Anti-Israel protesters staged a walk-out during a Thursday evening event at the Robert Kraft Center for Jewish Life at Columbia University that featured Axios reporter Barak Ravid.
Dozens of other students gathered outside the center, located on 115th Street and Broadway in Manhattan, to protest the event.
Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a group of student organizations that seeks to end the school’s financial and academic ties to Israel, organized the twin protests. In an Instagram post, the group noted that the center is named for the Jewish billionaire and philanthropist Robert Kraft.
Elisha Baker, a junior at Columbia and co-chair of Aryeh, a pro-Israel student group at the university, told JNS that it was a shame that student protestors opted to disrupt the event rather than engage with Ravid, one of the most prominent reporters covering the Biden administration.
“Our club is trying to bring interesting speakers about Israel and the Middle East from a wide range of perspectives,” Baker told JNS. “Barak Ravid is an Israeli-American reporter with an interesting lens into the relationship between the American government and Israel.”
“Some people in attendance agreed with a lot of what he said, and some disagreed with him in terms of his political beliefs, but that’s a good thing,” Baker said. “That is the kind of high-level event that our club is trying to put on for people.”
“It’s such a shame that college students at Columbia are immature and unable to confront ideas that they may disagree with,” he added.
“It is a shame that instead of attending the event, listening to what I had to say, asking questions and having a dialogue the students chose to walk outside in the rain and chant false and stupid accusations against me,” Ravid wrote on social media.
Assaf Zeevi, professor of business at Columbia Business School, interviewed Ravid during the event. Zeevi told JNS that the protesters were minimally disruptive when they staged the walk-out, but their actions highlight a troubling refusal to engage in dialogue.
“A handful of the students who attended walked out in the first few minutes of the event in exaggerated protest waving some signs, fully masked with keffiyehs,” he told JNS. “They did not disrupt the flow of the event but rather indicated conclusively that these fringe groups have zero interest to engage in dialogue or listen to any facts or differing points of view.”
“During that time, on the corner of 115 and Broadway their affiliated groups were protesting to boycott Hillel and flagging Robert Kraft’s supposed contribution to genocide and oppression of Palestinians,” Zeevi said.
“By identifying Hillel and Jewish students by extension and Robert Kraft as targets, the student groups demonstrating outside Hillel have clearly made a case for why they do not deserve to be part of the university community,” he said.
Ari Shrage, head of Columbia’s Jewish Alumni Association, told JNS that the protests were antisemitic.
“Unfortunately a group of students protested Hillel’s existence on campus,” he said. “It’s another clear example of antisemitism veiled in the guise of anti-Zionism, and we look forward to the university holding the students who broke the rules accountable.”
Columbia condemned the protest. “Any efforts to intimidate the Kraft Center, Hillel and our Jewish community and all forms of antisemitism are unacceptable and inimical to what we stand for as a university,” the school stated.
“The Kraft Center for Jewish Student Life, the home of Columbia and Barnard’s vibrant Hillel, is a vital part of our campus, providing a welcoming space for our students to explore and celebrate Jewish culture and identity,” the university added.
‘Grateful for their support’
Brian Cohen, executive director of the Kraft Center, told JNS that the center and the university worked with the New York City Police Department in advance to ensure the event was secure.
“Columbia University worked closely with our professionals to prepare for this possibility,” Cohen told JNS. “NYPD set up at 115th and Broadway and did not allow protests to come down 115th Street. A few students, who were present for the discussion, briefly interrupted the event by walking out while holding signs.”
“I have been critical of the university in the last year, but I am grateful for their support and the support of the NYPD last night,” he said. “I expect the university will now hold the students accountable for their actions.”
Zeevi told JNS that while he commends the university’s statement disavowing Jew-hatred, Columbia needs to do more to counter anti-Israel protests on campus.
“While their statement is a welcome and expected step in the right direction, it continues to avoid the core issue of letting fringe student groups act with impunity and continue to tarnish the rest of the university community, under the false pretense of academic free speech and freedoms,” he told JNS.
“The university leadership continues to avoid this issue and in so doing is putting the students well being at risk, is disrespecting the debt they owe key donors, and moreover placing the university at risk of punitive measures from the federal government,” he said.
