JEFFERSONVILLE, LOCH SHELDRAKE  — After posting remarks on the Israel-Hamas conflict expressing criticisms on the Jewish community on her Facebook page, Jeffersonville business owner Lauren Seikaly has faced public backlash and online discourse, including people calling for her removal from the SUNY Sullivan Foundation Board of Directors. 

In her initial post, Seikaly made comments about how all Jewish people are “safe in their homes with designer shoes, designer clothing and weekly trips to the salon” and that they “are the most important people on the planet.”

“May you all be able to live your wealthy lives in safety and privilege here in the United States of Israel and abroad,” said the post. “Where no one will ever be allowed to point out your hypocrisy and keep their job at the same time.”

To add context to these comments, Seikaly made reference to displaced families in Gaza living in tents being burned alive by Israeli bombs “that we are paying for.”

“While all of this happening, I see social media posts of my rich Jewish friends in New York City hosting fundraisers in their Hamptons homes for the Israeli army, wearing their designer dresses and designer shoes because the photos might end up in the Style Section of the New York Times.”

Seikaly told the Democrat that in her initial post, she was speaking directly to her Jewish friends “because I spent a year politely trying educate people to what is truly happening in Gaza and trying to get them to see past Israeli propaganda; to spend some time learning about Palestine and Palestinians.”

Calls emerge for removal from Foundation Board

The Board of Directors of Landfield Avenue Synagogue and Attorney Jacob Billig of Monticello each sent letters to the SUNY Sullivan Foundation Board calling for Seikaly’s removal. 

Billig referenced the college’s anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policy in his letter, which states that the college is “deeply committed to eradicating all forms of discrimination” and “unequivocally maintains a stance of zero tolerance towards any behavior that introduces discrimination or harassment into the teaching, learning, living or working environment, as well as any other relationship arising from college activities or programs.”

In their letter, the Landfield board referenced the First Amendment, saying, “While we must always be steadfast in the guarantee of this right it is also essential to ensure that freedom of speech exemplifies common decency and respect for the beliefs of others.”

The board took the stance that Seikaly took advantage of the right to free speech as a way to spew hate in contrary to the “sense of pride of unity that the framers of our Constitution fought valiantly for.”

“Recently in our community, we have seen an individual bastardize this right and use this sacred freedom to incite anger that, laced with the vitriol of antisemitism, can only cause a clear and present danger to all,” read the letter. 

The letter went on to say that it is inexcusable and unacceptable for a board member of the SUNY Sullivan Foundation to spew that kind of rhetoric against the Jewish community. 

Why speak up?

“While the atrocities in Gaza only got worse and started to spread to Lebanon,” she said, “I felt it was not only time to stop being polite, but it was also time to call out the Jewish supremacy at play in a system designed to keep this genocide going.”

Seikaly, who herself is of Palestinian decent on her father’s side, has been outspoken on her support of Palestine since last October. She has hosted Palestinian events at her businesses and helped to organize others. 

She told the Democrat that she has tried to educate the community on the conflict with these events which has included selling relevant books on the topic in her bake shop and being invited to tell her story on WJFF and Trailer Talk with Sabrina Artel. 

“I stand with Beverly Sterner and other activists on the bridge in Narrowsburg at her vigil on Saturday nights in an effort to call attention to the civilian deaths in Gaza that our taxes are paying for,” Seikaly stated. “I do all of this because it is vital information to be shared so people can understand the crisis, not as told by Israel, who will always lie about their actions, but as told by a Palestinian who is able to add in the Palestinian voice and experience to the conversation. So we can try to collectively bring an end to the bloodshed.”

Seikaly noted that back in October, she decided to make her social media pages public so that her posts could be seen by more than just her friends and get pertinent news information out of Gaza by journalists risking their lives on the frontlines.

Removal from the Foundation Board

In response to the Landfield Avenue Synagogue board’s letter, the SUNY Sullivan Foundation Board issued a statement stating that they met and approved a resolution calling for Seikaly’s resignation. 

The statement to Landfield Avenue Synagogue, dated Monday, October 14, said, “Should this not occur, the SUNY Sullivan Foundation will follow its bylaws and meet in executive session in one week to vote to remove her from the Foundation board.”

Seikaly said that since December, she has experienced her voice being silenced along with other pro-Palestinian, anti-Zionit activists. 

“As witnessed by my removal from this board, there are Zionists in this country who make phones calls to employers demanding our removal, convincing everyone that our criticism of Israel is ‘antisemitic’, that we are antisemitic and therefore unfit to sit on a board, particularly in a large Jewish community,” she said. “They leave comments on our business’ social media posts encouraging people to boycott our businesses. They write letters to all of the news outlets and community organization in an effort to demonize us, delegitimize us and our position against Israel.”

“I understand that some people found my words offensive but that doesn’t make them any less true. And anyway, what is more offensive,” she continued, “me calling my Jewish friends out for being materialistic and supremacist, or burning people alive, over and over again for a year while millions of pro-Palestinians and anit-Zionist Jews take to the streets demanding an arms embargo from our government that ignores us because they have been bought off by the same Zionist cabal that had me thrown off these boards?”