Members of the state’s Special Commission on Combating Antisemitism held its fifth meeting this week in the western part of the commonwealth, hearing testimony from local experts and residents, including several from Northampton, on their experience dealing with antisemitism.

The commission is co-chaired by state Sen. John Velis, D-Westfield, and state Rep. Simon Cataldo, D-Concord, who held four meetings in Boston since the commission’s creation last year before arriving at the Springfield Jewish Community Center in Longmeadow on Tuesday. At a previous meeting held in February, the commission grilled Massachusetts Teacher Association President Max Page over pro-Palestinian educational resources in state classrooms.

During the Longmeadow meeting, the commission heard from members of local Jewish communities on how they’ve experienced antisemitism, particularly after the start of the war between Israel and Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023.

Molly Parr, a Florence resident and the vice president of the Jewish Federation of Western Massachusetts, testified that the synagogue she attends, Beit Ahavahm, had received two bomb threats since the war started, and that the federation was worked with a security expert to perform risk assessments on various Jewish facilities in the Pioneer Valley, including the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst.

Parr also described situations at local elementary schools, such as a diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) parents group at Leeds Elementary School in Northampton that distributed a reading list about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which Parr said was biased against Jewish and Israeli points of view.

Parr also said she was concerned about Fort River Elementary School in Amherst inviting Hannah Moushabeck, a local Palestinian-American author and activist, to read her children’s book “Homeland: My Father Dreams of Palestine,” to the students.

“All too often Jewish people are considered white in DEI conversations,” Parr said. “The concept of intersectionality, that many sources of bias and discrimination are connected, does not seem to extend to antisemitism.”

Also speaking before the commission was Henny Lewin, an Amherst resident and Holocaust survivor who was born in Lithuania a year and a half before the Nazis invaded the country in 1941. Lewin was one of several hundred Jewish survivors in Lithuania following the war, and now gives lectures at various schools and organization about the importance of remembering the Holocaust.

“What I try to stress when I speak to schoolchildren is if you hear somebody being bullied, don’t say, ‘Oh, it has nothing to do with me,’ and walk away,” Lewin said. “Stop the evil right there. Don’t let that bully influence others. And it has nothing to do with somebody’s religion or what they’re wearing or the color of their clothes.”

Lewin also said that actions taken by the Israeli government did not give people the right to attack Jews.

“I am not responsible for what happens in the government of Israel,” Lewin said. “I am a Jew, but that doesn’t make me responsible for the Israeli government.”

Rabbi Ariella Rosen of Congregation B’Nai Israel in Northampton also offered caution to the commission that policies enacted in the name of preventing antisemitism could actually bring more harm than good to the Jewish community.

As an example, Rosen spoke about recent federal actions taken against Columbia University in New York City, including the cancellation of $400 million in grants and contracts and the arrest and detention of Mahmoud Khalil, a U.S. permanent resident and student activist who was taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Both actions were done in response to massive pro-Palestinian protests that occurred at the university last year.

“When major funding is withheld from a university in the name of Jewish safety, Jews will bear the consequences, including resentment and animosity, among other potential consequences,” Rosen said.

Regarding Khalil’s detention, Rosen said: “No matter his politics, even if we strongly oppose his politics, the violation of his rights should scare us all. Moreover, I find it horrific that the very tactics that Jews have faced with our own long history of forced migration and expulsion, are being used against others in our name.”

Velis sponsored the legislation that created the commission, which is holding hearings throughout the state as it gathers information for a series of recommendations on how to combat antisemitism. The commission’s creation is partly in response to a spike in anti-Jewish hate crimes in Massachusetts in recent years, including a 70% increase in 2023 over the previous year, according to a state report.

Following the hearing, Velis and Cataldo took questions from the press regarding what they had heard. Velis, whose district includes the cities of Holyoke and Easthampton, said that colleges and universities in the state, including those in the Pioneer Valley, would be looked at on a “case-by-case” basis with regard to alleged incidents of antisemitism.

“Every college, every university is going to have to answer for whether or not antisemitism is something that’s pervasive on their campus.” Velis said. “If antisemitism is prevalent, if it’s out there, if it’s pervasive, it needs to be responded to.”

Cataldo said what he had heard from testimony that day highlighted the need for teaching how to combat antisemitism within the state’s school districts.

“We heard about some of the resource challenges that the smaller rural communities here in western Mass., and I think around the state, are facing with regard to making sure our schools are sufficiently resourced to teach about these issues,” Cataldo said. “We want to make sure that Jewish teachers, the ones we do have, feel comfortable talking about their Jewish identity, revealing themselves as a Jew.”

Alexander MacDougall can be reached at amacdougall@gazettenet.com.