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 gave the impression 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 a few of 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.
“Whereas each American has the fitting to peaceable protest, requires violence and bodily intimidation focusing on Jewish college students and the Jewish group are blatantly antisemitic, unconscionable and harmful,” Andrew Bates, a spokesman for the White Home, mentioned in an announcement.
However Jewish college students who’re supporting the pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campus mentioned they felt solidarity, not a way of hazard, at the same time as they denounced the acts of antisemitism.
“There’s so many younger Jewish people who find themselves like an important half” of the protests, mentioned Grant Miner, a Jewish graduate pupil at Columbia who’s a part of a pupil coalition calling on Columbia to divest from firms linked to Israel.
Experiences 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 “Return to Poland!” One Columbia pupil 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, mentioned in a statement that some protesters had hurled expletives at Jewish college students as they walked residence from campus over the weekend, and had mentioned to them, “All you do is colonize” and “Return to Europe.”
“We’re horrified and anxious about bodily security” on campus, mentioned the assertion, including that the group had employed further 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 pupil group, mentioned she didn’t “really feel secure anymore” on campus. Ms. Goldin, who’s out of city for Passover, mentioned campus had develop into “tremendous overwhelming,” with loud protests disrupting class and even sleep.
In an announcement, Samantha Slater, a Columbia spokeswoman, mentioned that the college was dedicated to making sure the protection of its college students.
“Columbia college students have the fitting to protest, however they aren’t allowed to disrupt campus life or harass and intimidate fellow college students and members of our group,” mentioned the assertion. “We’re performing on considerations we’re listening to from our Jewish college students and are offering further help and assets to make sure that our group stays secure.”
The upheaval on and across the Columbia campus this week marked the most recent fallout from the testimony that the college’s president, Nemat Shafik, gave at a congressional listening to on antisemitism on Wednesday.
Dr. Shafik vowed to forcefully crack down on antisemitism on campus, partially by disciplining professors and pupil protesters who used language she mentioned may very well be antisemitic, reminiscent of contested phrases like “from the river to the ocean.” 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 principal garden within the campus this week.
College officers mentioned the tents violated the college’s insurance policies and known as within the New York Police Division on Thursday, resulting in the arrests of greater than 100 Columbia College and Barnard School 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’s a variety of opinion amongst Jewish college students at Columbia. “To say that it’s unsafe for Jewish individuals, to me, signifies that you simply’re solely talking a few sure portion of Jewish individuals,” Mr. Miner, 27, mentioned on the college on Sunday.
“We’re completely against any form of antisemitic speech,” he added. “We’re right here to, you realize, stand in solidarity with Palestine. And we refuse — our Jewish members refuse — to equate that with antisemitism.”
Makayla Gubbay, a junior learning human rights at Columbia, mentioned that as a Jewish pupil, she has largely been involved for the protection of her friends protesting for Palestinians.
Ms. Gubbay mentioned that all through the previous six months her buddies — significantly 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 sizzling tea for buddies.
“There’s been lots of superb solidarity when it comes to different college students approaching campus, internet hosting Shabbats, internet hosting screenings, having college give speeches,” Ms. Gubbay mentioned.
Columbia officers have beforehand mentioned 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 pupil who was hanging fliers just a few days after the Hamas assaults on Israel in October.
Whereas many Jewish college students had left campus to have fun Passover, which begins on Monday, the rising tensions led no less than one rabbi on campus to recommend that the Ivy League college was not secure and that Jewish college students ought to depart.
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 protection of Jewish college students “within the face of maximum antisemitism and anarchy.” He advisable that college students return residence “till the truth in and round campus has dramatically improved.”
“It’s not our job as Jews to make sure our personal security on campus,” wrote Mr. Buechler, the director of the Orthodox Union’s Jewish Studying Initiative on Campus at Columbia College and Barnard School. “Nobody ought to need to endure this degree of hatred, not to mention in school.”
Citing Passover preparations, Mr. Buechler declined to be interviewed, however he mentioned that his message was meant as a private assertion and didn’t mirror the views of the college or Hillel, the Jewish group on campus.
Certainly, in an obvious response, Hillel issued an announcement on Sunday afternoon saying that the group didn’t imagine that Jewish college students ought to depart Columbia, however it pressed the college and the town to step up security measures.
“We name on the college administration to behave instantly in restoring calm to campus,” Brian Cohen, the group’s govt director, wrote. “The town should be certain that college students can stroll up and down Broadway and Amsterdam with out worry of harassment,” he added, referring to the avenues that run alongside the Higher West Facet campus.
Noah Levine, 20, a sophomore at Columbia and an organizer with Jewish Voice for Peace, mentioned they discovered the rabbi’s feedback “deeply offensive.”
“I’m a Jewish pupil who has been on this encampment since its inception,” they mentioned. “I’m additionally a pupil who has been organizing on this group with these individuals since October, and even earlier than that, and I imagine in my coronary heart that this isn’t about antisemitism.”
However Xavier Westergaard, a Ph.D. pupil in biology, mentioned the temper for Jewish college students was “very dire.”
“There are college students on campus who’re yelling horrible issues, not about Israelis solely or in regards to the actions of the state or the federal government, however about Jews usually,” he mentioned.
Sharon Otterman contributed reporting.