American universities: Columbia students address press, congressmen propose antisemitism monitors

Zach Sage Fox, a comedian and social media influencer, confronted pro-Palestinian protesters at New York University while dressed as Moses from the biblical story of Exodus.

In the story of Exodus, Moses repeatedly goes to Pharaoh and requests that his people be released from slavery in Egypt. Every time Pharaoh refused to release the ancient Hebrews, Egypt was met with a plague with Pharaoh finally agreeing to release the slaves after all the firstborn babies died.

Inside the University of Southern California Hillel, there were signs of normalcy. Some students were making matzah pizza in the courtyard, while another set up an art installation devoted to actor Larry David. Students and staff discussed plans for the evening’s Shabbat programming.

But outside the building, students only a block away could be heard hawking cookies and other baked goods at their makeshift “Bake Sale 4 Gaza.” Their table was set up next to another booth with a large sign declaring that “‘I stand with Israel’ equals ‘I stand with genocide.’”

Green Party presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein proclaimed “opposing genocide is a Jewish value,” in front of Columbia University in a confrontation she labeled as “confronting Zionists” on her X account, formerly Twitter. 

In the video, a man wearing a kippah can be seen speaking behind her. After she tells him that opposing genocide is a Jewish value, he can be heard saying, “Israel is the only homeland of the Jewish people.” She then responds, “The Jewish people have Poland.” 

In a letter to Columbia University’s president, Minouche Shafik, on Friday, the Chairman of Yad Vashem, Dani Dayan, called on Dr. Shafik to act as a leader and take a moral principled stand against the calls by faculty and students to eliminate the Jewish State.

YV Chairman @AmbDaniDayan calls @Columbia President Shafik to act as a leader and take a moral principled stand against the calls by faculty and students to eliminate the Jewish State. "Her silence on this matter is equivalent to consent to bigotry." pic.twitter.com/XOAToSEkPB

— Yad Vashem (@yadvashem) April 26, 2024

Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, is the world leader in Holocaust education, documentation, and research.

Initially the letter provides examples of the actions Dr. Shafik has taken as, what Dayan describes, the actions one would take in an “administrator role.”

“All the decisions you recently made were administrative in nature: to call the NYPD to evacuate the illegal encampment, to allow its re-establishment, to activate or deactivate credentials, to move to online teaching. Even your decision to negotiate is administrative in nature,” Dayan said. 

He said that she was not hired to be a CEO or a crisis manager but rather to be a leader of one of the most prestigious universities in the world. 

Columbia University President Nemat ''Minouche'' Shafik testifies before a House Education and the Workforce Committee hearing on ''Columbia University's Response to Antisemitism,'' on Capitol Hill in Washington, US, April 17, 2024. (credit: REUTERS/KEN CEDENO)

Dayan argues, “When it becomes crystal clear that abolishing the existence of the Jewish State is a prevalent ideology in Columbia – the President of the institution cannot remain silent. The Talmud teaches us: ‘Silence is admission.’ Silence inevitably will be interpreted as tolerance or, even worse, consent.”

Universities are not immune to bigotry

"Your decision to deal only with the behavior – or the manners – of the demonstrators is not sustainable," Dayan warns and then states that it is just as “despicable” to be a polite KKK member as to be a “thuggish” one. He adds that a moral leader should advocate against both equally.

Universities are not immune to bigotry, and not all causes that professors and students advocate for are “good,” Dayan appeals. He then provides the example of Heidelberg University in Germany, which was a prestigious German University. He proceeds to point out that in the 1930s, students and professors burned Jewish and other “corrupt” books in the university square. “Its faculty developed pseudo-academic fields like race theory, eugenics, and forced euthanasia. Heidelberg did have administrators. Unfortunately, it lacked moral leadership,” Dayan added. 

The letter concludes, “Madam President, Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace laureate, defined indifference as ‘the most insidious danger of all.’ The great civil rights leader and fellow Nobelist Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. added that ‘the hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict.” 

Dayan implored Dr. Shafik to “lead with moral principles, not only with administrative regulations. Speak up.”

“Zionists don’t deserve to live,” and “Be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering zionists,” were said by Columbia University student Khymani James in a rant in a resurfaced January video. 

James, a Columbia University anti-Israel encampment leader, who says they go by “he/she/they” pronouns, made the remarks during and after a meeting with university administrators in January, which the student posted in an Instagram live video.

Meet Khymani James, a student leader of Columbia University’s anti-Israel Gaza Solidarity Encampment who openly states that "zionists don’t deserve to live"

He made the comments during a meeting with the school that he live-streamed.

We put together the highlights: pic.twitter.com/JFlxnRkNC2

— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) April 25, 2024

James made the comments as they were in a discussion with officials from Columbia’s Center for Student Success and Intervention over a past Instagram post, according to the video.

In the post under discussion, James had warned any Zionist wanting to “meet up and fight” that they “fight to kill.”

In a clip of the video circulating online, they said, “If we can agree as a society, as a collective, that some people need to die if they have an ideology that results in the death of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions, if there are people like that who exist, shouldn’t they die?” 

The gates to Columbia University are locked with a padlock as demonstrators gather outside to demand a ceasefire and the end of Israeli attacks on Gaza, during the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, during a protest in New York, U.S., April 20, 2024. (credit: Reuters/Adam Gray)

He then continued to call zionists nazis, fascists, white supremacists, and supporters of genocide. He asks, “Why would we want people who are supporters of genocide to live?”

He then argues that zionists should not exist because they “actively kill and harm vulnerable people.” 

After he shared that people should be grateful he's not going out and murdering zionists, he added, ”I’ve never murdered anyone in my life and I hope to keep it that way. But when you have a whole bunch of zionists, white supremacists, nazis, fascists, threatening your physical safety, one feels the need to remind them that one is not afraid to reach that point. And we know what that point is.”

James publishes statement on social media

Early on Friday, James published a statement to their social media accounts saying that his comments were taken out of context in the clips that have been shared online. He also declared that what he said was wrong, and that “every member of our community deserves to feel safe without qualification.”

Read my statement below: pic.twitter.com/0u6mwycAYS

— Khymani James (@KhymaniJames) April 26, 2024

He called the people who began recirculating the video “far-right agitators” and alleges that he was upset in the video because he felt had been targeted because he is “visibly queer and Black.” They then continue that it is not his first time being targeted for his identity by “people who use racist and homophobic slurs…in an effort to intimidate me and student protesters like myself.” 

In the statement he emphasizes that they believe that Zionism necessitates the genocide of the Palestinian people which he “opposes in the strongest terms.” He also states that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people and should be held accountable. 

Towards the end of the statement it says, “I am frustrated that words I said in an Instagram Live video have become a distraction from the movement for Palestinian liberation. I misspoke in the heat of the moment, for which I apologize.”

He concluded his statement saying, “My focus remains on drawing attention to the plight of the Palestinian people, and the ongoing genocide in Gaza. I remain committed to learning and building a better, more just world for all of us.”

More than 1,000 demonstrators holding Israeli and American flags and posters of the remaining hostages lined the street outside of Columbia University on Friday morning as a public reminder that 133 people from over two dozen countries remain captive in Gaza. 

Less than 50 meters away, behind the university's gates which have remained closed to the public for almost a week, the Gaza Solidarity Encampment remains standing on a portion of the campus lawn. 

The protests on Columbia have disrupted campus life while inspiring a mass protest movement at colleges and universities across the country. 

The New York Hostage and Missing Families Forum organized Friday's rally and speakers which included Or Gat, brother of hostage Carmel Gat; Leat Unger, a Columbia alumna and cousin of hostage Omer Shem-Tov; Dana Cwaigrach, a leader of the Hostages Families Forum and a graduate student at Columbia and Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine. 

Omer Lubaton-Granot, who has led the Forum since October 7, is also a Columbia graduate student. 

New Yorkers rally outside of Columbia to free the remaining hostages, April 26, 2024. (credit: Dani Tenenbaum, LIRI AGAMI)

"There are still 133 hostages that are held by a terror organization for more than 200 days," Lubaton-Granot said. "And we are here to remind everyone inside, everyone outside, the media that is here and for all of us, that we need to bring them home."

Remarks made by family members of hostages

Or began his remarks by apologizing to his 39-year-old sister Carmel for the "living hell" she's enduring in Gaza. 

"I am sorry that you were abducted to Gaza. I am sorry that you saw the body of her mother after they shot a bullet in her head," Or said. "You probably feel that everyone gave up on you."

Now there is a slight opportunity to fix it all as we know the conditions for a deal and what needs to be done, Or said. 

Or said there now an agreement between 18 countries that have hostages in Gaza in calling for Hamas to release them. 

"It's possible, and it's possible to do it now before another one gets killed. We're sorry that we haven't succeeded. We're doing everything," Or said. "We're waiting for everyone to see the value in life right now. That's why we're here right now."

Or's sister-in-law Yarden Roman-Gat was also taken hostage and released during the first ceasefire. 

"She came back after 54 days to her daughter, Geffen, three and a half years old. She waited for her mother, she's now waiting for her aunt and a grandmother who is not coming back," Or said. "We need to bring them back, now. It's possible as Yarden came back. Please help us do it now."

Mark Levine addressed the crowd in Hebrew before saying in English that despite the culture war which has broken out at Columbia - and across the city and the world - there's been little mention of the remaining hostages. 

"Where is the global outrage? There are hostages from 25 countries. There are at least five hostages who are fellow Americans still in captivity. Where is the American outrage?" Levine said.

"Even if you have no basic sympathy for these human beings, you must concede that the single most impactful act that would help bring about an end to this horrific conflict is the immediate release of all the hostages," Levine added. 

Unger took the microphone and said she still can't grasp that it's been 203 days. 

"I am also an alumnae of this institution of Columbia University, the university that I dreamed of attending because of its values," Unger said. "What I see happening on campus is a direct violation of Columbia University's mission statement."

While Unger said there is noise and hostility on college campuses, she still has hope. 

Unger said she was taught that hope in the darkest of days in November when a ceasefire deal was achieved and hostilities temporarily paused.

Omer was kidnapped from the Nova music festival with his friend Itay Regev and Itay's sister Maya. Itay and Maya, who were released during the November ceasefire, said that Omer maintained his steadfast hope and faith while in the darkness of the Hamas Tunnels. They said Omer rationed his food and saved his grape juice make Kiddish. 

"As dark as it feels for me today, as hard as it is for me to stand here before you, I am here to bring the hope that I feel," Unger said. "Omer maintains his hope."

Unger said the end of suffering for innocent people on both sides can only begin and end with the release of Omer Shem-Tov and 132 of her "brothers and sisters" in captivity. 

Dana Cwaigrach, who is Israeli, told the crowd it was her dream to study at Columbia. 

There's a place for constructive discourse, but there's no place to question the fact 133 hostages remain in captivity, Cwaigrach said. 

Cwaigrach shared how she and some friends put up posters of the hostages on campus after October 7, and found them ripped down less than 10 hours later. 

Cwaigrach said she's here to remind administrators - and her fellow classmates who she's been in school with for the past two years who are now protesting on campus - that Jews and Israelis want a ceasefire. 

"But in order for a ceasefire to be achieved, we need to let the hostages go," Cwaigrach said. "I'm reminding my fellow classmates something that they may have overlooked. In order for there to be a ceasefire, all 133 hostages need to be home."

Students and leaders from major Jewish organizations held a news conference on Friday afternoon at the Columbia/Barnard Hillel Kraft Center for Jewish life demanding administrators uphold university code of conduct and enforce its rules as protests escalate on campuses across the country. 

Columbia/Barnard Hillel Lavine Family Executive Director Brian Cohen said the university needs to send a clear message to the protestors: gather within the university rules around student protests or face serious, legitimate consequences, namely suspension and expulsion. 

"It's not my standard practice to be public about what is happening on campus," Cohen said. "But I tried working with the University behind the scenes. They consistently failed to address the crisis on campus."

While Cohen said protestors have the right to say things he and others strongly disagree with and even find deplorable, protections are supposed to be able to restrict where and when protest activity can take place. 

University rules dictate the university must ensure that students can "continue their academic pursuits without fear for their personal security or other serious intrusions on their ability to teach and study," he said. 

Demonstrators sit in an encampment as they protest in solidarity with Pro-Palestinian organizers on the Columbia University campus, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in New York City, US. April 19, 2024. (credit: CAITLIN OCHS/REUTERS)

Cohen said some faculty are suggesting that students are fabricating allegations of antisemitism, and other professors are teaching their classes filled with students from diverse political and personal backgrounds from within the encampment. Cohen also said some professors are ending classes early and walking out to attend protests. 

Cohen said he's reached out to the administration requesting professors teach their classes in the classroom, to which he's gotten no response. 

Hillel leadership comments on campus antisemitism

Hillel International CEO Adam Lehman became emotional, pounding on the podium as he said students deserve better and deserve an environment that is free from harassment, intimidation and physical assault.

"Every university leader who may be watching or may see a recording of this: do your job. You are there to actually prevent the anarchy and chaos which we are seeing on far too many campuses," Lehman said. "Your opportunity is simply to do what is right. Enforce your policies."

Lehman said we have to be able to depend on institutions of higher education to take back control of their campuses from cultish behavior, which in many cases is embracing a culture of death rather than a culture of life. 

American Jewish Committee president Ted Deutch said making campus spaces safe for Jewish students doesn't happen when the last encampment is shut down. He said it's an ongoing, long-term process and the challenges will not go away when the semester ends. 

Put a plan in place and stick to it, Deutch said. Deutch said administrators cannot think that moving classes online is an acceptable solution. 

"If the university cannot be a place of learning, then what is the point? Universities across America must take action, and we are not asking asking for radical change," Deutch said. "It's really very simple. Number one, ensure the safety of your Jewish students. Your Jewish students cannot be sacrificed."

Noa Fay, a senior at Barnard College and Columbia School for International and Public Affairs, said she initially spent the days after October 7 buried in her studies. Now, she said she's fully engaged. 

"The Jewish experience at Columbia University has become so insufferable, but it has clarified to remain quiet is to seal my own fate," Fay said. "These students may waive the Palestinian flag, but this is not about Palestine. This is about the war in the Gaza Strip. This has always been a protest against the existence of a Jewish state of Israel."

As a graduate of Columbia College (Class of 1991) and a peace activist who lives in Israel, I am watching videos and reports from my alma mater’s campus and wondering what I would have done if I were a student there now.

I am an activist and have been all my life. I believe strongly in the ability of grassroots movements and peaceful protest to change the world.

When I first moved to Israel, my activism was focused on feminism and religious pluralism. Today, however, I strongly believe the most pressing issue in Israel-Palestine today is solving the conflict.

Since well before the current extremist right-wing Israeli government was elected, I have been demonstrating against the occupation (later also the Nation-State Law declaring Israel officially a Jewish state) and working for Jewish-Palestinian partnership within Israel’s borders. My debut novel, “Hope Valley,” is about the friendship between a Palestinian Israeli woman and a Jewish Israeli woman in the Galilee.

I am a very active member of Standing Together, a movement of Palestinian-Israelis and Jewish-Israelis working in complete partnership towards an end to the occupation, Palestinian self-determination and a more equal, just and peaceful society within Israel. I am involved in a variety of groups and organizations committed to a vision of peace, justice and equality for all people on the land from the “River to the Sea.”

Members of the ''Standing Together'' movement protest for equal rights of financial support, outside the Israeli parliament on May 14, 2020. (credit: YONATAN SINDEL/FLASH90)

I remain active in these groups even after Hamas’ brutal attack on Oct. 7. I am even out on the streets now calling for a mutual ceasefire and a return of all the hostages (many of whom it seems are tragically no longer alive), as well as for the resignation of government officials and early elections.

And so, if I were studying at Columbia today, I would ask myself: Should I join your protests? After all, I, too, am pro-Palestinian.

But I am also pro-Jew.

And when you chant, “There is only one solution, intifada revolution!” and “From the Sea to the River, Palestine will live forever!” you are not calling, as I and my Palestinian-Israeli friends are, for peace, justice and equality for all humans within those borders. You are calling for the violent destruction of the country where we live, and the murder of its citizens — including the Palestinian ones. As we saw on Oct. 7, Hamas has no more sympathy for other-than-Jewish Israelis — not even for Muslim ones — than it does for Jewish Israelis.

When you say, “I am Hamas!” you are not identifying with innocent civilians, including children, women and seniors who were massacred and kidnapped or the women raped in captivity (according to eyewitness accounts from hostages who were freed). Even my Palestinian Israeli activist friends strongly condemned Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7 and say Hamas is terrible for the Palestinian people.

And when you call out, “Say it loud and say it clear, we don’t want no Zionists here!” you are fomenting violence against and silencing other Columbia students. You may disagree with them, but does that mean they have no right to inhabit your shared campus — or even live? Do you think I, an activist in the struggle for peace and equality for all in Israel-Palestine, have a right to live?

Why must Palestinian nationalism mean hostility to Jews?

Make no mistake; I have no problem with the keffiyehs you wear or the Palestinian flags you wave. But why is nationalist self-determination good for Palestinians and not Jews? Why is living in the Diaspora good for Jews and not Palestinians? And why do Palestinians have a right to live in security, but Jews do not? Unlike you, I do not even consider myself a nationalist. But I do believe in people’s right to live in safety, and I do not believe in double standards.

While I am an activist advocating for Palestinian rights, I also advocate for Jewish rights. While I march for a ceasefire, I also march with the families of the hostages and am volunteering to translate into English testimony from the Oct. 7 massacre — which is absolutely horrifying, even if there are those who deny it happened.

While I protest many of my government’s policies now and in the past, I do not think Jews have a moral obligation to commit suicide rather than enter sometimes tragic gray areas that are part of defending a country. Turning the other cheek is not expected of anyone anywhere. Why expect it only of Jews?

While you in the United States demand that we be sacrificial lambs, you inhabit and benefit from a country unequivocally acquired through colonialism and grown through slavery. This is not the case with Jews in Israel (although the British may have had colonialist aspirations by being here), even if agenda-driven pseudo-historians try to convince ignorant students that it is.

Israel is far from perfect. I am outraged at the Jewish-supremacist, messianic, theocratic, anti-democratic direction in which the country is currently headed. But the answer is to try and change that direction, not call for the country’s destruction.

I understand and relate to your show of solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza. The situation there is heartbreaking and devastating. But so is the situation here in Israel. The scale is just different, for a variety of reasons that are just as much the fault of Palestinian leadership as Israeli.

Our political leadership on both sides are using us all as pawns in this bloody conflict. It must end. They must agree on a political solution, and we, the grassroots from both nations, must demand this.

If you from abroad want to demand something, demand a resolution of the conflict and peace in the region, not the annihilation of one side. As has been often stated – there was a ceasefire in place on Oct. 6. What there wasn’t was a political direction from either the Israeli or Palestinian leadership to achieve long-lasting peace.

The situation here is so much more complex than you care to understand. There is a bloody conflict going on, with people suffering and dying on both sides in brutal ways, not just in the past months but for the past century. One who studies the history and present will know that both sides are culpable and responsible for the conflict and its resolution.

Student activists, I too question the Zionist project. I grew up on the Zionist narrative. But when I discovered I had been told only part of the story, my answer was not to believe the Palestinian narrative over the Zionist one — because it, too, is only part of the story. The answer is to acknowledge both stories and both people’s suffering and try to find a way to hold it all and everyone’s humanity.

My ideal is for us to all live in peace and dignity on this land from the River to the Sea. That means two states, with perhaps down the line more open borders and cooperation — if we do the work to reconcile and heal. That is what my Zionism is about. Not Jewish supremacy or theocracy or even having a Jewish state; it is about having a safe place for Jews to live. But not at the expense of another nation. And so, my vision for this place would have to be safe for everyone.

And so, if I were at Columbia today, I would not join your protests. Because now I know I do not have to choose sides. I do not even have to buy into the idea of “sides.” This is a battle between those who support violence and an all-or-nothing approach to this conflict, and those who want to find a way for us to all win out by sharing this land. It saddens me deeply that you are choosing — perhaps out of latent Jew-hatred — the way of violence and hate instead of cooperation and mutual understanding.

There are people living here in this very real place. We are not a theoretical idea. And some of us are Palestinians and Jews who are working together tirelessly to make our vision of peace and equality a reality. If you want to promote peace on this land, please support our work. What you are doing now undermines it.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media.

Two New York congressmen, a Democrat and a Republican, introduced a bill that would allow the federal government to compel universities to accept supervision from an antisemitism monitor.

The bill introduced Friday by Reps. Ritchie Torres, a Bronx Democrat, and Mike Lawler, a Rockland County Republican, comes in the wake of anti-Israel protests roiling Columbia University. The lawmakers named the bill the COLUMBIA (College Oversight and Legal Updates Mandating Bias Investigations and Accountability) Act.

It would allow the federal government to bring in an outside monitor to oversee how universities accused of allowing antisemitism to fester on campus are dealing with the allegations.

“The monitor would be appointed by the Secretary of Education, the terms and conditions of the monitorship would be set by the Secretary, and the expenses of the monitorship would be paid by the particular college or university that has been selected for monitorship,” said a release from Torres’ office. “Failure to comply with the monitorship would result in the loss of federal funds.”

People climb the Alma Mater statue to see the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Mike Johnson (R-LA) during a press conference at Columbia University in response to demonstrators protesting in support of Palestinians, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist g (credit: REUTERS/DAVID 'DEE' DELGADO)

Other progressives have claimed overreaction to protests

Torres stands out as a progressive who has been unapologetically pro-Israel. He got a hero’s welcome in the country during a recent visit.

A number of his fellow progressives in the Democratic caucus have decried what they depict as an overreaction by local, state and federal governments to the pro-Palestinian protests sweeping campuses.

Lawler, who has a substantial Jewish population in his district, has similarly been outspoken in his defense of Israel.

A rally for the release of Israeli hostages held captive by Hamas drew hundreds of demonstrators outside Columbia University in New York on Friday, just outside the campus at the center of controversy over student protests marked by open support for Hamas and other terror groups. 

Protesters chanted "Bring them home!" and "Let our people go!" and waved American and Israeli flags. There did not appear to be a significant presence of counter-protesters, apart from a contingent of ultra-Orthodox protesters from the Jewish Neturei Karta group. 

"It's been unbearable for us," said one speaker, "the people who live here, who study here, that the entire discourse ignores the fact that there are still 133 hostages. All the media is here, all the politicians are here, everyone [is] talking and fighting each other, and no one says one word about the fact that there are still 132 hostages in Gaza. 

"We are here to remind everyone: every solution to everyone's suffering goes only through releasing all of them," she said, to chants of "Bring them home!"