Matthew Patashnick, the associate dean for student and family support at Columbia University, changed the profile picture on his now-private Instagram account after the Washington Free Beacon reported on disturbing texts he sent colleagues during a panel discussion of anti-Semitism on campus.
The new photo appears to show Patashnick standing in the Billy Rose Art Garden at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, the capital city where former president Donald Trump opened a U.S. embassy in 2018. (Patashnick supported President Joe Biden in 2020.)
The Columbia dean might be seeking to allay widespread criticism of his texts to university administrators last month, when he accused one of the Jewish panelists at an alumni weekend event of conniving to take "full advantage of this moment" for the "fundraising potential." The advocacy group Documenting Jew Hatred on Campus denounced Patashnick for promoting "the antisemitic trope of 'the greedy Jew.'"
Patashnick made his shocking remarks in a group text with Susan Chang-Kim, vice dean and chief administrative officer of Columbia College, and Cristen Kromm, the dean of undergraduate student life. "Double Urgh," Chang-Kim wrote in response, a follow-up to her previous comment, "Urgh."
Later on in the conversation, Kromm used a pair of vomit emojis to describe her feelings about an op-ed written by Columbia's campus rabbi, Yonah Hain, in the wake of the Oct. 7 terrorist attack. Titled "Sounding the alarm," the op-ed warned that the university had "lost its moral compass" by enabling the "normalization of Hamas."
