LOS ANGELES (JTA) — Inside the University of Southern California Hillel, there were signs of normalcy. Some students were making matzah pizza in the courtyard, while another set up an art installation devoted to actor Larry David. Students and staff discussed plans for the evening’s Shabbat programming.

But outside the building, students only a block away could be heard hawking cookies and other baked goods at their makeshift “Bake Sale 4 Gaza.” Their table was set up next to another booth with a large sign declaring that “‘I stand with Israel’ equals ‘I stand with genocide.’”

And in a plaza a few steps away, the Los Angeles chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace was hosting a pro-Palestinian Passover gathering, complete with Streits matzah and bottles of grape juice. One attendee held a large poster listing the “10 Plagues of Zionist Idolatry.”

The scene on Friday follows a chaotic stretch in which USC canceled the planned commencement speech of its valedictorian, who had drawn criticism for harshly anti-Israel content on her social media. USC then scrapped its celebrity commencement speakers, before announcing Thursday that the entire main-stage commencement event had been canceled. Pro-Palestinian protests broke out on campus, as they have across the country, leading to 93 arrests on Wednesday. Parts of campus now have security checkpoints to enter.

The whole situation, which has garnered international media attention, has led some Jewish students to question their safety on campus. One Israeli-American student, who requested anonymity out of fear of retribution, said she has removed the dog-tag necklace she wears in honor of the hostages to protect herself and has friends who have been doxxed because of their support for Israel.

“We’re keeping our head down, we’re just trying to get through the school year,” said the student, a sophomore neuroscience major whose parents are Israeli. “It’s definitely been hard when there’s helicopters circling 24/7 and your friends are posting hateful things on Instagram.”

The student said the increased attention on USC has made it difficult to focus on school, even as final exams are around the corner.

“Our campus has become such a spotlight,” she said. “It used to be a place where we learned and studied, and now it’s this hotbox of tension and news and all eyes are on us.”

Brandon Tavakoli, a junior and the president of USC’s Trojans for Israel club, said the last few days have been “sobering and quite shocking,” especially because USC is not typically home to the type of activist culture that’s seen as commonplace at schools like Harvard and the University of California, Berkeley.

“We don’t have an organized student activist base, but that has changed in the last week,” Tavakoli told JTA. “I think that was quite shocking for a lot of Jewish students on this campus who aren’t used to seeing the Israel hatred that is shown regularly on a campus like UC Berkeley.”

Tavakoli said the whole episode, beginning with the selection of the valedictorian, was “completely preventable.”

“I believe that if the university did their due diligence, and saw the propagation of antisemitism that this valedictorian has exercised and expressed, we would not be in this position,” he said “Our campus would not be seen as a target for anti-Israel activism.”

Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, visited USC Hillel on Friday to speak with staff and student leaders. Greenblatt said he has visited nearly a dozen campuses in the past few months. (USC Hillel pointed to the statement it posted on Instagram on Wednesday but declined to comment further.)

“Jewish students showed up to learn, to have a college experience, and then find themselves caught in this maelstrom,” he told JTA. “They find themselves deeply affected by the tragedy of Oct. 7, deeply affected by the death of civilians in Gaza. I think they feel generally compassionate about the loss of life on all sides, and yet, really disturbed by these sorts of activities on campus, which are well beyond the parameters of typical protests.”

Greenblatt said the ADL supports free speech and the First Amendment but said he views some of the rhetoric on college campuses as beyond the scope of what universities — and the law — ought to allow.

“Freedom of speech isn’t the freedom to slander people because of their faith, and freedom of expression isn’t the freedom to incite violence against people because of their nationality,” he said. “Free speech, you’ve got to allow for it. But sitting in front of the Hillel and screaming at the Jewish students walking inside for a Shabbat dinner, or a havdalah service and calling them ‘baby killers’ is different.” It was not clear whether Greenblatt was referring to specific incidents.

Greenblatt said universities need to do more to ensure students’ safety, including by enforcing their codes of conduct, prohibiting full face coverings and coordinating with local law enforcement.

Tavakoli said that the way USC, and campuses in general, have treated pro-Palestinian activity compared to pro-Israel advocacy has led to a double standard in the enforcement of free speech.

“I’ve never understood why, when there’s bigotry against Jewish students, we have to bring up a conversation about free speech, but when there’s bigotry against anyone else, we are clearly denouncing it as bigotry,” he said. “It’s personally hurtful that I as a Jewish student have to prove to other people that what I’m experiencing is intimidation, hatred and harassment.”

The Israeli student said that many of the activists who have been involved in protests at USC in recent days are not students.

“Non-students are coming to our campus and just hindering the environment and increasing tension within the students,” she said. “It’s non-students igniting this flame.”

At least some of the participants at the campus’ Jewish Voice for Peace Passover gathering, which drew a few dozen people and took place a block away from Hillel, were not affiliated with USC. The group was gathered around a large cloth canvas decorated with imagery from a traditional seder plate.

Amid speeches and songs, the group also adapted various texts and practices from the haggadah, including the recitation of the 10 plagues while dipping one’s finger in wine. In this version, the plagues had parallel meanings related to the Israel-Hamas war — the water turning to blood, for example, represented the lack of safe drinking water in Gaza.

Benjamin Kersten, a Jewish graduate student at UCLA who helped plan the event, said JVP chose to use Passover to “continue to call for President Biden to take action towards a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.”

Kersten, who was also involved at this week’s protests at UCLA, said he has “a lot of empathy and compassion” for fellow Jewish students who feel uncomfortable or unsafe when they hear phrases like “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” which was chanted repeatedly at the JVP Passover event. Many Jewish groups believe the phrase is antisemitic.

“I think it’s important that we think about the differences between discomfort and unsafety and hatred,” he said. “I really listen to the words of Palestinians when they say that when they use the phrase ‘from the river to the sea,’ they’re calling for justice and equality for everyone who lives in that land.”

Kersten added: “I would invite people who feel uncomfortable to realize that it’s freeing to actually enter into a Jewish community that recognizes that safety comes from solidarity with all marginalized people.”

Back in Hillel, the matzah pizza making continues. Jason, a junior pre-health student who declined to share his last name, said he chooses whether to wear his large Star of David necklace depending on where he is and who he’s with.

“I’ve accepted the situation, but it hasn’t changed how I think about my Jewish identity,” he said.

Jason said it’s been difficult to navigate the environment at USC in recent weeks, especially as the tension from the protests has begun to seep into the classroom, where he said the conversations used to be much more civil.

For some students, the situation has elicited shock — and even laughter — more than fear.

“I don’t really feel scared, I find it hectic, chaotic and ridiculous,” said first-year Caleb Ouanounou. He said that when he saw the pro-Palestinian protests, “I was both appalled and honestly I was laughing because of how absurd it was.”

And for Tavakoli, with the semester coming to an end, he said he needs to focus on schoolwork, not worry about his safety.

“I have papers and final projects due this weekend. I have to be prepared for my final exams next week,” he said. “I believe that is representative of the experience of all Jewish students on this campus — we just want to be like every other student on campus, like every other Trojan.”

He continued: “It should not be my top priority to be or feel safe. It should be my top priority to be the best student that I can be and close out the semester as best as I can. It’s the university’s top priority to make sure I am [safe] and I feel so.”

(New York Jewish Week) — Gathering at Columbia University on Friday, Jewish leaders defended the right to free speech while demanding universities take action to rein in pro-Palestinian protests that have erupted at the Ivy League school and college campuses around the country.

The protests have thrown Columbia into turmoil in the past two weeks as the administration struggles to control the unauthorized demonstrations and fend off critics who have said they are not doing enough to clamp down on antisemitism. Administrators say they are seeking to preserve the right to free speech and free assembly, while protecting the safety and ability to learn of Jewish and Israeli students and faculty, who have said some protest activities veer into antisemitism and outright threats.

“We celebrate free speech,” the head of the American Jewish Committee, Ted Deutch, said at a briefing at Columbia University’s Kraft Center for Jewish Student Life on Friday.

“But when the debate that’s taking place results in the intimidation and harassment and silencing of one party, there is not free speech for everyone,” Deutch said in response to a question from the New York Jewish Week. That “is free speech only for those who are carrying out this intimidating behavior, this harassment.”

Supporters of the protests have decried what they call efforts to control the demonstrations as an attack on the rights to free speech and free assembly.

“Columbia should not be calling the cops on its own students for engaging in nonviolent protest,” New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, the city government’s highest Jewish elected official, said last week on X after Columbia summoned the NYPD to campus, resulting in more than 100 arrests.

“The university has a long history of respecting free speech on campus, and I support the faculty who are pleading with their administration to continue that tradition,” Lander said.

Adam Lehman, the head of Hillel International, also backed the right to free speech while demanding action to rein in the protests at the Friday briefing.

“Our students are desperate for dialogue, but what is happening on campus today is not about free speech, it’s about wrongful conduct, it is about assault, it is about intimidation, it is about targeted harassment,” Lehman said in response to a question from the New York Jewish Week.

Asked about concerns Jewish institutions could be seen as opponents of free expression, Lehman said, “We can’t control perception,” especially at this moment.

“We are living in a backwards, upside down world,” Lehman said, citing campus protesters supporting “Hamas ideology.”

“It’s hard to trust perception from anyone at this point,” he said.

Hillel International has documented nearly 1,400 instances of campus antisemitism since Oct. 7, and the rate of incidents is increasing, Lehman said.

Jewish students at the briefing said the atmosphere for Jewish supporters of Israel has become fraught to the point that it interferes with their ability to learn, with protesters harassing them on campus and professors altering class schedules or participating in the protests. Columbia’s commencement, scheduled for May 15, is also in doubt, as the protesters have occupied the center of campus where the ceremony takes place.

The University of Southern California said Thursday it had canceled its May graduation ceremony after similar protests and arrests on its campus.

“I cannot walk around my own campus looking visibly Jewish without preparing myself for the possibility that someone might spit on or attack me,” said Noa Fay, a Columbia undergraduate.

“To both my university administration and those around the country, help us, your Jewish students, protect ourselves. You know it is the right thing to do,” Fay said.

Fay compared Jews who have joined the pro-Palestinian protests to “Blacks for Trump or gays for Trump.”

“They are not representative of our community,” said Fay, pointing to data that shows the vast majority of Jews identify with Israel.

Deutch, Lehman and other leaders at Friday’s briefing — including Linda Mirels, president of UJA-Federation of New York and Brian Cohen, executive director of Columbia Barnard Hillel — rallied around a similar solution: for universities to enforce their existing policies on protests.

Columbia provides student groups with guidelines that allow protests during designated times at certain locations. Some student protesters have ignored those rules since soon after Oct. 7.

The protests “cannot occur 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in locations where students live and learn,” Cohen said, adding that the existing rules allow protests while providing students with the opportunity to “continue their academic pursuits without fear.”

He urged Columbia to “uphold your codes of conduct, enforce your rules and hold students who violate them accountable in real and consequential ways.” The university was negotiating with the protesters, but the substance of the talks was not known to the Jewish community, Cohen said.

The protests on campus and adjacent to the university have seen demonstrators block Jewish students’ access to the public areas; calls for Hamas to target Jews; call for the destruction of Tel Aviv; and the verbal harassment of Jews with statements such as “go back to Europe” and “all you do is colonize.” Campus protesters said they can’t be responsible for non-students joining the demonstrations on or near the campus.

In video from earlier this year that surfaced this week, one of the student leaders of the protests said “Zionists don’t deserve to live,” sparking outrage. The student, Khymani James, said on Friday that he was “wrong” to make the statements, while blaming “far right agitators” for the opprobrium.

The protesters have demanded the university divest from Israeli companies, cut ties with Israeli academic institutions and issue a statement supporting a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and condemning the Israeli military campaign.

The students set up a protest encampment in the center of campus earlier this month as Columbia’s president, Minouche Shafik, addressed a congressional investigative committee on antisemitism. The university called in the NYPD to clear the unauthorized demonstration, charging more than 100 students with trespassing and further inflaming campus tensions. Student protesters expanded their demands to include barring police from campus and amnesty for students arrested or suspended over the protests.

The Columbia campus has been largely blocked to outsiders. Shai Davidai, an outspoken and controversial Israeli professor advocating for Jews on campus, had his access to campus restricted last week.

The protest encampments have spread to other New York universities in recent days, including New York University, the New School, the Fashion Institute of Technology and the City College of New York, part of the public City University of New York system.

Jewish members of Congress visited the Kraft Center last week, voicing alarm about the safety of Jewish students and vowing to take action.

Robert Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots and a leading sponsor of the center, on Monday indicated that he was pausing donations to the university “until corrective action is taken.”

Issues surrounding anti-Israel activism came to the fore at Columbia shortly after the Oct. 7 attack on Israel. In October, an Israeli student was assaulted with a stick by a 19-year-old, who was charged with hate crimes. Columbia banned its chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine and the anti-Zionist Jewish Voice for Peace in November for violating protest policies. The groups remain banned, but continue to operate as the lead groups in a consortium of student organizations.

Last month, student activists hosted pro-Hamas speakers at an unauthorized “Resistance 101” event in campus housing.

In addition to the Congressional investigative committee that questioned Shafik this month, the Department of Education is investigating complaints — by both Jewish and Muslim parties — that Columbia violated the Title VI anti-discrimination law. Jewish students have also filed civil lawsuits alleging discrimination on campus.

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(JTA) — Hello! We’re excited to be back from our Passover hiatus with the latest Jewish sports news. Let’s jump right in.

A stellar week for MLB’s two Jewish aces

Atlanta Braves ace Max Fried produced one of the more dazzling performances you’ll ever see in his Tuesday night win over the Miami Marlins: Fried threw a complete game shutout, allowing only three hits while striking out six.

The most impressive part? He did it all in only 92 pitches, earning the lefty his third career “Maddux,” a feat named for Hall of Famer Greg Maddux that represents the rarity of a complete game shutout in under 100 pitches. According to Baseball Reference, Fried became the 41st pitcher in MLB history with three “Madduxes.” Maddux himself leads the history books with 15, while Sandy Koufax threw five. (MLB added pitch count as an official stat in 1988.)

With Braves star Spencer Strider out for the year with an elbow injury, MLB’s best team will look to Fried, the 2022 NL Cy Young runner-up, to anchor the rotation going forward.

In the American League, Baltimore Orioles pitcher Dean Kremer earned his first win of the season on Wednesday as he struck out 10 across 5.1 innings as the Os beat the Los Angeles Angels 6-5. It was only the second time the Team Israel alum has reached double-digit strikeouts in his 75 career starts.

There must be something in the matzah!

Halftime report

BENCHED. As pro-Palestinian protests continue to spread across college campuses, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft said he is pausing his support for Columbia University, his alma mater to which he has donated millions of dollars. Kraft said Columbia, where the Jewish student life center and a sports field are named after him, “is no longer an institution I recognize.” Meanwhile, at Thursday’s NFL Draft, members of Kraft’s Foundation to Combat Antisemitism were given the honor of announcing the Patriots’ No. 3 overall pick.

BADER MAKES A STATEMENT. New York Mets outfielder Harrison Bader has gotten off to a solid start with his new team, hitting .278 with 20 hits in 20 games. But it’s Bader’s sartorial choices that have earned the 29-year-old clout among Jewish fans. Earlier this season, Bader showed a fan a dog-tag necklace he was wearing in support of the hostages in Gaza, and last week, he was seen sporting a Star of David on his belt.

RIP. Brooklyn Dodgers great Carl Erskine died last week at 97, and my colleague Andrew Silow-Carroll penned a touching tribute for the last surviving member of the iconic “Boys of Summer” Dodger teams of the 1950s. “Erskine’s death seemed to close a storied chapter in New York and, dare I say it, Jewish history,” Silow-Carroll writes.

ICYMI. On the topic of remembering baseball legends, Jewish ace Ken Holtzman, the winningest Jewish pitcher ever, died April 14 at 78. Holtzman threw two no-hitters, won four World Series rings and beat Sandy Koufax head-to-head once across 15 seasons in the 1960s and 1970s.

YIKES. A former Baltimore-area high school athletic director was arrested Thursday and charged with using AI to fake antisemitic and racist comments attributed to the school’s principal.

CASE CLOSED. The Justice Department announced this week that it had agreed to pay nearly $139 million to victims of former Team USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar. Two-time Olympian Aly Raisman has been on the forefront of the legal battle and the broader effort for increased accountability and transparency at USA Gymnastics.

🇬🇧 → 🇮🇱 The Israel-Premier Tech cycling team signed up-and-coming British cyclist Joe Blackmore, a 21-year-old who has four pro wins so far in 2024, including at this month’s Circuit des Ardennes in France. The team is owned by Israeli-Canadian billionaire Sylvan Adams, a philanthropist and cycling champion who has boosted the sport’s profile in Israel.

Jews in sports to watch this weekend (all times ET)

🏒IN HOCKEY…

It’s round one of the NHL playoffs, and a number of Jewish players are seeking a shot at Stanley Cup glory. Adam Fox and the New York Rangers are up 2-0 against the Washington Capitals — Game 3 is tonight at 7 p.m.; Game 4 is Sunday at 8 p.m. Jason Zucker’s Nashville Predators host Quinn Hughes, Mark Friedman and the Vancouver Canucks in Game 3 of their 1-1 series tonight at 7:30 p.m., with Game 4 Sunday at 5 p.m. Zach Hyman and the Edmonton Oilers face the Los Angeles Kings tonight at 10:30 p.m. in their 1-1 series; Game 4 is Sunday at 10:30 p.m.

⚾️ IN BASEBALL…

The recently called-up Matt Mervis and his Chicago Cubs face the Boston Red Sox in a three-game series this weekend. Mervis’s MLB career is off to a slow start, but with Cubs star Cody Bellinger sidelined with a rib injury, this could be the Team Israel alum’s chance to prove himself. Jake Bird and the Colorado Rockies host Alex Bregman and the Houston Astros tomorrow and Sunday. Harrison Bader and the New York Mets host the St. Louis Cardinals in a three-game set.

⚽️ IN SOCCER…

In the Premier League, Matt Turner and Nottingham Forest host Man City Sunday at 11:30 a.m. In the MLS, Daniel Edelman’s New York Red Bulls, Zac MacMath’s Real Salt Lake, DeAndre Yedlin’s F.C. Cincinnati and Steve Birnbaum’s D.C. United are all in action Saturday at 7:30 p.m.

⛳️ IN GOLF…

Ben Silverman and Daniel Berger are both competing at the PGA’s Zurich Classic this weekend in New Orleans.

Relatable

Have you ever found yourself in the kitchen in search of a snack, only to remember it’s Passover? So you (perhaps reluctantly) grab a piece of matzah and hold it in your mouth while you close the box.

I’ve definitely been there. And so, apparently, has Houston Astros star Alex Bregman. Here he is before Thursday’s Cubs-Astros matchup. It seemed to work: Bregman racked up two hits in the game.

Pretty good chance Alex Bregman has a breakout game today and hits his first HR of the season now that he’s got his matza for Passover.

Credit to Richard Silverman on the matza and photo.

CC @MaxMannis @ZackRaab pic.twitter.com/TxZNPy8S5G

— Yoni Pollak (@YoniPollak) April 25, 2024

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Two New York congressmen, a Democrat and a Republican, introduced a bill that would allow the federal government to compel universities to accept supervision from an antisemitism monitor.

The bill introduced Friday by Reps. Ritchie Torres, a Bronx Democrat, and Mike Lawler, a Rockland County Republican, comes in the wake of anti-Israel protests roiling Columbia University. The lawmakers named the bill the COLUMBIA (College Oversight and Legal Updates Mandating Bias Investigations and Accountability) Act.

It would allow the federal government to bring in an outside monitor to oversee how universities accused of allowing antisemitism to fester on campus are dealing with the allegations.

“The monitor would be appointed by the Secretary of Education, the terms and conditions of the monitorship would be set by the Secretary, and the expenses of the monitorship would be paid by the particular college or university that has been selected for monitorship,” said a release from Torres’ office. “Failure to comply with the monitorship would result in the loss of federal funds.”

Torres stands out as a progressive who has been unapologetically pro-Israel. He got a hero’s welcome in the country during a recent visit.

A number of his fellow progressives in the Democratic caucus have decried what they depict as an overreaction by local, state and federal governments to the pro-Palestinian protests sweeping campuses.

Lawler, who has a substantial Jewish population in his district, has similarly been outspoken in his defense of Israel.

WASHINGTON (JTA) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has yet to make a determination on whether the United States will withhold some defense assistance from Israel because of human rights abuses by one of its army’s most notorious units.

A source familiar with the State Department review of alleged abuses by units of the Israel Defense Forces on Friday pushed back against reports earlier this week that Blinken had made a determination to withhold funding from the Netzach Yehuda battalion, which was formed to integrate haredi Orthodox soldiers into the military.

There has been a determination that Israeli forces committed gross human rights abuses, the source confirmed to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, but there is not yet any decision about whether to withhold funds. The review was at the stage of determining whether Israel had applied appropriate accountability and remediation for the abuses. The process is “ongoing,” the source said and, under a U.S.-Israel memorandum of understanding, U.S. officials are consulting with their Israeli counterparts.

Soldiers in the Netzach Yehuda unit have been arrested and jailed for a litany of abuses against Palestinians over the years, including torture and assault.

Israeli officials expressed alarm at news of the alleged determination after it was first reported by Axios.

“If somebody thinks they can impose sanctions on a unit in the IDF — I will fight this with all my powers,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a Passover message. “As our soldiers are united in defending us on the battlefield, we are united in defending them in the diplomatic arena.”

Biden administration officials have been at pains to say that the process is routine under what is known as the “Leahy Law,” named for the retired Vermont Democratic senator who authored it, Patrick Leahy. The law withholds funds from units receiving U.S. defense assistance that have determined to have committed abuses.

“In any country in which we have a security relationship, we will apply the tenets of the Leahy Law fully,” State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said Thursday in a briefing with reporters. “The law is pretty clear in terms of what those standards are, and those standards are applied across the board to every country in which we have a security relationship with. That will be the case anywhere where we find there to be action or activity that is in violation of the Leahy Law.”

Blinken said earlier this week, unveiling the annual State Department report on human rights, that he would have more to say about the review of Israel’s abuses, but did not say when that would happen.

“This is, I think, a good example of a process that is very deliberate, that seeks to get the facts, to get all the information, that has to be done carefully, and that’s exactly how we proceeded, as we proceed with any country that is the recipient of military assistance from the United States,” he said.

The Israel section of the State Department’s 2023 report focuses on abuses committed by Hamas, particularly on Oct. 7 when it launched the war with massacres of hundreds of people inside Israel.

But it also reports that Israel’s response “had killed more than 21,000 Palestinians and injured more than 56,000 by the end of the year, displaced the vast majority of Palestinians in Gaza, and resulted in a severe humanitarian crisis.”

The source familiar with the Leahy review insisted to JTA that the overall defense relationship between Israel and the United States has not been affected by the review.

Under the law, the country receiving assistance is given time to address the abuses.

(JTA) — Israeli police arrested Ayelet Waldman, a Jewish American author, while she was with a group trying to deliver relief to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Waldman, who is Israeli-born, was one of seven people arrested Friday morning at a protest action organized by Rabbis for Human Rights, and one of five Americans. Two were released before Shabbat, organizers said, but Waldman was still in custody at the police station in Ashkelon, a city near the Gaza border.

Her husband Michael Chabon, also a noted novelist, expressed concern about her status on Instagram. “She was there in the company of a group of American rabbis, #rabbis4ceasefire, to show the world, the people of Gaza, and their fellow Jews in Israel, and around the world what Judaism teaches: justice, lovingkindness, peace, mercy, liberation,” he said.

In video Chabon posted, Waldman is seen bearing a bag of rice as she walks toward Erez Crossing, on the northern Gaza-Israel border. A policeman blocks her way and she persists in trying to skirt him.

The other Americans arrested include Rabbi Alissa Wise, a founder of Rabbis for Ceasefire; Rabbi Alana Alpert, a Detroit-area congregational rabbi; Ilana Sumka, a longtime activist and rabbinical student; and Kobi Snitz, a mathematician.

The Israeli police and the Israeli embassy in Washington did not return requests for comment. Miriam Messinger, a spokeswoman for Rabbis for Ceasefire, said that the organizers contacted the U.S. embassy about the arrests.

“We have no higher priority than the safety and security of U.S. citizens overseas,” a State Department spokesperson told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “We are aware of the reports and have no further details to share.  U.S. citizens should heed the Level 4 Travel Advisory to not travel to Gaza.”

Rabbi Andy Kahn, a Brooklyn-based rabbi who joined the protest, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the protesters did not expect to be able to deliver aid to Gaza Palestinians, who are considered by international health officials to be on the verge of a famine more than six months into the war launched Oct. 7 by Hamas.

Instead, he said, they wanted to make a point timed for Passover about the plight of Palestinians who have been displaced by the war.

“Passover is a holiday of liberation and is a holiday which focuses on food and how it is related to liberation,” he said in an interview. “Bringing food aid was a part of our passover observance, in calling attention to need in Gaza, to the need for a ceasefire, and exchange and release of hostages and a permanent end to this conflict.”

Waldman and Chabon are known for their works written and produced separately and jointly. Waldman is known for her 2007 novel, “Love and Other Impossible Pursuits,” and for her Mommy-Track mystery series. She and Chabon are developing a TV series based on his novel, “The Yiddish Policeman’s Union.”

They have also been active for years in the advocacy for Israeli accommodation with Palestinians and with protests critical of Israeli actions.

(JTA) — As a graduate of Columbia College (Class of 1991) and a peace activist who lives in Israel, I am watching videos and reports from my alma mater’s campus and wondering what I would have done if I were a student there now.

I am an activist and have been all my life. I believe strongly in the ability of grassroots movements and peaceful protest to change the world.

When I first moved to Israel, my activism was focused on feminism and religious pluralism. Today, however, I strongly believe the most pressing issue in Israel-Palestine today is solving the conflict.

Since well before the current extremist right-wing Israeli government was elected, I have been demonstrating against the occupation (later also the Nation-State Law declaring Israel officially a Jewish state) and working for Jewish-Palestinian partnership within Israel’s borders. My debut novel, “Hope Valley,” is about the friendship between a Palestinian Israeli woman and a Jewish Israeli woman in the Galilee.

I am a very active member of Standing Together, a movement of Palestinian-Israelis and Jewish-Israelis working in complete partnership towards an end to the occupation, Palestinian self-determination and a more equal, just and peaceful society within Israel. I am involved in a variety of groups and organizations committed to a vision of peace, justice and equality for all people on the land from the “River to the Sea.”

I remain active in these groups even after Hamas’ brutal attack on Oct. 7. I am even out on the streets now calling for a mutual ceasefire and a return of all the hostages (many of whom it seems are tragically no longer alive), as well as for the resignation of government officials and early elections.

And so, if I were studying at Columbia today, I would ask myself: Should I join your protests? After all, I, too, am pro-Palestinian.

But I am also pro-Jew.

And when you chant, “There is only one solution, intifada revolution!” and “From the Sea to the River, Palestine will live forever!” you are not calling, as I and my Palestinian-Israeli friends are, for peace, justice and equality for all humans within those borders. You are calling for the violent destruction of the country where we live, and the murder of its citizens — including the Palestinian ones. As we saw on Oct. 7, Hamas has no more sympathy for other-than-Jewish Israelis — not even for Muslim ones — than it does for Jewish Israelis.

When you say, “I am Hamas!” you are not identifying with innocent civilians, including children, women and seniors who were massacred and kidnapped or the women raped in captivity (according to eyewitness accounts from hostages who were freed). Even my Palestinian Israeli activist friends strongly condemned Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7 and say Hamas is terrible for the Palestinian people.

And when you call out, “Say it loud and say it clear, we don’t want no Zionists here!” you are fomenting violence against and silencing other Columbia students. You may disagree with them, but does that mean they have no right to inhabit your shared campus — or even live? Do you think I, an activist in the struggle for peace and equality for all in Israel-Palestine, have a right to live?

Make no mistake; I have no problem with the keffiyehs you wear or the Palestinian flags you wave. But why is nationalist self-determination good for Palestinians and not Jews? Why is living in the Diaspora good for Jews and not Palestinians? And why do Palestinians have a right to live in security, but Jews do not? Unlike you, I do not even consider myself a nationalist. But I do believe in people’s right to live in safety, and I do not believe in double standards.

While I am an activist advocating for Palestinian rights, I also advocate for Jewish rights. While I march for a ceasefire, I also march with the families of the hostages and am volunteering to translate into English testimony from the Oct. 7 massacre — which is absolutely horrifying, even if there are those who deny it happened.

While I protest many of my government’s policies now and in the past, I do not think Jews have a moral obligation to commit suicide rather than enter sometimes tragic gray areas that are part of defending a country. Turning the other cheek is not expected of anyone anywhere. Why expect it only of Jews?

While you in the United States demand that we be sacrificial lambs, you inhabit and benefit from a country unequivocally acquired through colonialism and grown through slavery. This is not the case with Jews in Israel (although the British may have had colonialist aspirations by being here), even if agenda-driven pseudo-historians try to convince ignorant students that it is.

Israel is far from perfect. I am outraged at the Jewish-supremacist, messianic, theocratic, anti-democratic direction in which the country is currently headed. But the answer is to try and change that direction, not call for the country’s destruction.

I understand and relate to your show of solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza. The situation there is heartbreaking and devastating. But so is the situation here in Israel. The scale is just different, for a variety of reasons that are just as much the fault of Palestinian leadership as Israeli.

Our political leadership on both sides are using us all as pawns in this bloody conflict. It must end. They must agree on a political solution, and we, the grassroots from both nations, must demand this.

If you from abroad want to demand something, demand a resolution of the conflict and peace in the region, not the annihilation of one side. As has been often stated – there was a ceasefire in place on Oct. 6. What there wasn’t was a political direction from either the Israeli or Palestinian leadership to achieve long-lasting peace.

The situation here is so much more complex than you care to understand. There is a bloody conflict going on, with people suffering and dying on both sides in brutal ways, not just in the past months but for the past century. One who studies the history and present will know that both sides are culpable and responsible for the conflict and its resolution.

Student activists, I too question the Zionist project. I grew up on the Zionist narrative. But when I discovered I had been told only part of the story, my answer was not to believe the Palestinian narrative over the Zionist one — because it, too, is only part of the story. The answer is to acknowledge both stories and both people’s suffering and try to find a way to hold it all and everyone’s humanity.

My ideal is for us to all live in peace and dignity on this land from the River to the Sea. That means two states, with perhaps down the line more open borders and cooperation — if we do the work to reconcile and heal. That is what my Zionism is about. Not Jewish supremacy or theocracy or even having a Jewish state; it is about having a safe place for Jews to live. But not at the expense of another nation. And so, my vision for this place would have to be safe for everyone.

And so, if I were at Columbia today, I would not join your protests. Because now I know I do not have to choose sides. I do not even have to buy into the idea of “sides.” This is a battle between those who support violence and an all-or-nothing approach to this conflict, and those who want to find a way for us to all win out by sharing this land. It saddens me deeply that you are choosing — perhaps out of latent Jew-hatred — the way of violence and hate instead of cooperation and mutual understanding.

There are people living here in this very real place. We are not a theoretical idea. And some of us are Palestinians and Jews who are working together tirelessly to make our vision of peace and equality a reality. If you want to promote peace on this land, please support our work. What you are doing now undermines it.

BOSTON (JTA) – In all other years, the Massachusetts House of Representatives begins its annual budget debate on the Monday after Patriots’ Day, the state holiday that commemorates the first battles of the Revolutionary War.

But this year, lawmakers broke from their time-honored traditions and postponed the ritual — in deference to their Jewish colleagues.

That’s because the first Monday after Patriots’ Day this year was April 22, which coincided with the first night of Passover, when Jews around the world gather for the Passover seder.

When Rep. Ruth Balser realized that the traditional schedule would require her to be away from her family on the first night of Passover, she and other Jewish representatives brought the calendar coincidence to the attention of the House’s top lawmakers. Speaker Ronald Mariano and Aaron Michlewitz, the Jewish chair of the Ways and Means Committee, didn’t hesitate to adjust the schedule, she told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

“They immediately said, ‘We’ll have to figure out a new way,’” recalled Balser, who represents the heavily Jewish suburb of Newton.

Rather than disrupt the whole schedule by moving the ahead by a full week, they embraced postponing the start of the debate to Wednesday, recognizing that some representatives hold two seders. (Many traditionally observant Jews would also refrain from working on Wednesday, because Passover starts with two days in which many activities are prohibited.)

And in another first, Mariano and his leadership decided to have a kosher-for-Passover dinner catered for all of its elected legislators, rather than offer it just to Jewish lawmakers, as has been done in the past.

So instead of the usual lasagna or Chinese food, dinner on Thursday was prepared by The Butcherie, a kosher grocery and caterer in Brookline, the area’s historic Jewish neighborhood.

“It was fantastic,” Balser said, shortly after she and colleagues shared chicken skewers, beef kebabs, roasted vegetables and Passover pastries. She added, “And of course, there was matzah.”

The week of the budget debate is the only time during the legislative cycle that dinner is provided for the representatives because they typically work all day and well into the night, Balser said. She said that in more than a quarter century serving in the legislature, she did not recall any time when the budget debate overlapped with the first days of Passover, which fell unusually late this year.

“Crafting the state budget is one of the most important things the legislature does,” Balser said. She added, “There was a lovely feeling entering the Great Hall of the statehouse, with representatives who sat around tables and everyone had matzah. It was really special.”

There are 14 members of the Kosher Caucus, the representatives who identify as members of the Jewish community – either born Jewish or married into Jewish families. They will work with their non-Jewish colleagues to vote on more than 1,500 amendments to the budget this week.

A spokesperson for Mariano told JTA that it was important for Jewish House members and staff to fully participate in the budget hearings, despite it falling during Passover, because of the current climate. Like many places, Massachusetts has experienced a steep rise in reported antisemitic incidents related to the Israel-Hamas war, including a string of home vandalism in Newton and a man who was arrested after allegedly threatening a synagogue over his support for Palestinians.

“Not only because we want to accommodate people of all religious and cultural backgrounds, but also because it’s important that we stand with our Jewish friends during the recent rise in antisemitism that they continue to experience,” the spokesperson wrote in a text message.

Balser, who has long grappled with the place of Jews in progressive politics, said the response felt significant at a time of anxiety for local Jews.

“The fact that the Massachusetts House of Representatives and in particular, its leadership, was very sensitive, and … decided it was important to accommodate the Jewish calendar and traditions of a minority is very meaningful,” she said.

(New York Jewish Week) – The Borscht Belt, the Jewish vacationland in New York’s Catskill Mountains, has been in decline for nearly as long as it once thrived. Most of the resorts and hotels that drew Jews to “the mountains” in the first half of the 20th century were eventually abandoned — with several catching fire in recent years — and fated to be forgotten.

The Borscht Belt Historical Markers Project aims to rectify that. Organizers are erecting a series of 20 metal signs in towns that were significant to the region’s history, hoping to do for a cradle of American Jewish culture and comedy what Boston’s Freedom Trail did for the American Revolution. A marker in Monticello, for example, in the beating heart of the Catskills, describes Kutsher’s Hotel and Country Club and the Laurels Hotel, legendary resorts that each hosted thousands of guests in their heyday.

The markers have QR codes that link to more history and photographs.

“Each has its own unique history related to the Borscht Belt and the markers discuss that history, referencing everything from cultural figures to entertainers that came to those towns and the hotels,” said Marisa Scheinfeld, the founder and director of the project. “While they touch on each town, one side of every marker always says the same thing, describing what the Borscht Belt was and that from the 1920s through the 1970s it was a Jewish American place of refuge.”

The project began last summer with markers and events in Monticello, Mountain Dale, Swan Lake and Fallsburg.

This summer, the initiative is unveiling five more markers in South Fallsburg, Kiamesha Lake, Hurleyville, Bethel and Woodridge. Launch events throughout the summer aim to revitalize the region with love for the Borscht Belt and its history.

The goal, Scheinfeld said, is to have all the markers in place by the end of the summer of 2026, when they will also be connected by a driving self-guided audio tour through the region.

“This project really cements the Borscht Belt in its enduring physical space in a way that hasn’t been done, that has longevity and range,” Scheinfeld said. The project is not associated with The Borscht Belt Museum and Borscht Belt Fest in Ellenville, other recent efforts to recall the area’s Jewish glory days.

Scheinfeld, who grew up in Monticello in the 1980s, said she was inspired to create the project while she worked on her 2016 photography book, “The Borscht Belt: Revisiting the Remains of America’s Jewish Vacationland,” for which she photographed the decaying, abandoned properties scattered throughout the region.

“Before we started, there was not one historic marker anywhere that said ‘this is the Borscht Belt and this is what it was,’’’ Scheinfeld told the New York Jewish Week. “We intentionally put them in public spaces and in the center of communities to get people to engage with them.”

Scheinfeld teamed up with philanthropist Jerry Klinger, who runs the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation, which erects historical markers dedicated to the Jewish American experience across the world. She now has a team of nine people helping curate the markers and the events.

“The markers are really cool because it really does add a little bit of zhuzh to an area that is barren of its Borscht Belt history,” said Isaac Jeffreys, a photographer and visual coordinator for the initiative. When a person drives through the region as it is now, “You don’t really know that it ever existed there — you’re just seeing the ruins and then seeing the empty lots and towns where buildings used to be,” he said.

Scheinfeld also hopes to unite the Jewish community across the Catskills region, including the growing population of Orthodox families that are moving there or spending their summers in bungalow colonies.

“I really want to bridge the Orthodox community and the secular Jewish community, which don’t often intermingle. I’m hoping that the presence of us and the project will draw some Orthodox communities in to check things out,” Scheinfeld added.

This summer, the dedication events for the new markers include a food truck from the Borscht Belt Deli in Newtown, Pennsylvania, followed by a screening of the documentary “The Catskills” on May 25 in South Fallsburg; a music and cocktails reception at Resorts World Catskills in Kiamesha Lake on June 13; a literary and arts expo in Hurleyville on July 21; a Woodstock memorial event in Bethel on Aug. 17 and a kosher picnic in Woodridge on Aug. 25.

(JTA) — The governor of Texas cheered on the arrests of dozens of pro-Palestinian protesters at the University of Texas this week, as clashes with authorities broke out on campuses from Austin to Boston, Los Angeles, Atlanta, the Twin Cities and beyond.

At some schools, students took over campus buildings, while others were seeing protest encampments spring up for the first time. Hundreds of people have been arrested as police and campus authorities have cracked down on the student protests in a growing number of places.

Meanwhile, the University of Southern California announced Thursday that it was canceling its graduation ceremony altogether, shortly after it barred its valedictorian from speaking after pro-Israel groups raised alarm about her social media profile.

The latest incidents come a week after mass arrests, suspensions and evictions of pro-Palestinian students at Columbia University, inspiring copycat protests at other colleges that have flummoxed administrators in many cases. The sight of armed police officers sometimes violently disrupting so-called “Gaza solidarity encampments” has drawn comparisons to similar crackdowns on Vietnam War-era campus protests, particularly at Kent State University, where members of the National Guard killed four protesters and wounded nine more in 1970.

Three of the murdered Kent State students were Jewish, including Allison Krause. On Wednesday, her sister Laurel condemned Columbia’s president, and other university heads, for their handling of the Gaza protests, urging them to allow student protests without the prospect of police intervention.

“In 1970 failures of Kent State University leadership enabled the massacre which left ‘Four Dead in Ohio,’” Krause, who today runs a Kent State narrative project and has advocated on behalf of Palestinians, said in a statement. “Our institutions must learn from these past mistakes to not use militarized responses against unarmed, peaceful student protesters by calling in the National Guard, bringing in State Troopers or deploying Police in riot gear.” 

The protests have become a canvas for politicians of all stripes, who have made appearances on campuses to advance their own agendas. Republican politicians have urged drastic interventions to quell what they describe as antisemitic unrest. Some progressive Democrats, including Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, appeared in protest encampments. 

And Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose handling of the war with Hamas has drawn fierce condemnation not only from international bodies but also from many Israelis, also denounced the campus protests.

“What’s happening in America’s college campuses is horrific. Antisemitic mobs have taken over leading universities,” he said in a statement on Wednesday, insisting, “It has to be stopped,” and praising authorities who have taken action against protesters.

One of those who has is Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who on Wednesday praised state and local police for breaking up a protest at the University of Texas at Austin. Authorities arrested at least 57 people on campus. 

“Students joining in hate-filled, antisemitic protests at any public college or university in Texas should be expelled,” the Republican stated on the social network X Wednesday. He later added, “These protesters belong in jail.” 

Secure Community Network, a program that provides security training and resources for synagogues and other Jewish community structures, said Thursday it was tracking 33 different “anti-Israel” campus protests across the United States and Canada. The group characterized them as “protests calling for terrorism and violence against Jews,” and urged schools “to implement no-tent, no-encampment policies and enforce a zero-tolerance policy on assaults against students or police.”

Despite some reports that Abbott had called the National Guard in to break up the Austin protests, a spokesperson for the National Guard told local news outlets Thursday that it had not been dispatched to campus. Yet calls to deploy the guard against student pro-Palestinian protesters have been growing on the right in recent days, with House Speaker Mike Johnson urging the White House to do the same after visiting Columbia’s campus Wednesday. (On Thursday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said it was “up to the governors to decide.”) Other Republican senators have taken up the call as well, including Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton and Josh Hawley.

Most of the charges against the arrested protesters in Austin were quickly dropped. More than 500 students had staged a walkout demanding that the state’s flagship public university divest from Israeli weapons manufacturers. 

Last month, Abbott took a harsh line against his state’s protesters by requiring schools to revise their free-speech policies to punish “the sharp rise in antisemitic speech and acts on university campuses.” He specifically cited the Palestine Solidarity Committee, which organized the UT protest, as an antisemitic group, and singled out the slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” which many Jewish groups say is a call for Israel’s destruction, as an antisemitic phrase.

UT’s Hillel director expressed alarm for Jewish students’ safety on social media prior to the protests and advised Jewish students not to counterprotest. On Instagram Tuesday, Texas Hillel Executive Director Rabbi Stephanie Max accused the protesters of “making use of a Jewish holiday and observance to promote a hateful agenda” and said she had received assurance from the university that “there will be no tolerance for disruption or behaviors misaligned to University policy and the Governor’s executive order.”

After the protests Wednesday, Max said it had been “an incredibly challenging and sad day on campus” but did not comment on the protests or the arrests directly. She continued to encourage the school’s Jewish community to participate in Passover events through the rest of the holiday. A statement sent late Wednesday by the campus Chabad also emphasized its Passover events over the protests, referring only to “what happened on campus today.” A pro-Israel UT student group sang and danced thanking the officers who broke up the encampment.

Other Jews at the university criticized the state’s response as excessive and a violation of free-speech protections. UT history professor Jeremi Suri, who describes himself as half-Jewish and half-Hindu, told the Tribune that the response was an “attack on students,” who he said were “not shouting anything antisemitic.”

UT’s president, Jay Hartzall, defended the crackdown in an email to students. “Today, our University held firm, enforcing our rules while protecting the Constitutional right to free speech,” he wrote, adding, “The protesters tried to deliver on their stated intent to occupy campus.”

Another Southern campus with a large Jewish population was also in turmoil Thursday, as local and state police at Emory University in Atlanta reportedly used tear gas, rubber bullets and tasers to break up a campus pro-Palestinian protest, where they accused protesters of trespassing. A reported 15 people were arrested at Emory, whose student body is around 20% Jewish; the university said the demonstrators are “not members of our community.” 

Atlanta’s chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace, an anti-Zionist group, announced Thursday that it “stands in full solidarity” with the Emory protesters and accused police of having “violently escalated an entirely peaceful encampment.” One of the arrested was the chair of the school’s Philosophy department.

Other campus protests also devolved into arrests, with more than 100 members of an Emerson College encampment in Boston arrested on Wednesday and at least 93 arrests at USC, according to reports. 

At the University of Minnesota, nine members of a protest were arrested Tuesday as police cleared out the encampment as the university insisted, “We support the rights of all members of our University community to speak and demonstrate peacefully.” Omar, a Minnesota Democrat and fierce critic of Israel whose own daughter was arrested during the Columbia protests last week, spoke in support of the protesters prior to the arrests.

“People who tell us we are wrong for being out here, they’re going to be footnotes in the history books,” Omar told the crowd on campus, according to reports. “Follow your gut and know that what we are doing, the voices that we are raising to save lives in Gaza is just and righteous and morally correct.”

Mirabai Dornfest, a student protester, identifies as Jewish and told Minnesota Public Radio she was especially moved to join the protests during Passover, “the Jewish holiday of liberation.”

“I think it’s very in line with my morals and with the morals of a holiday to protest for liberation of the Palestinian people,” Dornfest said.

Aggression has unfolded in both directions. Protesters at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt took over two campus buildings this week demanding that the school “disclose all holdings and collaborations” with what a local pro-Palestinian group called “the zionist entity,” and “cut all ties with Israeli universities.” In response, the university announced Wednesday that it was locking down its campus through at least the weekend. 

Videos from Humboldt, located near the Oregon border, showed students clashing with police officers in riot gear; authorities also told news outlets that “hateful” graffiti, causing damage in the “millions,” had been tagged around campus. The school has a small Jewish population of around 150 students and a Chabad house, but no Hillel.

Antisemitism was also visible at some protests, including the targeting of Jewish campus buildings. Video from a protest at Tulane University in New Orleans, obtained by JTA, shows protesters chanting, “Hillel, you can’t hide. You’re committing genocide.” (Tulane Hillel did not respond to an immediate request for comment.) The Jewish News of Northern California also reported that one speaker at a pro-Palestinian encampment at the University of California, Berkeley, claimed that “Jewish women” such as Betty Friedan “sometimes imported Zionist political operations” into American feminism.

The U.S. Department of Education also announced several new federal Title VI “shared ancestry” discrimination investigations at Columbia and a handful of other schools this week, including Hunter College in New York and the New Jersey Institute of Technology. It is the second active investigation at Columbia; New York Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik used the specter of Title VI violations in calling this week for Columbia to be stripped of federal funding. 

The origins of the new complaints were not immediately known, but schools are also being investigated for alleged discrimination against Muslim and pro-Palestinian students. Another recently opened investigation, at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, follows a complaint revealed this week to have been filed by Palestine Legal.

The complaint details discriminatory behavior the legal aid group says 18 Muslim students suffered at the hands of pro-Israel students and groups including Canary Mission, which publishes the names and personal information of people (including private citizens) the site’s anonymous owners deem threats to Israel. The complaint also claims that a UMass student had showed up to pro-Palestinian protests chanting “Kill all Arabs.”

The complaint means UMass Amherst joins a small list of other schools, including Columbia and Harvard, that have been investigated for both antisemitic and Islamophobic allegations since Oct. 7.

Despite the turmoil, most Jewish campus professionals have maintained that Jewish students remain safe on campus. 

“Jewish students have no reason to leave College Hill,” Rabbi Josh Bolton, executive director of the Hillel serving both Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design, wrote in a letter to the campus community Wednesday night as an encampment at Brown took hold. 

“In fact, they have every reason to stay put, to gather for Shabbat, and to express themselves proudly as Jews — members of a global family, rooted in Eretz Yisrael.”