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Rabbi Urges Jewish Students to Flee Columbia University in Face of Anti-Israel Protests

  • Michael Foust CrosswalkHeadlines Contributor
  • Updated Apr 22, 2024
Rabbi Urges Jewish Students to Flee Columbia University in Face of Anti-Israel Protests

Anti-Israeli protests on several college campuses have grown so dangerous and violent in recent days that a rabbi of one prominent university is urging Jewish students to flee the campus.

Protests at Columbia University in New York City have led to more than 100 arrests and statements of concern from New York City Mayor Eric Adams and U.S. President Joe Biden, two Democrats who are blasting the protests as antisemitic. Videos on social media of the Columbia protests show protesters threatening and hurling racial slurs at Jewish people.

Chants have included: “We say justice, you say how. Burn Tel Aviv to the ground!” and “Hamas we love you. We support your rockets too!”

Rabbi Elie Buechler, director of the Jewish organization OU-LJIC at Columbia, urged Jewish students in a WhatsApp message to leave “as soon as possible” and added, “What we are witnessing in and around campus is terrible and tragic.” Fox News reported on Buechler's message.

“The events of the last few days, especially last night, have made it clear that Columbia University’s Public Safety and the NYPD cannot guarantee Jewish students’ safety in the face of extreme antisemitism and anarchy,” he wrote. “It deeply pains me to say that I would strongly recommend you return home as soon as possible and remain home until the reality in and around campus has dramatically improved.”

Adams wrote in a Sunday message that he is “horrified and disgusted with the antisemitism being spewed at and around the Columbia University campus.”

“Columbia University is a private institution on private property, which means the NYPD cannot have a presence on campus unless specifically requested by senior university officials,” Adams wrote. “For the safety of all New Yorkers, I urge Columbia’s senior administration officials to improve and maintain an open line of communication with the NYPD to ensure the safety of all students and staff on campus.”

Biden said in a weekend statement that Americans “must speak out against the alarming surge of Antisemitism -- in our schools, communities, and online.”

“Silence is complicity,” Biden said. “Even in recent days, we’ve seen harassment and calls for violence against Jews. This blatant Antisemitism is reprehensible and dangerous -- and it has absolutely no place on college campuses, or anywhere in our country.”

U.S. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) compared the Columbia protests to the 2017 white supremacist protests in Charlottesville, Va.

“Add some tiki torches and it’s Charlottesville for these Jewish students,” Fetterman wrote. “To @Columbia President Minouche Shafik: do your job or resign so Columbia can find someone who will.”

Columbia isn’t the only university with anti-Israel protests. On Monday, some 40 protesters at Yale University in New Haven, Ct., were arrested after refusing to break up an illegal encampment that blocked entrances.

Image credit: ©Getty Images/Spencer Platt / Staff

Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.