In Our Name: A Message from Jewish Students at Columbia University

[Agafin]

I feel like this is sufficiently distinct to be its own thread.

In Our Name: A Message from Jewish Students at Columbia University


To the Columbia Community:

Over the past six months, many have spoken in our name. Some are well-meaning alumni or non-affiliates who show up to wave the Israeli flag outside Columbia’s gates. Some are politicians looking to use our experiences to foment America’s culture war. Most notably, some are our Jewish peers who tokenize themselves by claiming to represent “real Jewish values,” and attempt to delegitimize our lived experiences of antisemitism. We are here, writing to you as Jewish students at Columbia University, who are connected to our community and deeply engaged with our culture and history. We would like to speak in our name.

Many of us sit next to you in class. We are your lab partners, your study buddies, your peers, and your friends. We partake in the same student government, clubs, Greek life, volunteer organizations, and sports teams as you.

Most of us did not choose to be political activists. We do not bang on drums and chant catchy slogans. We are average students, just trying to make it through finals much like the rest of you. Those who demonize us under the cloak of anti-Zionism forced us into our activism and forced us to publicly defend our Jewish identities.

We proudly believe in the Jewish People’s right to self-determination in our historic homeland as a fundamental tenet of our Jewish identity. Contrary to what many have tried to sell you – no, Judaism cannot be separated from Israel. Zionism is, simply put, the manifestation of that belief.

Our religious texts are replete with references to Israel, Zion, and Jerusalem. The land of Israel is filled with archaeological remnants of a Jewish presence spanning centuries. Yet, despite generations of living in exile and diaspora across the globe, the Jewish People never ceased dreaming of returning to our homeland — Judea, the very place from which we derive our name, “Jews.” Indeed just a couple of days ago, we all closed our Passover seders with the proclamation, “Next Year in Jerusalem!”

Many of us are not religiously observant, yet Zionism remains a pillar of our Jewish identities. We have been kicked out of Russia, Libya, Ethiopia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Poland, Egypt, Algeria, Germany, Iran, and the list goes on. We connect to Israel not only as our ancestral homeland but as the only place in the modern world where Jews can safely take ownership of their own destiny. Our experiences at Columbia in the last six months are a poignant reminder of just that.

We were raised on stories from our grandparents of concentration camps, gas chambers, and ethnic cleansing. The essence of Hitler’s antisemitism was the very fact that we were “not European” enough, that as Jews we were threats to the “superior” Aryan race. This ideology ultimately left six million of our own in ashes.

The evil irony of today’s antisemitism is a twisted reversal of our Holocaust legacy; protestors on campus have dehumanized us, imposing upon us the characterization of the “white colonizer.” We have been told that we are “the oppressors of all brown people” and that “the Holocaust wasn’t special.” Students at Columbia have chanted “we don’t want no Zionists here,” alongside “death to the Zionist State” and to “go back to Poland,” where our relatives lie in mass graves.

This sick distortion illuminates the nature of antisemitism: In every generation, the Jewish People are blamed and scapegoated as responsible for the societal evil of the time. In Iran and in the Arab world, we were ethnically cleansed for our presumed ties to the “Zionist entity.” In Russia, we endured state-sponsored violence and were ultimately massacred for being capitalists. In Europe, we were the victims of genocide because we were communists and not European enough. And today, we face the accusation of being too European, painted as society’s worst evils – colonizers and oppressors. We are targeted for our belief that Israel, our ancestral and religious homeland, has a right to exist. We are targeted by those who misuse the word Zionist as a sanitized slur for Jew, synonymous with racist, oppressive, or genocidal. We know all too well that antisemitism is shapeshifting.

We are proud of Israel. The only democracy in the Middle East, Israel is home to millions of Mizrachi Jews (Jews of Middle Eastern descent), Ashkenazi Jews (Jews of Central and Eastern European descent), and Ethiopian Jews, as well as millions of Arab Israelis, over one million Muslims, and hundreds of thousands of Christians and Druze. Israel is nothing short of a miracle for the Jewish People and for the Middle East more broadly.

Our love for Israel does not necessitate blind political conformity. It’s quite the opposite. For many of us, it is our deep love for and commitment to Israel that pushes us to object when its government acts in ways we find problematic. Israeli political disagreement is an inherently Zionist activity; look no further than the protests against Netanyahu’s judicial reforms – from New York to Tel Aviv – to understand what it means to fight for the Israel we imagine. All it takes are a couple of coffee chats with us to realize that our visions for Israel differ dramatically from one another. Yet we all come from a place of love and an aspiration for a better future for Israelis and Palestinians alike.

If the last six months on campus have taught us anything, it is that a large and vocal population of the Columbia community does not understand the meaning of Zionism, and subsequently does not understand the essence of the Jewish People. Yet despite the fact that we have been calling out the antisemitism we’ve been experiencing for months, our concerns have been brushed off and invalidated. So here we are to remind you:

We sounded the alarm on October 12 when many protested against Israel while our friends’ and families’ dead bodies were still warm.

We recoiled when people screamed “resist by any means necessary,” telling us we are “all inbred” and that we “have no culture.”

We shuddered when an “activist” held up a sign telling Jewish students they were Hamas’s next targets, and we shook our heads in disbelief when Sidechat users told us we were lying.

We ultimately were not surprised when a leader of the CUAD encampment said publicly and proudly that “Zionists don’t deserve to live” and that we’re lucky they are “not just going out and murdering Zionists.”

We felt helpless when we watched students and faculty physically block Jewish students from entering parts of the campus we share, or even when they turned their faces away in silence. This silence is familiar. We will never forget.

One thing is for sure. We will not stop standing up for ourselves. We are proud to be Jews, and we are proud to be Zionists. 

We came to Columbia because we wanted to expand our minds and engage in complex conversations. While campus may be riddled with hateful rhetoric and simplistic binaries now, it is never too late to start repairing the fractures and begin developing meaningful relationships across political and religious divides. Our tradition tells us, “Love peace and pursue peace.” We hope you will join us in earnestly pursuing peace, truth, and empathy. Together we can repair our campus.

Signed:

322 Jewish students

https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/e/2PACX-1vRQgyDhIjZupO2H-2rIDXLy_zkf76RoM-_ZIYsOfn9FkI7TETgRtOfXK9VobMvGh6iEZfDPgALXJTCR/pub

[jojoju1998]

I wonder if we're going to see an exodus no pun intended of Jewish students from ivy leagues.

[Beet]

I can completely understand and agree with the notion that Jews have a right to a homeland, and that it is not my place to dispute if Jewish people say that their religion requires Israel to be their homeland. While at the same time, I can also understand and sympathize with people who find it hard to accept that someone else's religion requires what they perceive to be their homeland to be violently taken away, and to resist that. In essence, both sides have a defensible position in theory, and this is why the issue is so hard.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Ron DeSantis was wrong as he completely underestimated how big the rot in academia is . Like it’s insane how big it’s gotten and something needs to be done about it ASAP

[Vice President Christian Man]

Ron DeSantis was wrong as he completely underestimated how big the rot in academia is . Like it’s insane how big it’s gotten and something needs to be done about it ASAP

What could be done about this realistically? The only things you could do is deport foreign students who hold views hostile to our allies and cut off federal funding. The later wouldn't impact most of the students, but would rob the opportunity of someone who has the intelligence but lacks the money from attending, potentially locking them out of opportunities to become wealthier after they graduate as they'd lack the employment opportunities and  vital connections that are needed to work there. Anything else would be a violation of the 1A, especially if you go down the path of outlawing private universities and nationalizing them in an attempt to crack down on unfavorable viewpoints of the faculty and students.

[jojoju1998]

Ron DeSantis was wrong as he completely underestimated how big the rot in academia is . Like it’s insane how big it’s gotten and something needs to be done about it ASAP

Realistically what could be done about it? The only things you could do is deport foreign students who hold views hostile to our allies and cut off federal funding. The later wouldn't impact most of the students, but would rob the opportunity of someone who has the intelligence but lacks the money from attending, potentially locking them out of opportunities to become wealthier after they graduate as they'd lack employment opportunities and the vital connections that are needed to work there. Anything else would be a violation of the 1A, especially if you go down the path of outlawing private universities and nationalizing them in an attempt to crack down on unfavorable viewpoints of the faculty and students.

Which of course would ironically be socialism.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Ron DeSantis was wrong as he completely underestimated how big the rot in academia is . Like it’s insane how big it’s gotten and something needs to be done about it ASAP

What could be done about this realistically? The only things you could do is deport foreign students who hold views hostile to our allies and cut off federal funding. The later wouldn't impact most of the students, but would rob the opportunity of someone who has the intelligence but lacks the money from attending, potentially locking them out of opportunities to become wealthier after they graduate as they'd lack the employment opportunities and  vital connections that are needed to work there. Anything else would be a violation of the 1A, especially if you go down the path of outlawing private universities and nationalizing them in an attempt to crack down on unfavorable viewpoints of the faculty and students.

Many things :

- End all DEI programs

- Make universities co-sign on student loans

- reshape higher education in general to be about primarily about improving career prospects than the egalitarian view of it . The government’s job should be mainly economic anyway and not pushing egalitarianism (private donors can do that if they want too)

[jojoju1998]

Ron DeSantis was wrong as he completely underestimated how big the rot in academia is . Like it’s insane how big it’s gotten and something needs to be done about it ASAP

What could be done about this realistically? The only things you could do is deport foreign students who hold views hostile to our allies and cut off federal funding. The later wouldn't impact most of the students, but would rob the opportunity of someone who has the intelligence but lacks the money from attending, potentially locking them out of opportunities to become wealthier after they graduate as they'd lack the employment opportunities and  vital connections that are needed to work there. Anything else would be a violation of the 1A, especially if you go down the path of outlawing private universities and nationalizing them in an attempt to crack down on unfavorable viewpoints of the faculty and students.

Many things :

- End all DEI programs

- Make universities co-sign on student loans

- reshape higher education in general to be about primarily about improving career prospects than the egalitarian view of it . The government’s job should be mainly economic anyway and not pushing egalitarianism (private donors can do that if they want too)

The vast majority of college students major in business or healthcare fields; relatively less people major in social sciences/humanities, or even the engineering fields, and the classic science fields are even less.

And we are having a shortage in engineers. If you want to talk about career prospects, there you go.

[Vice President Christian Man]

Ron DeSantis was wrong as he completely underestimated how big the rot in academia is . Like it’s insane how big it’s gotten and something needs to be done about it ASAP

What could be done about this realistically? The only things you could do is deport foreign students who hold views hostile to our allies and cut off federal funding. The later wouldn't impact most of the students, but would rob the opportunity of someone who has the intelligence but lacks the money from attending, potentially locking them out of opportunities to become wealthier after they graduate as they'd lack the employment opportunities and  vital connections that are needed to work there. Anything else would be a violation of the 1A, especially if you go down the path of outlawing private universities and nationalizing them in an attempt to crack down on unfavorable viewpoints of the faculty and students.

Many things :

- End all DEI programs

- Make universities co-sign on student loans

- reshape higher education in general to be about primarily about improving career prospects than the egalitarian view of it . The government’s job should be mainly economic anyway and not pushing egalitarianism (private donors can do that if they want too)

DEI is a failed experiment, but many students already have progressive views when they enter college and a there's usually a low faculty turnover rate. You could argue for banning DEI at the High School level which some governors have done, but again I'm not sure how effective this really is other than trying to maintain what the status quo was pre-Covid. This reminds me of when the government tried to implement DARE programs to reduce drug use, but one study showed this to have the opposite impact which presents the risk of a potential backfiring in this area.

[Brittain33]

I can completely understand and agree with the notion that Jews have a right to a homeland, and that it is not my place to dispute if Jewish people say that their religion requires Israel to be their homeland. While at the same time, I can also understand and sympathize with people who find it hard to accept that someone else's religion requires what they perceive to be their homeland to be violently taken away, and to resist that. In essence, both sides have a defensible position in theory, and this is why the issue is so hard.

The problem is that Zionism as a theory was resolved 75 years ago with Israel defeating Arab armies and securing its viability except for what settlers are doing in the West Bank. Israel is a country with 7 million Jews who were mostly born there or arrived as refugees from ethnic cleansing and either it stays a country with 7 million Jews or else “Palestine is free from the river to the sea” and the Jews disappear. If the argument is over Zionism as a justification for settlements in the West Bank, well I’m a Zionist and I think that’s indefensible and bad and should stop.

[No War, but the War on Christmas]

I'm neither a zionist nor an anti-zionist, and I do agree with Brittain above that millions of Jewish people and families have built lives in the State of Israel so that any idea of them going anywhere is completely unjustifiable, no matter ones opinion on how the creation of Israel was handled.

Furthermore, if anyone was possibly in need of a homeland due to persecution, it certainly would be Jews.

That being said, I often recognize similar patterns of fundamentalism between the evangelical culture I grew up in and extremely ardent zionists, and I won't pretend to have any respect for that. It's obviously been said before but going back a thousand + years to support your claim to any land is extremely problematic for plenty of reasons.

These students are just as much ideologues as they purport to claim the 'tokenized' Jews who support the protests are, so this op-ed is certainly taken with a massive grain of salt in any case... Especially the super off-putting 'In Our Name' as the title.

[It’s so Joever]

This goes down to the fundamental question of whether you believe every ethnicity is inherently entitled to a unique ethnostate of their own and to what extent it can be at the expense of other cultures and ethnicities.
It is interesting that the letter brings up the centuries of Jewish connection to what is Israel and Palestine today, but does not offer the same mention at all to the Arabic people in the region. That is why I struggle to take this letter any more seriously than the people they are writing against, because it simply feeds into this vicious mentality which tore apart my mother’s country and is doing the same here.

They seem to argue it is an inherent cultural Jewish trait to seek an ethnostate in the Levant. However could you say the same for Palestinians? At a certain point these students and their letter just demonstrates the mentality which led to this in the first place and further demonstrates the lack of care at best for the forced expulsion of the Palestinian inhabitants into bantutistans in the West Bank.

I am done with the students of our universities carrying water for one of two governments which do both seek an ethnic cleansing in the region and would do it if they could. And yes this is a problem with the Israeli and Palestinian people obviously as well, and until they are willing to admit it I don’t really care nor should any American beyond our own strategic interests.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

I'm neither a zionist nor an anti-zionist, and I do agree with Brittain above that millions of Jewish people and families have built lives in the State of Israel so that any idea of them going anywhere is completely unjustifiable, no matter ones opinion on how the creation of Israel was handled.

This is basically my position.  I don't know whether Israeli should have been created, but I do know that it was created, and it is now a country with millions of residents who bear no responsibility for the circumstances of it's creation, and who just want to be able to peacefully go about the only lives they know. They have a moral claim to the land just because they are currently there, not because of any claim their distant ancestors might have had.

[Beet]

I can completely understand and agree with the notion that Jews have a right to a homeland, and that it is not my place to dispute if Jewish people say that their religion requires Israel to be their homeland. While at the same time, I can also understand and sympathize with people who find it hard to accept that someone else's religion requires what they perceive to be their homeland to be violently taken away, and to resist that. In essence, both sides have a defensible position in theory, and this is why the issue is so hard.

The problem is that Zionism as a theory was resolved 75 years ago with Israel defeating Arab armies and securing its viability except for what settlers are doing in the West Bank. Israel is a country with 7 million Jews who were mostly born there or arrived as refugees from ethnic cleansing and either it stays a country with 7 million Jews or else “Palestine is free from the river to the sea” and the Jews disappear. If the argument is over Zionism as a justification for settlements in the West Bank, well I’m a Zionist and I think that’s indefensible and bad and should stop.

I am not sure what is meant by the highlighted phrase. It sounds like an omninous euphemism, but it is so vague that it doesn't really shed much light.

At one point early in the conflict, I seem to remember that almost everyone on the Forum agreed that Israel should be a secular, democratic state with equal rights for Jews, Christians, and Arabs. What struck me at that time was, that is exactly the demand of those who cry "Palestine shall be free, from the river to the sea", except that the name of the state would be 'Palestine' instead of 'Israel'. In such a state, the 7 million Jews would live there. No one, to my knowledge, has called for an Arab ethnostate.

[Brittain33]

At one point early in the conflict, I seem to remember that almost everyone on the Forum agreed that Israel should be a secular, democratic state with equal rights for Jews, Christians, and Arabs. What struck me at that time was, that is exactly the demand of those who cry "Palestine shall be free, from the river to the sea", except that the name of the state would be 'Palestine' instead of 'Israel'. In such a state, the 7 million Jews would live there. No one, to my knowledge, has called for an Arab ethnostate.

I don’t think such a state would be a stable polity even if October 7 hadn’t happened. The closest precedent is the Bosnian federation and that only works as a decrepit two-state federation kept alive on foreign aid and mass emigration. Israel started down the path of strict separation and walls because of constant violence from Palestinians. The existence of Hamas, “we don’t want no two-state, we want all 48” demonstrates a good chunk of Palestinians wouldn’t be satisfied sharing a state with an equal Jewish population so we could reasonably expect more armed resistance. And I won’t pretend Israeli Jews would be much more accommodating! The whole thing is a fantasy.

[Brittain33]

I mean, neither Israel nor the Palestinian Territories can reconcile their own internal conflicts democratically. Combining them would make it exponentially worse.

[Horus]

They seem to argue it is an inherent cultural Jewish trait to seek an ethnostate in the Levant.

Which is nothing short of insanity.

[Agafin]

I can completely understand and agree with the notion that Jews have a right to a homeland, and that it is not my place to dispute if Jewish people say that their religion requires Israel to be their homeland. While at the same time, I can also understand and sympathize with people who find it hard to accept that someone else's religion requires what they perceive to be their homeland to be violently taken away, and to resist that. In essence, both sides have a defensible position in theory, and this is why the issue is so hard.

The problem is that Zionism as a theory was resolved 75 years ago with Israel defeating Arab armies and securing its viability except for what settlers are doing in the West Bank. Israel is a country with 7 million Jews who were mostly born there or arrived as refugees from ethnic cleansing and either it stays a country with 7 million Jews or else “Palestine is free from the river to the sea” and the Jews disappear. If the argument is over Zionism as a justification for settlements in the West Bank, well I’m a Zionist and I think that’s indefensible and bad and should stop.

I am not sure what is meant by the highlighted phrase. It sounds like an omninous euphemism, but it is so vague that it doesn't really shed much light.

At one point early in the conflict, I seem to remember that almost everyone on the Forum agreed that Israel should be a secular, democratic state with equal rights for Jews, Christians, and Arabs. What struck me at that time was, that is exactly the demand of those who cry "Palestine shall be free, from the river to the sea", except that the name of the state would be 'Palestine' instead of 'Israel'. In such a state, the 7 million Jews would live there. No one, to my knowledge, has called for an Arab ethnostate.

Well I have good news for you then, Israel is already just that.

[No War, but the War on Christmas]

I can completely understand and agree with the notion that Jews have a right to a homeland, and that it is not my place to dispute if Jewish people say that their religion requires Israel to be their homeland. While at the same time, I can also understand and sympathize with people who find it hard to accept that someone else's religion requires what they perceive to be their homeland to be violently taken away, and to resist that. In essence, both sides have a defensible position in theory, and this is why the issue is so hard.

The problem is that Zionism as a theory was resolved 75 years ago with Israel defeating Arab armies and securing its viability except for what settlers are doing in the West Bank. Israel is a country with 7 million Jews who were mostly born there or arrived as refugees from ethnic cleansing and either it stays a country with 7 million Jews or else “Palestine is free from the river to the sea” and the Jews disappear. If the argument is over Zionism as a justification for settlements in the West Bank, well I’m a Zionist and I think that’s indefensible and bad and should stop.

I am not sure what is meant by the highlighted phrase. It sounds like an omninous euphemism, but it is so vague that it doesn't really shed much light.

At one point early in the conflict, I seem to remember that almost everyone on the Forum agreed that Israel should be a secular, democratic state with equal rights for Jews, Christians, and Arabs. What struck me at that time was, that is exactly the demand of those who cry "Palestine shall be free, from the river to the sea", except that the name of the state would be 'Palestine' instead of 'Israel'. In such a state, the 7 million Jews would live there. No one, to my knowledge, has called for an Arab ethnostate.

Well I have good news for you then, Israel is already just that.

The democratic part is waning, but secular? Not even Israeli’s would claim that title I would think.

Edit; Like, as far as I know people basically must claim a religion in Israel to even get married, even if just for civic reasons that isn't a very 'secular' country in any regard, in possibly has led to much of what we see today growing amongst the (former) fringes.

[Beet]

Israel is not democratic "from the river to the sea" obviously, since the West Bank Palestinians, for example, have no seats in the Knesset. That much ought to be obvious. One can also argue about the meaningfulness of Israeli Arab representation when there is an agreement to exclude them from the governing coalition at all times.

[MyLifeIsYours]

I can completely understand and agree with the notion that Jews have a right to a homeland, and that it is not my place to dispute if Jewish people say that their religion requires Israel to be their homeland. While at the same time, I can also understand and sympathize with people who find it hard to accept that someone else's religion requires what they perceive to be their homeland to be violently taken away, and to resist that. In essence, both sides have a defensible position in theory, and this is why the issue is so hard.

The problem is that Zionism as a theory was resolved 75 years ago with Israel defeating Arab armies and securing its viability except for what settlers are doing in the West Bank. Israel is a country with 7 million Jews who were mostly born there or arrived as refugees from ethnic cleansing and either it stays a country with 7 million Jews or else “Palestine is free from the river to the sea” and the Jews disappear. If the argument is over Zionism as a justification for settlements in the West Bank, well I’m a Zionist and I think that’s indefensible and bad and should stop.

I am not sure what is meant by the highlighted phrase. It sounds like an omninous euphemism, but it is so vague that it doesn't really shed much light.

At one point early in the conflict, I seem to remember that almost everyone on the Forum agreed that Israel should be a secular, democratic state with equal rights for Jews, Christians, and Arabs. What struck me at that time was, that is exactly the demand of those who cry "Palestine shall be free, from the river to the sea", except that the name of the state would be 'Palestine' instead of 'Israel'. In such a state, the 7 million Jews would live there. No one, to my knowledge, has called for an Arab ethnostate.

Well I have good news for you then, Israel is already just that.

The people inside the West Bank would argue about their representation. Their constitution also outlines how the country should prohibited any further demographic diversity to keep it an ethno-nationalist state.