Days after the president of Columbia University testified before Congress, the atmosphere on campus remained tense Sunday, shaken by pro-Palestinian protests that drew the attention of police and the concern of some Jewish students.
Over the weekend, student protests on campus also sparked separate, more rowdy protests by demonstrators who appeared unaffiliated with the university, just outside Columbia’s closed campus in Upper Manhattan, which was closed to the public due to protests.
Some of these protests took a dark turn Saturday evening, leading to harassment of some Jewish students who were targets of anti-Semitic vitriole. These verbal attacks have left some of Columbia’s 5,000 Jewish students concerned for their safety on and around campus, and have even drawn condemnation from the White House and the Mayor Eric Adams of New York City.
“While every American has the right to peaceful protest, calls for violence and physical intimidation against Jewish students and the Jewish community are blatantly anti-Semitic, unacceptable and dangerous,” said Andrew Bates, a spokesperson for the White House, in a press release.
But Jewish students who support pro-Palestinian protests on campus said they felt solidarity, not a sense of danger, even as they denounced acts of anti-Semitism.
“There are so many young Jews who are playing a vital role” in the protests, said Grant Miner, a Jewish graduate student at Columbia who is part of a student coalition calling on Columbia to divest from its Israel-linked businesses.
Reports of anti-Semitic harassment by protesters surfaced on social media Saturday evening. A video posted on shows a masked protester outside the gates of Columbia carrying a Palestinian flag who appears to chant “Go back to Poland!” A student from Colombia wrote on social networks that some protesters stole an Israeli flag from students and attempted to burn it, adding that Jewish students were splashed with water.
Chabad of Columbia University, a chapter of an international Orthodox Jewish movement, said in a report that some protesters cursed at Jewish students as they walked home from campus over the weekend, and told them, “All you’re doing is colonizing” and “Go back to Europe.”
“We are horrified and concerned about physical safety” on campus, the statement said, adding that the organization had hired additional armed guards to chaperone students returning home after leaving Chabad.
Eliana Goldin, a student at Columbia and co-president of Aryeh, a pro-Israel student organization, said she “no longer felt safe” on campus. Ms. Goldin, who is out of town for Passover, said the campus had become “extremely overwhelming,” with large protests disrupting classes and even sleep.
In a statement, Columbia spokesperson Samantha Slater said the university is committed to ensuring the safety of its students.
“Columbia students have the right to protest, but they are not permitted to disrupt campus life or harass and intimidate fellow students and members of our community,” the statement said. “We are responding to concerns expressed by our Jewish students and providing additional support and resources to ensure the safety of our community. »
The upheaval on and around Columbia’s campus this week marked the latest fallout from testimony that university President Nemat Shafik delivered a speech at a congressional hearing on anti-Semitism Wednesday.
Dr. Shafik has pledged to forcefully crack down on anti-Semitism on campus, in part by sanctioning professors and student protesters who used language that she said could be anti-Semitic, such as contested expressions like ” river to the sea. His testimony, intended as a strong demonstration of Columbia’s actions to combat anti-Semitism, angered academic freedom advocates and emboldened a group of student protesters who had set up an encampment of about 50 tents on a main campus lawn this week.
University officials said the tents violated school policies and called the New York Police Department on Thursday. leading to the arrest of more than 100 Columbia University and Barnard College students who refused to leave. But the police intervention only fueled the outcry. Students continued their “Gaza solidarity camp,” sleeping in the cold without tents on a nearby lawn, and some began erecting tents again on Sunday, without Columbia’s permission.
Students who support the protesters say there is a wide diversity of opinions among Jewish students at Columbia. “To say it’s dangerous for the Jewish people, to me, says you’re only talking about a certain part of the Jewish people,” Mr. Miner, 27, said at the university on Sunday.
“We are totally opposed to any form of anti-Semitic speech,” he added. “We’re here to, you know, stand in solidarity with Palestine. And we refuse – our Jewish members refuse – to equate this with anti-Semitism. »
Makayla Gubbay, a human rights student at Columbia, said that as a Jewish student, she was most concerned about the safety of her classmates who were protesting for the Palestinians.
Ms. Gubbay said that over the past six months, her friends – particularly her Palestinian, Arab and Muslim peers – have been harmed by police and censored for their activism. Although she did not participate in organizing the camp, she went there on Friday for the Sabbath, attended a speech given by a participant in The intense demonstration in Colombia in 1968 and I brought hot tea to friends.
“There’s been a lot of incredible solidarity in terms of having other students come to campus, having Shabbats, having screenings, professors giving speeches,” Ms. Gubbay said.
Columbia officials have previously said there have been several anti-Semitic incidents on campus, including a physical assault in October – the assault of 24-year-old Columbia student who hung leaflets a few days after the Hamas attacks against Israel in October.
As many Jewish students left campus to celebrate Passover, which begins Monday, growing tensions led at least one campus rabbi to suggest that the Ivy League school was no longer safe and that students Jews should leave.
Elie Buechler, an Orthodox rabbi who works at Columbia, sent a WhatsApp message to a group of more than 290 Jewish students Sunday morning, saying campus and city police had failed to ensure the safety of Jewish students “in the face of extreme anti-Semitism and lawlessness.” He recommended that students return home “until the reality on and around campus has significantly improved.”
“It is not our job as Jews to ensure our own safety on campus,” wrote Mr. Buechler, director of the Orthodox Union’s Jewish Learning Initiative on the University’s campus. from Columbia and Barnard College. “No one should have to endure this level of hatred, least of all at school.”
Citing Passover preparations, Mr. Buechler declined to be interviewed, but said his message was intended to be a personal statement and did not reflect the views of the university or Hillel, the Jewish organization present at the event. campus.
Indeed, in an apparent response, Hillel issued a statement Sunday afternoon saying the organization did not believe Jewish students should leave Columbia, but it pressed the university and city to step up security measures .
“We call on the university administration to act immediately to restore calm to campus,” wrote Brian Cohen, the group’s executive director. “The city needs to ensure that students can walk down Broadway and Amsterdam without fear of harassment,” he added, referring to the avenues that run along the campus on the Upper West Side.
Noah Levine, 20, a sophomore at Columbia and organizer with Jewish Voice for Peace, said he found the rabbi’s comments “deeply offensive.”
“I am a Jewish student who has lived in this camp since its inception,” they said. “I’m also a student who has been organizing in this community with these people since October, and even before that, and I believe in my heart that this is not about anti-Semitism.”
But Xavier Westergaard, a Ph.D. student in biology, said the mood among Jewish students was “very disastrous.”
“There are students on campus shouting horrible things, not only about Israelis or state or government actions, but about Jews in general,” he said.
Sharon Otterman reports contributed.
