Chaos on Campus: Dispatches from Barnard, Rutgers, and Queens
Editor's Note: As encampments and protests flare on college campuses across the country, The Commentator would like to feature fellow Jewish students and their experiences on their campuses. The Commentator inquired on Wednesday May 1, 2024 and Thursday May 2, 2024, and news may have changed by the time this article is published. With permission from the students, we have edited these statements for clarity and length.
Danielle Soltz is a freshman at Barnard College studying computational biology.
HR: What is happening on your campus right now?
DS: Right now as we speak, the lawns have been cleared and they took away all the tents. The grass is ruined. The building that I have Yiddish in has been stormed into, and they tried to make it like an indoor encampment. The police came last night and told everyone to leave. They later arrested students. I wasn't on campus for what happened last night just because my parents didn't want me to go, and I don't really know of anyone that was on campus last night because of Second Days [of Passover].
HR: How do you feel walking around your campus and how do you feel in class?
DS: All my classes were put online. [Regarding campus] Not great. I definitely felt very scared. I'll talk about what my experience was like before everything happened last night. A few weeks ago before Pesach, I felt very very scared. It was a Saturday night, the night that everything kind of went down. Many people that aren’t affiliated with Columbia broke onto campus and were protesting and yelling at the Jewish students that were counter protesting to go back to Poland and saying, “We don’t want Zionists here.” Ever since then I've been wary about going to Columbia's campus, but Barnard's campus has no encampment and is quieter since it's a smaller space. What's really been the hardest part of all this is seeing people that I'm friends with from my classes reposting posts from SJP, Students for Justice in Palestine, that claim that the arrested students were exercising their right to freedom of speech and claiming that the arrests were harassment and unnecessary. It’s hard to know that some of my close friends have been convinced to join the protests without really knowing much about the subject and seem to just be following the trend instead of thinking for themselves.
HR: What has been the reaction of the Jewish community on campus?
DS: Our OU-JLIC Rabbi sent a message right before chag that campus isn’t safe for Jewish students to stay on campus and so that's why I had to leave on Sunday, right after that Saturday night before Pesach. The Hillel had a little bit of a different response. They released a statement encouraging students to continue to stay on campus for Passover if they wanted to. They ramped up on security. There were a lot of people who stayed in and went to those seders. The Jewish community has been the only thing that's keeping me at Barnard and I think that especially during these times it's really important to have a strong Jewish community that can fight back and say we're here, we're not going to run away, we're not going to be afraid to be on our own campus.
HR: Can you concentrate on your studies?
DS: No, not at all. Many groups for students that support Israel have been constantly sending messages about the situation on campus. After chag, I got 400 texts in the matter of two days with pictures and videos and news articles. I feel like I have to be informed about the situation on campus in addition to studying and that's been really difficult. Additionally, it has been hard to focus on school work because it seems insignificant and trivial, especially when protesters outside my window are yelling about eradicating Israel off the map.
HR: Is there anything else you would like to add? Is there anything you would like YU students to know?
DS: While these tumultuous times on campus have been heartbreaking, they have made me recognize and appreciate how grateful I am to be part of such an amazing Jewish community. Having so many friends reaching out and hearing all the support from different Jewish organizations has been incredibly heartwarming and encouraging.
Yosef Fruhman is a second year student at Rutgers University studying political science and Jewish Studies.
HR: What is happening on your campus right now?
Yosef Fruhman: Well just this morning [Thursday May 2, 2024] the a.m. finals on Rutgers’ main campus got canceled because of protest activity. There is an encampment happening in the main quad on this campus. This is actually the second encampment that we've had. We’ve had tents set up before even Columbia had theirs, and then they got taken down by our chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine and then this past week they started up again during the Second Days of chag.
HR: How do you feel walking around your campus and how do you feel in class?
YF: Honestly, there was a time when I felt unsafe and there are parts of campus where I don’t feel safe being an identifiable Jew with a kippah. I won't walk through a protest but on most of the campus I feel fine. Thankfully, all of my professors have been accommodating, and most students have been normal and understanding of my experience. But I don't make a point of talking about the war and my connection to Israel in class.
HR: What has been the reaction of the Jewish community on campus?
YF: It's been complicated. There have been a lot of people who feel scared and unsafe. There have been people who have been threatened and yelled at, so they feel especially unsafe and want the university to crack down. There have been people who would rather the Jewish institutions on campus just keep their heads down. They just don't want to give this stuff more attention and more fuel. And there have been some people, not people from the Jewish community, who are Jewish and have aligned with the protesters. Again, exclusively that's been from people who aren't really attached to the Jewish community, but there have been people like that.
HR: Can you concentrate on your studies?
YF: There are times when it's difficult. When things heat up in Israel, like when the missiles came from Iran, it obviously made it hard to focus. When I see all these protests, a lot of which you can hear from inside buildings on campus, it makes things hard to focus on my studies. This is all on top of seeing all my friends and community scared and unhappy and wanting to not be on campus. But, at this point we're all kind of used to it. This has been going on for so many months at this point, so it's a lot easier to focus now than it was at the beginning.
HR: Is there anything else you would like to add? Is there anything you would like YU students to know?
YF: I would imagine for students at YU there is a perception that everything on secular college campuses is just a lot of Jews being huddled into the corners and hiding from these antisemitic mobs. While that's true in some places and in some circumstances, I think that the picture is a lot more complicated. It’s important to note that most people at these protests don't actively hate the Jewish people or want to see the State of Israel destroyed. There's a lot of ignorance and a lot of propaganda that's motivating people to support positions that they probably don't actually agree with. I have found that when I talk to people who are more aligned with the protestors and Students for Justice in Palestine, and steer the conversation towards policy and what they want for the future, they understand the emotional connection and the deep ties that we have as the Jewish nation and they respect that for us. It is the people who are leading and organizing that have very hateful opinions.
Shana Furman is a senior at Queens College studying media studies and advertising, business and liberal arts.
HR: What is happening on your campus right now?
Shana Furman: On campus we have a range of antisemitic students. There are some who are very loud and verbal, making pro-Palestinian protests. There are others who are doing things more quietly. Many students on campus will make sly comments in class, write things on bathroom walls and desks or just give 'looks' to visibly Jewish students. The graffiti on campus (which has been going on for years but has gotten significantly worse recently), has turned from more tame comments like “free Gaza” or even “from the river to the sea” to things like “Hitler was right,” “Bring Hitler back to finish the Jews” and “Israelis, you can't hide.”
HR: How do you feel walking around your campus and how do you feel in class?
SF: I've always walked around with pepper spray in my backpack. Since October 7th I wear it on my waistband or hold it in my hand whenever I am on campus. I used to be very verbal about my opinions in class, and now I don't feel comfortable speaking up. I am genuinely fearful that if I say something, my classmates will find me outside of school or on social media and either verbally or physically assault me. One of my friends who has spoken up has been getting consistent death threats from her classmates and other Queens College students. At protests I try to go and stand with my friends, not saying anything, but just stand there.
HR: What has been the reaction of the Jewish community on campus?
SF: I have definitely noticed a lot more pride in the Jewish students. We have many Israeli students on campus and I can see that they show even more pride in small ways, whether it be putting on a kippah or wearing a dog tag.
HR: Can you concentrate on your studies?
SF: I typically just keep to myself but when school is already hard enough to go to everyday, it definitely takes even more out of me knowing that I have this extra weight on my shoulders.
HR: Is there anything else you would like to add? Is there anything you would like YU students to know?
SF: Remember to check in on your friends on any secular college campus, regardless of if their campuses are hitting the news. It is bad on every campus and even if it’s small groups of people fighting against the Jews, it makes school so much harder. Check in on your friends, we are all in this together. Am Yisrael Chai.
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Photo caption: Protests at Rutgers University
Photo credit: Yosef Fruhman
