JTA — After the Guardian reported on Sunday that hundreds of Northwestern University students were being blocked from classes after they refused to watch an antisemitism training video, the school offered a clarification on Monday: The real number of students penalized is less than three dozen.

But other elements of the story remain unchanged: The students are boycotting the video over what they allege is “biased” content in the video that the university began requiring this year in response to antisemitism allegations tied to pro-Palestinian protests on campus.

In a letter to Northwestern administrators last month, over 200 students, faculty and others not affiliated with the university criticized the “Antisemitism Here/Now” training video for being “denialist, unscholarly, discriminatory and morally harmful.”

The 17-minute video was created by the Jewish United Fund of Chicago, Chicago’s Jewish federation, at Northwestern’s request last year. The Guardian story quoted the module’s critics as saying it is biased in favor of Israel and said it does little to protect Jews.

The video, which the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reviewed, offers a basic history of Judaism, Israel and antisemitism. It says that some criticism of Israel can veer into or sound like antisemitism but emphasizes multiple times that not all critiques of Israel are antisemitic.

It does say that anti-Zionism is usually antisemitic.

“Anti-Zionism is the opposition to the Jewish right of self-determination. Anti-Zionism also takes many forms, most of which are antisemitic, because they work against Jewish human rights,” an unnamed rabbi narrator says. “Anti-Zionism is not the same as Israel criticism. Democracies thrive under critique. Israel criticism is fine if/as long as it’s not based on conspiracy theories about Jews, distortions of history or antisemitic tropes.”

The video opens with a disclaimer from the rabbi, who appears to be Jonathan Posner of Metro Chicago Hillel, which JUF supports, noting that some Jews “may disagree” with the information offered.

“There are Jewish people who may disagree with some of the things that will be presented, and that’s okay. Jewish culture values disagreement and debate. This training is representative of the majority of Jewish people,” the narrator said.

In a statement, the university said that students were “not required to agree with the training modules” but did have to attest they would abide by the Student Code of Conduct. (The boycotting students’ letter also criticized the code of conduct for imposing limitations on student protest.)

The training video was endorsed by Michael Simon, the executive director of Northwestern Hillel, who said in an email that it was “crucial” to raise awareness about antisemitism........

© The Times of Israel