For Jewish students at Columbia University, there is fear in the air. A cloud of blatant anti-Jewish hate has cast its ugly pall over the campus.
In the face of fears, Rabbi Yuda Drizin, who co-directs Chabad-Lubavitch at Columbia with his wife Naomi, this means holding a larger Passover Seder than he’d originally planned.
Columbia University has seen its fair share of scrutiny in the wake of Oct. 7, with the school administration accused of doing little to protect Jewish students who faced a barrage of antisemitic incidents, both on campus and online in the months following the attacks. While this specter of antisemitism has loomed over the lives of Jewish students on campus for the past six months, it came to a head on Saturday, April 20.
Following a week of hate-filled protests that saw more than 100 students arrested by the New York City Police Department after setting up tents on the campus’s South Lawn, hundreds of anti-Israel demonstrators amassed outside Columbia University’s campus gate.
The group that gathered for the Saturday evening protest included both Columbia students, as well as a large number of people from outside the university. “The protests included chants of ‘Bomb, Bomb Tel Aviv’ and ‘Long Live the Intifada’ said David F., a sophomore from Woodmere, N.Y., who witnessed the protests.
As the tensions escalated on Saturday evening, David and his brother decided they wanted to have their voices heard, and they quickly organized a pro-Israel rally at the Sundial in the center of campus.
“We set up a speaker and were dancing and playing songs of peace, like ‘Heveinu Shalom Aleichem,’ ‘Od Yavo Shalom Aleinu’ and ‘One Day,’ by Matisyahu,” David said.
It did not take long for anti-Jewish protesters to take aim at them. Videos showing the Jewish students’ harrowing experience quickly went viral, clearly showing pro-Palestinian demonstrators harassing, berating and insulting Jewish students as well as stealing their Israeli flags and attempting to burn them.
When Rabbi Drizin heard about the situation, he immediately left home and walked over to the campus, standing with the students to ensure their safety. He stayed with the students until they all returned safely to their dorms.
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In the viral videos, one can hear shouts and taunts telling the Jewish students to “go back to Europe” and “you have no culture.” The shouting got more violent, and fueled and emboldened by the antisemitism, chants could be heard saying “all you do is colonize.”
The Jewish students rushed away from the campus. On their way home, they could not escape the vitriol, where rioters continued to scream at them, more explicitly this time: “Yahoodim [Jews], (expletive) you” and “stop killing children.”
Not deterred by the previous evening’s protest, the rabbi went out on campus on Sunday morning to hand out shmurah matzah to students and faculty and to put tefillin on passersby, as he does weekly.
“Jewish students walking through campus shouldn’t feel like they need to scurry. They see a rabbi handing out matzah proudly with a smile, and they feel like they are not alone; that someone is standing up for them,” Drizin said.
Despite the climate and with many students now choosing to spend the Passover holiday at home, Chabad at Columbia has planned seders, holiday prayer services, and festive kosher-for-Passover barbecue lunches throughout the next week.
To ensure that Jewish students attending the events feel safe and secure, Chabad has hired additional security guards to chaperone students from the Chabad house to their dorm rooms.
“We refuse to yield to the forces of hate. Instead, we’ll raise our voices in song and dance throughout the nights of Passover 2024,” the rabbi said of the resolve to continue celebrating as Jews and not letting evil win. “They want us to back down, to cower and hide. Instead, we will continue as proud Jews.”
David F. told Chabad.org that “the words of ‘Vehi Sheamda’ [the prayer recited on Passover saying that in each generation a nation rises up against the Jewish people, but each time the Jews are victorious] are so potent right now. Amidst all the uncertainty and hate, there’s one thing that I know, that ‘G‑d will save us.’”
While David is choosing to go to his parents home in Woodmere for the Seders, many students are remaining on campus despite the turmoil.
“We expect over 100 students to come to the campus Seders,” said Naomi Drizin.
“Matzah, as described in the Zohar, is the ‘bread of faith and healing,’” the Drizins wrote in a statement issued today by Chabad at Columbia. “Let us hold fast to our faith, knowing that with G‑d Almighty at our side, we will emerge stronger from these challenges, and bring healing to this world.”
VIDEO:
House Speaker Mike Johnson speaks on the campus of Columbia University Wednesday as anti-Israel protesters try to shout him down.
Florida Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nunez discusses Gov. DeSantis threatening action against those who target Jewish students as anti-Israel protests erupt around the country.
Bravo! You are the light to their hate filled darkness. Your presence and positivity is a life line for the Jewish students on campus. The world is asking what can we do now? What should.our response be? The answer is that the Rebbe sent the cure many years ago. Support our Chabads on campus!
Chabad always does invaluable work.
Go Yuda and Naomi!
So impressive! The Shluchim are so beautiful!
I live in the Columbia U area and am an alumni. I have visited the campus where there have been demonstrations that I saw, but, everyone was under control and voicing their views without dissing or antagonizing others. There may be some – outliers or outside agitators – who act wrongly and aggressively but to have a headline that speaks of “antisemitic anarchy” is to misrepresent what is happening. I saw police getting rough with people and hauling people away for arrest who refused to leave their encampment. Is that anarchy? I don’t think so. I protested the Vietnam War… Read more »
The numerous real time videos out there contradict every word you say.
For goodness sake, you are delusional. I don’t live near CU but I too am an alumnus, I know the atmosphere very very well, and while I have fond personal memories of Alma mater, I could not more strongly disagree with you about the general atmosphere on College Walk. Jewish students are the only— the only— group that must regularly encounter invective directed at their people, as part of the “college experience” both at Columbia, and far too many other institutions. Chabad and others provide an actual safe space for them, but it should not be the case that we… Read more »
Must’ve been annoying seeing someone slander a place you probably remember fondly.
Apologies on their behalf.
Politics is a world of deceit and difficulty. Let’s leave it all and instead focus on bringing the one leader we want – Moshiach.
…you mean “tell the truth that you find uncomfortable.”
Slander? There is no slander. I remember CU fondly as well on a personal level. I think that is the issue with many alumni. A lot of us found many personal aspects of the university to be great, but those of us who went there in recent years always had to ignore the general atmosphere of severe hostility toward the Jewish people as a whole, which did not hurt us so much on an individual level because we developed a thick skin. And so many of us have assumed a falsely reassuring belief that everyone can go through it the… Read more »
How much are they paying you to sit and type this false propoganda?
I would curse you if I could. If you are reading on COLlive you should also know what the rebbe’s views are on returning land or giving in the first place.. I hate you and all self hating Jews like yourself. The one thing worse than anti smites are those who wish they can get out of it by joining them, ie self hating Jews.
Your view of netanyahu in the second half of your comment shapes your view in the first half of your comment,, you don’t like “the far right” so you whitewash the far left,, please be honest with yourself, antisemitism is antisemitism is antisemitism no matter how you want to dress it up.
of your post is a misguided lie. Among other things, the “settlements” that you so revile are what’s keeping the West Bank from becoming another Gaza, a source of rockets and Oct. 7s against all of Israel. And if there’s one thing you could see from what Hamas and their enablers say, it’s that Israel has no right to exist, not in its 1948 borders and not anywhere, so your claim that you’ve “supported Israel and its right to exist for 40 years” is a hollow sham.
While I do not live in the area anymore, I am an alumnus myself and as it is, CU is regrettably helping to seed antisemitism in Universities throughout the USA by its terrible example. The tolerance of this any further will lead to its entrenchment in American society at a level that will be almost impossible to reverse. No, this is the time to say that enough is enough.
I have a response to you from last night, which I hope will appear.
I am a self hating Jew and self hating American Communist terror sympathiser too. Let’s stand in unity and love for ourselves and exercise our rights to hate on, and condemn to death all that think differently from us.
Hashem should continually bless the Chabad on Campus schluchim for everything they do to help,teach, and protect the young Jewish students on campus.
Keep up the great work! Stay strong!
Thank you Chabad.