Ilya Bratman, executive director of Hillel at Baruch College, wasn’t shocked when Abdullah Mady, a self-proclaimed imam, led a walkout against him at an interfaith event at City College of New York on Nov. 13.
“That’s really what’s terrible about all of this,” Bratman told JNS. “We’re not surprised.”
The Hillel leader was part of a panel that included the imam and a school chaplain. Upstairs, a separate event featured a Holocaust survivor speaking about the anniversary of Kristallnacht.
“Almost all of the Jewish students were upstairs with the Kristallnacht event while the event for the rest of the college was downstairs,” Bratman said.
Some two Jewish students, 15 Christian ones and about 100 Muslim students were at the interfaith event, with about 50 clad in keffiyehs, by Bratman’s count. Some 90 people registered for the event in the last 10 minutes, he said.
“At the beginning of the event, the imam said to the chaplain that he wasn’t going to speak, because there’s a Zionist criminal here in his midst, and he knows me,” Bratman told JNS. “He knows that I’m a terrible criminal, and he doesn’t want to speak in front of me.” The chaplain told Mady, “What are you talking about? You agreed to be here,” Bratman said. “It’s not right.”
JNS listened to an audio recording in which the imam, whom the New York Post identified as Mady, told attendees that under sharia law, rapists and murderers don’t “deserve to live” and thus, crime would “significantly decrease” under sharia.
After telling the audience that a thief’s hand is cut off under sharia and that Islamic law opposes pornography, the alcohol industry, gambling and lending with interest, Mady said, “I came here, to this event, not knowing that I would be sitting next to a Zionist, and this is something that I’m not going to accept.”
“My people are being killed right now in Gaza,” he added, directing every Muslim with “dignity” to “exit this room immediately.”
Bratman told JNS that “all Muslims stood up and left that second, and then they gathered outside and waited, presumably for me, while we continued and we had a nice discussion.”
The Jews and Christians who remained at the event discussed what had occurred, among other subjects, according to Bratman. “It was shocking for the Christian students more than the Jewish students,” he said.
Before attendees could leave, police officers had to calm those congregated outside for about half an hour. Then they led the attendees who remained in the room, including Bratman, out of the building, he said.
Bratman told JNS that he didn’t respond to Mady and that he was introduced without any reference to Israel in his biography. “All I was was a Jew with a kippah,” he said. “None of them have ever met me. Never heard of me. This had nothing to do with Israel. This was obvious and open Jew-hatred.”
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, stated that it was “antisemitism, plain and simple.”
“No one should be singled out, targeted or shamed because they are Jewish,” she said. “I expect CUNY to act swiftly to ensure accountability and protect every student’s safety.”
A spokesman for the college told JNS that the public school “has zero tolerance for acts of hate or bigotry of any kind and will promptly take all necessary and appropriate actions to address any such discrimination and remedy its effects.”
“We were made aware of this incident and are working with our teams to investigate claims of possible discrimination,” the spokesman said.
Harmeet Dhillon, U.S. assistant attorney general for civil rights, stated that the incident was “deeply concerning” and that the U.S. Department of Justice “has questions and will look into this.”
Bratman told JNS that he is worried about the Muslim students, who are being indoctrinated to follow people like the imam.
“I don’t think there’s a way for us as a community to de-brainwash them, to deradicalize them, because they’re so far down this rabbit hole of hate, intolerance,” he said. “These are unbelievable values that are so embedded into these young people by people like this man.”
