The Baltimore Jewish Council recently became a part of The Associated: Jewish Federation of Baltimore’s Shine a Light on Antisemitism campaign, applying for a microgrant to produce educational posters to promote the initiative. While BJC has participated in Shine a Light on Antisemitism in the past, this is the first time BJC has directly applied for a grant to support promotional efforts.
BJC’s posters, which say “Together we believe hate has no place,” have started cropping up in Jewish institutions all over the Baltimore area, along with a brief description of the campaign’s cause and links to resources where constituents can report instances of antisemitism in their community.
Both The Associated and BJC have had tools to report antisemitic harassment on their websites for a long time, but these resources were not frequently publicized.
“We thought this would be a good opportunity to obtain better data and also to help people understand where to report antisemitism and find community support,” BJC Executive Director Howard Libit said. The BJC received $4,000 to support printing, distribution and design costs.
Libit first had the idea of spreading these posters around from a similar local campaign — CHANA, whose posters providing Jewish women with resources to seek help if they are experiencing abuse can be found in bathrooms of congregations all over the city.
“There’s a very specific reason as to why CHANA posters are in bathrooms, because they are private spaces,” Libit said. “We’re putting posters out in the open, though, and the initial response we’ve gotten from rabbis is very positive. We’re looking forward to distributing and putting up more posters.”
Reports of antisemitic incidents can be submitted to www.associated.com/report.
