses,” AEPi president Mitch Cooper said. “A lot of brothers were really shocked, but they also wanted to show our members at Emory some ?support.”
There has been a global outpouring of support for the AEPi chapter, Director of Public Relations for AEPi headquarters Jonathan Pierce said.
AEPi brothers all over the United States, as well as Canada and Europe, have sent messages to the Emory chapter.
“The response from chapters all over the world has been one of the most heartwarming things I’ve ever seen at my time here,” Pierce said.
This type of hate crime, Pierce added, is becoming more prevalent on college campuses.
This semester alone, AEPi brothers have reported at least six instances hate crime-related activity in the form of violence, intimidation or vandalism, Pierce said.
This anti-Semitism is speculated to stem from anti-Israel opinions and protests, Pierce said.
“Anti-Semitism and anti-Israel attitudes have grown among college campuses dramatically over the last several years,” Pierce said. “I think it’s really important that brothers and other members of the Jewish community are stepping up and showing their support.”
Although no hate crimes have been reported on IU’s campus, Jewish students have been confronted with verbal Anti-Semitism.
This is often because students tend to blur the lines between Anti-Israel remarks and attacks on Judaism as a whole, Greek Jewish Council president and AEPi brother Michael Bruell said.
“There’s a difference between being critical of Israel and hatred of Jews all over the world,” Bruell said.
The most effective way students combat this lack of knowledge is informing their peers directly that their words and actions have stronger consequences than they may realize, Bruell said.
“People should definitely know the implications of their actions,” Bruell said. “We don’t know who did it, and we don’t know if they were trying to be very malicious or if they were just joking but a lot of people take that kind of thing very ?seriously.”
The investigation at Emory is still ongoing and is now being handled by the FBI, Pierce said.
AEPi’s first priority when pushing back against Anti-Semitism and hate is the safety of its brothers.
AEPi headquarters also encourages brothers not to be intimidated by acts of anti-Semitism, Pierce said.
“(We encourage them to be) proud to be Jewish, proud to be openly and publicly Jewish and not be intimidated of being openly and publicly pro-Israel,” Pierce said.
At this point, none of IU’s traditionally Jewish fraternities or sororities have reported being targeted by Anti-Semitics.
“At Indiana’s campus our fraternity feels safe and hopefully nothing like that would happen to us,” Cooper said. “But just the fact that our AEPi organization was targeted like this, it just brings it close to home.”
