By JOHN OSTFIELD
What happened to Raz Segal has exposed a not very well-known aspect of the Minnesota Jewish community.
(Editor’s note: A story about the University of Minnesota settling a lawsuit with Segal appeared in the Jewish World’s September print edition.)
Minnesota in the first half of the 20th century was known as the capital of antisemitism in the United States. The University of Minnesota kept track of the number of Jewish students as well as “New York Jews” (a code for communists) in the 1930s and would not accept them, as well as African Americans, in the dorms. Minneapolis had many affluent neighborhoods with restrictive covenants that barred Jewish buyers.
As a result of that religious discrimination, defense organizations like the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) of Minnesota and the Dakotas and the Jewish federations in the Twin Cities grew in strength, along with their links to the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL), to promote Jewish interests, going back to the time of Hubert Humphrey as mayor of Minneapolis.
For many years these organizations were active in progressive spaces. Zionism in those days was seen as progressive. The ruling Labor Party in Israel, before 1977, was a member of the Socialist International.
Gradually the organizations became fixated solely on Zionist concerns. For many decades they tried to hold to what is now called PEP (progressive except for Palestine).
One has only to look at the name of the regional summer camp for Jewish kids: Herzl Camp. After 1967, and Israel’s victory against four Arab states in the Six-Day War, these organizations became less interested in subjects other than a Holocaust narrative that justifies impunity for Israel and teaching Zionist myths to children and the public. An integral part of this trend has been to shut down any dissident voices in the Jewish community and tar any gentile criticism of Israel or its actions as antisemitism. We have seen this over and over with the JCRC setting up news conferences where they bring young Jews from the U of M to cry and stoke anti-Palestinian reactions to feed Islamophobia.
When Jews from Israel come to the Twin Cities to bring a non-Zionist perspective they are not received in synagogues or other Jewish spaces; they have to speak in churches or bookstores. We saw that in the story of Professor Segal. He was invited to come to Minnesota by a University of Minnesota department and then to speak the next day in Northfield, Minnesota. His time was over a Friday night.
A few of us decided to host him for a Shabbat dinner, but we couldn’t find a Jewish venue that would host us. Luckily one of the participants knew someone at the Friends meeting house and they allowed us to use their space.
Raz Segal’s voice is sorely needed in Minnesota. The U of M should ask him to take the position he was offered along with ironclad guarantees that he will not be subject to political interference.
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John Ostfield lives in St. Paul.
(American Jewish World, September 2026)
