Cleveland Jewish News Foundation: Put papers in front of college officials

(JNS) — The Cleveland Jewish News Foundation’s “Educate the Educators” initiative aims to combat antisemitism and misinformation spread on college campuses around Ohio by sending a free copy of the award-winning Cleveland Jewish News each week to top college officials.

Mark Bogomolny, board chair of the foundation, said the first round of newspapers was sent the week of Nov. 19, 2024, to 92 schools and universities, including public, private and technical schools across Ohio. Some of the recipients include Oberlin College, Case Western Reserve University and The Ohio State University in Columbus, where Jewish students have been the targets of antisemitism and anti-Zionism since May 2024.

“Not all of us can protest,” Bogomolny said. “Not all of us can write a letter to the editor. Not everybody can go stand outside of a university president’s door and have a sit-in or whatever. But almost everybody who we’re communicating with can contribute to this effort.”

Bogomolny said the plan to gauge the initiative’s success will be discussed by the CJNF board following its implementation.

The initiative was introduced at the CJN’s 60th-anniversary celebration on Oct. 30, 2024, seeking to place copies of the newspaper on the desk of every college president and board of trustees chair in the Buckeye State.

“When attendees heard about the initiative, there was just an excitement in the room,” Bogomolny said, reflecting on presenting the initiative at the event. “People were really intrigued and motivated by the thought of just taking this simple step.”

He said the goal is to provide university leaders with a Jewish perspective and accurate reporting on issues surrounding antisemitism, protests and misinformation often seen spread on campuses and social media. This content is regularly found in the CJN. He said the foundation could take this initiative to other states but wanted to start in Ohio because of the number of schools.

“We want to get the presidents of the universities and colleges in the state of Ohio who are dealing with all kinds of issues surrounding Jews on campus, antisemitism on campus, the problems with encampments, protests, etc., and a lot of misinformation,” Bogomolny said.

He said the initiative also aims to complement existing campus news sources by offering student editors an additional, credible perspective.

“The papers—and not just the Jewish news, but the national news media, the traditional news media—are always in competition with TikTok or Instagram or Facebook or whatever else,” Bogomolny said. “And we don’t always believe that those sites are fact-checked or are accurate or are giving people the true story as it really is happening.”

The initiative has already raised an excess of $20,000.

‘This makes a whole lot of sense’

Bogomolny said the idea for the initiative began when Ronald J. Teplitzky, Cleveland Jewish News Foundation chair emeritus, brought it up at a committee meeting. From there, he took the idea to the foundation’s board, where there was a “tremendous amount of interest and a lot of excitement and energy built up” surrounding the concept, Bogomolny said.

“He brought it to a small meeting one day and said this was something that he had done for his alma mater, which was Ohio University, and thought it was a good idea if we would expand upon it,” Bogomolny said.

Bogomolny said he hopes the initiative will inspire others in the community to support the effort and help expand its reach. “My hope is that by having people read about this in the community there will be other community members who didn’t attend the event that would say, ‘Well, this makes a whole lot of sense,’” he said. “And my hope is to get more people involved in supporting this initiative.”

He said the simplicity of the initiative makes it easily accessible to those who want to contribute to the fight against antisemitism but may not know how to get started or involved. He said those interested in the initiative can not only get involved financially through making a donation to the cause; however, they could also help create lists of schools and universities that could benefit from receiving a copy of the CJN.

“It was a way for us to subtly make our, you know, the Jewish perspective more aware to these people who may not, again, be seeing it or reading it on a regular basis,” Bogomolny said. “And we thought it was an easy way for us to start combating antisemitism.”