As Protests Proceed at Columbia, Some Jewish College students Really feel Focused

Days after Columbia College’s president testified earlier than Congress, the environment on campus remained fraught on Sunday, shaken by pro-Palestinian protests which have drawn the eye of the police and the priority of some Jewish college students.

Over the weekend, the student-led demonstrations on campus additionally attracted separate, extra agitated protests by demonstrators who appeared to be unaffiliated with the college simply exterior Columbia’s gated campus in Higher Manhattan, which was closed to the general public due to the protests.

A few of these protests took a darkish activate Saturday night, resulting in the harassment of some Jewish college students who had been focused with antisemitic vitriol. The verbal assaults left among the 5,000 Jewish college students at Columbia fearful for his or her security on the campus and its neighborhood, and even drew condemnation from the White Home and Mayor Eric Adams of New York Metropolis.

“While every American has the right to peaceful protest, calls for violence and physical intimidation targeting Jewish students and the Jewish community are blatantly antisemitic, unconscionable and dangerous,” Andrew Bates, a spokesman for the White Home, stated in a press release.

However Jewish college students who’re supporting the pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campus stated they felt solidarity, not a way of hazard, at the same time as they denounced the acts of antisemitism.

“There’s so many young Jewish people who are like a vital part” of the protests, stated Grant Miner, a Jewish graduate scholar at Columbia who’s a part of a scholar coalition calling on Columbia to divest from corporations related to Israel.

Stories of antisemitic harassment by protesters surfaced on social media late Saturday. A video posted on X exhibits a masked protester exterior the Columbia gates carrying a Palestinian flag who seems to chant “Go back to Poland!” One Columbia scholar wrote on social media that some protesters had stolen an Israeli flag from college students and tried to burn it, including that Jewish college students had been splashed with water.

Chabad at Columbia College, a chapter of a world Orthodox Jewish motion, stated in a statement that some protesters had hurled expletives at Jewish college students as they walked residence from campus over the weekend, and had stated to them, “All you do is colonize” and “Go back to Europe.”

“We are horrified and worried about physical safety” on campus, stated the assertion, including that the group had employed extra armed guards to chaperone college students strolling residence from Chabad.

Eliana Goldin, a junior at Columbia who’s the co-chairwoman of Aryeh, a pro-Israel scholar group, stated she didn’t “feel safe anymore” on campus. Ms. Goldin, who’s out of city for Passover, stated campus had develop into “super overwhelming,” with loud protests disrupting class and even sleep.

In a press release, Samantha Slater, a Columbia spokeswoman, stated that the college was dedicated to making sure the security of its college students.

“Columbia students have the right to protest, but they are not allowed to disrupt campus life or harass and intimidate fellow students and members of our community,” stated the assertion. “We are acting on concerns we are hearing from our Jewish students and are providing additional support and resources to ensure that our community remains safe.”

The upheaval on and across the Columbia campus this week marked the newest fallout from the testimony that the college’s president, Nemat Shafik, gave at a congressional hearing on antisemitism on Wednesday.

Dr. Shafik vowed to forcefully crack down on antisemitism on campus, partly by disciplining professors and scholar protesters who used language she stated may very well be antisemitic, comparable to contested phrases like “from the river to the sea.” Her testimony, meant as an assertive show of Columbia’s actions to fight antisemitism, angered supporters of educational freedom and emboldened a gaggle of protesting college students who had erected an encampment of about 50 tents on a predominant garden within the campus this week.

College officers stated the tents violated the college’s insurance policies and known as within the New York Police Division on Thursday, leading to the arrests of more than 100 Columbia University and Barnard College students who refused to go away. However the police involvement solely fueled the uproar. College students pressed on with their “Gaza Solidarity Encampment,” sleeping within the chilly with out tents on a neighboring garden, and a few started to erect tents once more on Sunday, with out Columbia’s permission.

College students who help the protesters say there may be a variety of opinion amongst Jewish college students at Columbia. “To say that it’s unsafe for Jewish people, to me, indicates that you’re only speaking about a certain portion of Jewish people,” Mr. Miner, 27, stated on the college on Sunday.

“We are totally opposed to any sort of antisemitic speech,” he added. “We are here to, you know, stand in solidarity with Palestine. And we refuse — our Jewish members refuse — to equate that with antisemitism.”

Makayla Gubbay, a junior finding out human rights at Columbia, stated that as a Jewish scholar, she has principally been involved for the security of her friends protesting for Palestinians.

Ms. Gubbay stated that all through the previous six months her associates — notably Palestinian, Arab and Muslim friends — have been injured by the police and censored for his or her activism. Although she was not concerned within the organizing of the encampment, she went there for the Sabbath on Friday, attended a speech given by a participant in Columbia’s intense 1968 protest and introduced scorching tea for associates.

“There’s been a lot of amazing solidarity in terms of other students coming on campus, hosting Shabbats, hosting screenings, having faculty give speeches,” Ms. Gubbay stated.

Columbia officers have beforehand stated there have been a number of antisemitic incidents on campus, together with one bodily assault in October — the assault of a 24-year-old Columbia student who was hanging fliers a number of days after the Hamas assaults on Israel in October.

Whereas many Jewish college students had left campus to have a good time Passover, which begins on Monday, the rising tensions led not less than one rabbi on campus to recommend that the Ivy League faculty was now not secure and that Jewish college students ought to go away.

Elie Buechler, an Orthodox rabbi who works at Columbia, despatched a WhatsApp message to a gaggle of greater than 290 Jewish college students on Sunday morning saying that campus and metropolis police had failed to ensure the security of Jewish college students “in the face of extreme antisemitism and anarchy.” He advisable that college students return residence “until the reality in and around campus has dramatically improved.”

“It is not our job as Jews to ensure our own safety on campus,” wrote Mr. Buechler, the director of the Orthodox Union’s Jewish Studying Initiative on Campus at Columbia College and Barnard Faculty. “No one should have to endure this level of hatred, let alone at school.”

Citing Passover preparations, Mr. Buechler declined to be interviewed, however he stated that his message was meant as a private assertion and didn’t replicate the views of the college or Hillel, the Jewish group on campus.

Certainly, in an obvious response, Hillel issued a press release on Sunday afternoon saying that the group didn’t consider that Jewish college students ought to go away Columbia, but it surely pressed the college and town to step up security measures.

“We call on the university administration to act immediately in restoring calm to campus,” Brian Cohen, the group’s govt director, wrote. “The city must ensure that students can walk up and down Broadway and Amsterdam without fear of harassment,” he added, referring to the avenues that run alongside the Higher West Aspect campus.

Noah Levine, 20, a sophomore at Columbia and an organizer with Jewish Voice for Peace, stated they discovered the rabbi’s feedback “deeply offensive.”

“I’m a Jewish student who has been in this encampment since its inception,” they stated. “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 antisemitism.”

However Xavier Westergaard, a Ph.D. scholar in biology, stated the temper for Jewish college students was “very dire.”

“There are students on campus who are yelling horrible things, not about Israelis only or about the actions of the state or the government, but about Jews in general,” he stated.

Sharon Otterman contributed reporting.