More than a year after the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre of innocents in Israel and a spring roiled by an explosion of antisemitism on campuses and streets around the country, we’re still dealing with fresh incidents of anti-Jewish speech.

After a fall conference of Massachusetts Computer Using Educators included a discussion in which speakers referenced “Israeli genocide” and “Israeli apartheid,” with one panelist suggesting that the teaching of the Holocaust has been one-sided, local educators and the Anti-Defamation League called for an apology. Five board members from the ed tech group resigned last week.

MassCUE Board President Casey Daigle had this to say: “MassCUE regrets that the language used by a member of our panel was hurtful.

“We apologize for any offense or harm that it caused. The organization is still assessing the fallout from this incident.”

“We apologize for any offense” is the “thoughts and prayers” of damage-control rhetoric. It’s become part of the playbook used by universities and other organizations receiving blowback from people rightly disgusted by antisemitic speech and actions.

Harvard, Tufts, MIT, and Columbia University, to name a few, were hotbeds of anti-Israel encampments and protests earlier this year, and students found ideological kinship with professors.

In July, Columbia University removed three administrators and put them on indefinite leave after finding that text messages they exchanged during a campus discussion about Jewish life “disturbingly touched on ancient antisemitic tropes,” the Associated Press reported.

“Antisemitism has no place in the Harvard community,” a Harvard spokesperson said this spring. “We remain steadfast in our commitment to combating antisemitism and hate, in whatever form it manifests itself.”

Everyone is “steadfast in their commitment” and “against hate speech” and whatever the bromide du jour happens to be. But antisemitism continues to fester.

After the Anti-Defamation League gave Harvard, MIT, Tufts an “F” grade in its “Campus Antisemitism Report Card” in April, ADL New England’s interim regional director Ron Fish noted, “We at ADL have been working with university leadership for years to help them better understand the nature of this problem.”

“Some of the schools seem to have learned since October 7 that turning a blind eye to harassing speech that marginalizes Jewish students is not a wise policy,” Fish added.

Educating students on fighting antisemitism isn’t enough. It’s evident that teachers need to learn these lessons as well. Antisemitism can only thrive and spread if the soil is primed, and each new incident reveals fecund gardens of hate.

In a little less than three months it will be spring. The weather will be warmer and students can once again take to the quads. Will they bring fresh encampments and signs? Will they harass Jewish students? Will city streets become circuses of chants and shoutdowns?

Or will the places that have publicly disavowed antisemitism and promised safe places in which their students can learn keep their word?

Editorial cartoon by Joe Heller (Joe Heller)