Anti-Israel activists disrupt Israeli history class at Columbia University

About a half-dozen anti-Israel protesters disrupted a modern Israeli history class at Columbia University on Tuesday, on the first day of the new semester.

Elisha Baker, a junior at Columbia who is enrolled in the class, told JNS that masked protesters disrupted the class, taught by Avi Shilon, who is Israeli and is a history lecturer at the university’s Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies.

“Pretty soon after the class started, a group of masked protesters barged in with a drum, a video camera, a ton of fliers and a speech about how terrible it was that this class was even happening with this Israeli professor,” Baker told JNS.

The fliers read “the enemy will not see tomorrow,” “burn Zionism to the ground” and “crush Zionism,” per images that Baker posted online. (The Israeli embassy in Washington responded to Baker’s post and wrote, “What would Greta Thunberg say about all these flyers they printed in the name of Jew-hatred?”)

Baker told JNS that Shilon is an “awesome professor,” who approached the protesters with a “calm tone” and invited them to stay in his class and learn.

“They ignored him and eventually, after they finished their performative speech, they yelled ‘Free Palestine’ and marched out,” Baker told JNS.

The protesters disrupted the class “to make the point again that they refuse to accept Israel as a normal part of discourse at Columbia University and in the world,” the student said.

“They have been very clear that this has never been about the war. This has never been about a ceasefire. This has never been about politics,” Baker said. “This is about an existential battle that they support to eradicate the State of Israel and remove it from all discourse.”

Baker told JNS that he hopes that Columbia will hold the protesters accountable.

“This kind of harassment and intimidation of Jewish students, and of any student who wants to learn about Israel and an Israeli professor, is an egregious violation of norms and rules of the university and should be punished,” he said.

Katrina Armstrong, interim president of Columbia University, condemned the protesters.

“Today a history of modern Israel class was disrupted by protesters, who handed out flyers,” she stated on Tuesday. “We strongly condemn this disruption, as well as the flyers that included violent imagery that is unacceptable on our campus and in our community.”

“No group of students has a right to disrupt another group of students in a Columbia classroom. Disrupting academic activities constitutes a violation of the rules of university conduct and the nature of the disruption may constitute violations of other university policies,” she stated.

“We will move quickly to investigate and address this act,” she added. “We want to be absolutely clear that any act of antisemitism, or other form of discrimination, harassment or intimidation against members of our community is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.” (JNS sought comment from Columbia about why the interim president referred to “other form of discrimination” in a statement about Jew-hatred.)

The House Committee on Education and the Workforce stated that it is outrageous that masked students disrupted class at Columbia, which receives billions in taxpayer dollars, to pass out flyers calling for the murder of Jews.”

“Does Columbia understand that failing to combat antisemitism will no longer be tolerated in the Trump administration?” stated the committee, which is newly chaired by Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.).

Jonathan Harounoff, a Columbia Journalism School alumnus and international spokesman for Israel’s mission to the United Nations in New York, told JNS that the protesters violated academic freedom.

“Classrooms should be incubators for the civil exchange of ideas, a forum where students should feel free to share their opinions, be challenged and, even, consider alternative perspectives different to their own,” he told JNS.

“What anti-Israel protesters did during a Columbia class on modern Israel was anathema to the notion of academic freedom,” Harounoff said. “The disruption, carried out by fully masked students, was designed to prevent students from engaging with their peers or exchanging ideas.”

“If I, as an alumnus of this institution, now face considerable challenges taking advantage of my alumni perks and getting into Columbia’s campus ever since the encampments last year, then administrators should also ensure their classrooms are safe spaces for learning for all its students, including the Jewish and Israeli students,” he added. “Columbia should do better.”