Duquesne law professor works to make a difference, one video at a time

Rona Kaufman wanted to counter the misinformation that has been dominating university campuses even before Oct. 7.

Kaufman is an associate professor at the Thomas R. Kline School of Law at Duquesne University, where she teaches constitutional law, employment discrimination, family law, gender and the law and children and the law.

She said that she was aware of a wave of antisemitism and anti-Zionism spreading across academia, which, at the time, wasn’t seen in the student population but was growing among academics and professors.

Last year, she started to shift some of her attention to combating the problem. She had already submitted two proposals to conferences to talk about anti-Zionism in academia before Oct. 7.

When Hamas broke a cease-fire and attacked Israel on Oct. 7, Kaufman wasn’t sure those presentations would still be necessary.

“I thought that what happened on Oct. 7, I thought anyone that watched what happened, would see with such clarity that hatred of Israel is hatred of Jews and that these are one and the same and that these presentations I was planning would be superfluous and there would be no need for them,” she said.

Kaufman now calls that belief “naïve,” and acknowledged that the opposite happened: The level of hostility and anti-Zionism that some academics have participated in has been “unprecedented,” she said.

So, Kaufman increased her level of involvement. She spoke at Duquesne University in a talk hosted by the Jewish Law Student Association and began responding to an online group of women law professors with about 2,000 members.

One member, in particular, she said, was “constantly spewing blood libels.”

Kaufman spent much of her time on defense, responding to the charges leveled by the member, unable to tell the Jewish side of the story.

Worse, this was taking place while Kaufman’s daughter was serving in the Israel Defense Forces.

It left Kaufman feeling helpless.

“One evening, out of sheer frustration, I jumped on Zoom…I had a Zoom meeting by myself in my kitchen and recorded it and posted it on Facebook and explained about genocide,” she said. “I did a few of those and posted them on Facebook.”

Academic Engagement Network, an organization of professors across fields who agree that Israel has a right to exist, saw Kaufman’s video and liked what they saw.

“They reached out and said, ‘Hey, we’ve been wanting to make educational videos like what you’re doing for years. How can we support you?’” she said.

Soon, AEN sent a videographer to assist Kaufman in creating a series of professional videos.

Kaufman said the videos are meant to counter the misinformation that has being dominating campuses and cover a wide range of topics: Israel to Zionism; antisemitism to Judaism.

Given that she’s a law professor, it isn’t surprising that Kaufman also discusses the intersection between these topics and various legal issues.

“The first one I released through AEN was on the campus protests. That’s First Amendment civil rights law,” she said. “I’ve been teaching discrimination for years, which is civil rights. I teach constitutional law, as well. So that is a very easy fit for me.”

Above all else, she said, creating truthful videos without spin is what matters most to her.

“It’s important to me that the videos are well sourced,” Kaufman said. “I have no interest in spreading propaganda. I am interested in sharing the factual story of the Jewish people and our history, the story of Israel and what Israel is doing during the war.”

Portions of the videos have been released on various social media platforms including Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram. The goal, though, is to get people to migrate to Kaufman’s YouTube channel, where the full-length videos reside.

“That’s the goal for people who are curious and want to understand more and want a non-propaganda explanation of these issues,” she said.

The dream, she said, is for high school and college students to watch the videos and get introduced to an accurate narrative.

Interestingly, Kaufman said the primary audience she’s developing the videos for is the Jewish community.

“College campuses and college professors are actively teaching that Israel is a settler, colonialist, genocidal, apartheid regime,” she said. “It’s become so mainstream and none of it is true. The difficulty is that so many Jews really don’t know why that’s not true.”

Kaufman believes that Jewish education in the United States has, at least to some extent, failed.

“If our kids are going to college believing Israel is a settler, colonialist, genocidal apartheid regime then we have failed,” she said.

She’s working with the Jewish Emancipation Project — a grassroots collective of community leaders, academics and volunteers — to try and correct the issue. She hopes her videos might be part of the solution because, she said, if the Jewish community doesn’t know its own story, then there is little hope of countering the lies being spread against it.

Jewish students who took part in the encampments on campuses across the country are perfect examples of this, she said.

“It is so sad to have these Jews in these encampments fighting against Israel because they think that we’re committing these horrific crimes, which is untrue. What a source of shame for them,” she said. “To be Jewish is a source of shame for them because they’re so misled.”

Kaufman would like to help pull these young people back into the community and help them develop a sense of Jewish pride.

So far, she said, the feedback she’s received has been mostly encouraging, although there have been a few negative emails. One missive called her Islamophobic; another, from a Jewish professor, said Kaufman didn’t speak for her.

For the most part, though, people have appreciated what she is doing.

“It’s very positive. I’m very thankful,” she said.

Kaufman’s YouTube channel can be viewed at youtube.com/@ronakitchen7601. PJC

David Rullo can be reached at drullo@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.