Anti-Israel campus protests at Columbia and Yale are 'antithetical' to American values: Rabbi Moshe Hauer
As anti-Israel protests continue to take over Columbia University’s campus, one Rabbi says that the demonstrations are completely “antithetical” to American values.
The protest and ‘encampment’, organized by groups like Students for Justice in Palestine at Columbia and Columbia University Apartheid Divest, began on Wednesday just before administrators testified at a Congressional hearing on anti-Semitism.
Police arrested over 100 people on Thursday for alleged trespassing, and Columbia issued suspensions, as Campus Reform reported.
In another video posted to X, the protesters could be heard yelling “We have Zionists who have entered the camp.”
”We are going to create a human chain..so that they do not pass this point and infringe upon our privacy and try to disrupt our community,” the protesters shouted.
”We are going to slowly walk and take a step forward so that we can start to push them out of the camp,” they shouted.
“We have Zionists who have entered the camp” — Columbia students eject Jews from the quad pic.twitter.com/rdNjbR5zxx
— Luke Tress (@luketress) April 22, 2024
In another instance, a protester at Columbia held a sign reading “Al-Qasam’s next targets” with an arrow pointing to a group of individuals holding American flags.
Someone sent me this from Columbia tonight. Some Jewish students were holding Israeli and American flags so this girl stood in front of them with the below sign.
Al-Qasam is the Hamas military wing.
They are openly pro-Hamas and threatening fellow students. pic.twitter.com/Eo5BaA7h70— AG (@AGHamilton29) April 21, 2024
Orthodox Union Executive Vice President Rabbi Moshe Hauer told Campus Reform that the anti-Israel protests at Columbia, and now at Yale University and several more, are plainly anti-American.
”What is happening on the other side is completely antithetical to America and to America’s values and ideas. Our students are living American values and ideals they’re living Freedom, they’re living the ability to practice their faith, they have nothing to be ashamed of,” said Hauer. “Do they have something to be afraid of? Yeah, they do have something to be to be afraid of.”
Hauer criticized Columbia University administrators, saying the current predicament could have been prevented.
”It could have created an environment where this just has is not tolerated. There are universities that have done that there are actual rules, and the rules are actually enforced. And somebody who breaks the rules has consequences ceases to be a student at the university,” said Hauer. “Nobody has a right to continue in a university when they are breaking the rules.”
Hauer’s comments came after the Orthodox Union’s Jewish Learning Initiative’s Columbia and Barnard Director Rabbi Elie Buechler recommended for students to go home for the time being.
”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,” said Buechler. “It is not our job as Jews to ensure our own safety on campus. No one should have to endure this level of hatred, let alone at school.”
