First-year UNLV student Nadav Levaton sometimes wears things that tell the world he is Jewish. He has a scarf that resembles the Israeli flag. He also has a Star of David necklace.
Because of this, Levaton has been called names when he’s at school, he said during a Monday rally at UNLV against antisemitism. The 18-year-old biology student said it’s been “much worse” this semester than last.
“This semester, I’ve been called a genocide supporter, white supremacist, Nazi,” said Levaton, who was born in Israel and grew up in Las Vegas. “When I’m wearing my Star of David or wearing anything that shows I’m Jewish or from Israel … I’ve been called those things.”
Levaton was joined by several hundred other people on UNLV’s campus on Monday for a rally against antisemitism that was organized by local Jewish and Israel advocacy groups including the Israeli American Council, Hillel Las Vegas, Jewish Nevada and others.
“Especially with the rise of antisemitism right now in campuses around the US the last two weeks, it was important for us to stand up and show support for Jewish students,” said Ofra Etzion, regional director of the council’s Las Vegas office.
‘University has not done enough’
Speakers at Monday’s rally included several UNLV students who spoke of their experiences on the school’s campus in recent months, some of whom criticized UNLV’s administration for not doing enough, they said, to combat antisemitism and for not taking the safety concerns of Jewish students seriously enough.
“Open discrimination against Jews is part of our history here in America, and the university has not done enough to show that Jews (are) also a minority that needs to be recognized and embraced,” said UNLV medical student Miriam Borvick, 31.
“They don’t directly try to attack students. However, if someone comes and tries to confront them, they will just yell in their faces,” said Brooke Wingate, 21, of pro-Palestinian protesters. “And unfortunately, (UNLV) administration has not been great about listening to Jewish students and listening to us that we feel unsafe.”
“The language that’s being used right here on the quad during these protests is disgusting, and we should not be tolerating this, and the university should be saying that these are not the values that we hold dear,” said Jolie Brislin, the regional director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Desert Region, who said that incidents of antisemitism in Nevada were up 170 percent in 2023 over 2022.
Borvick referred to what she said were protesters chanting their support for the Palestinian Intifada, which was two uprisings against Israel that are known as the First and Second Intifadas. The first, in the 1980s, was not as deadly as the second, which took place in the 2000s and was characterized by violence that included suicide bombings in Israel.
“These students on our campus chanting ‘Long Live the Intifada’ are glorifying violence against Jews right here on our campus and the administration’s silence is deafening. This is hate speech,” Borvick said.
UNLV ‘soundly rejects antisemitism and Islamophobia’
In a statement Monday, UNLV said it “soundly rejects antisemitism and Islamophobia” and that students and community members exercised their First Amendment rights to express their views on the war in Israel and Gaza in a “civil manner.”
“The UNLV administration continues to have an ongoing dialogue with faculty and student groups to get their input and hear their specific concerns on this topic,” the statement said.
Monday’s protest comes in the context of the Israel-Hamas conflict that erupted after Hamas’ and other militant groups’ unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, and Israel’s military response in Gaza.
In the Hamas attack on Israel, up to 1,200 people were killed, about 250 hostages were taken, and Hamas is believed to still be holding about 100 Israelis as well as the bodies of around 30 others.
Israel’s military response in Gaza has killed more than 34,700 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza.
In the US, several university campuses have become the scene of large pro-Palestinian protests that have seen a mix of encampments, arrests, and cancellations or changes to commencement ceremonies.
UNLV has so far not seen anything similar with the pro-Palestinian protests held on its campus. That includes one last week that was held at the same campus location as Monday’s rally, the outdoor Alumni Amphitheater, which drew about 200 people and resulted in no arrests. Monday’s rally was also peaceful.
“I’ve seen a lot of students who are afraid that what’s happening on other campuses around America will happen here,” said Wingate, a UNLV social work student who is president of Hillel at UNLV. “Luckily we haven’t had any physical incidences yet, but we have had the name-calling, we’ve had vandalism, we’ve definitely had the pro-Palestine activists come on to campus and intimidate us with their numbers.”
‘Group says some students on hunger strike’
In an email Monday, Students for Justice in Palestine at UNLV said it and a coalition of other student groups at UNLV are calling for a “permanent ceasefire to the ongoing genocide in Gaza and for an end to Israeli apartheid.”
The group’s Instagram account also said some UNLV students were on a hunger strike that began on Wednesday and would continue until certain demands were met.
Among the group’s demands, according to its Instagram, is that UNLV divest and withdraw any university funds from any investments in companies that are “complicit in the Israeli occupation, apartheid, and genocide of the Palestinian people.”