Going To The Mat Against Bigotry

Hundreds of Penn students gather Monday in front of Steinhardt Hall, the university Hillel, to counter Westboro Baptist Church protesters and celebrate diversity. Rabbi Joel Nickerson

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

In its battle against members of the anti-gay and anti-Jewish Westboro Baptist Church, who were demonstrating this week on the heavily Jewish University of Pennsylvania campus, the school’s Hillel appealed for a little muscle.

Literally.

It so happens that Hillel’s next-door neighbor on frat row is the school’s wrestling team fraternity. When approached by the Jewish students, the grapplers were more than welcome to help throttle the protesters, so to speak. They lugged out the grill, threw on some burgers and helped organize an “Acceptance BBQ” in conjunction with Hillel to drown out the Westboro demonstrators.

“The idea is to have our event overshadow theirs in every way. We want to have so many people with such a positive energy that it completely drowns out the hate and negativity going on 30 feet to the North,” wrote fraternity Vice President Marty Borowsky on the event’s Facebook page. Borowsky said the barbecue drew about 800 Penn students for free burgers, veggie burgers and hot dogs.

Borowsky said he is one of three Jewish brothers in the predominantly Christian fraternity, Alpha Tau Omega, and that he worked with his friend Greg Barber, from the predominantly Jewish Tau Epsilon Pi fraternity, to organize the event.

“We barbecue all the time and we’re right next to [Hillel] so I figured, why not?” he told The Jewish Week.  Continue reading…