As former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett spoke on the second floor of the Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale University on Jan. 21, students affiliated with Yalies4Palestine and Jews for a Ceasefire commandeered the main lobby.
There, in the center of Yale’s Jewish communal building, protesters chanted and sang slogans like “End the occupation,” “From New Haven to Gaza,” “Tell Yale, divest from war” and “Naftali Bennett, we shall not be moved.” The rants to “divest from war” echoed public calls to support the antisemitic BDS campaign by Yale Jews for a Ceasefire.
Several keffiyeh-clad protesters held signs that were identical to those displayed earlier that evening at an anti-Israel, “Gaza Rises, Zionism Falls Day of Action” rally on campus.
The protest at the Slifka Center, which stretched on for three hours, created an environment so intimidating that some Jewish students felt the need to hide, while others tried to document the hostile protest.
One student, who asked to remain anonymous, recounted how she retreated to a bathroom. In her whispered account, she shared how Slifka staff monitored her every move, stood uncomfortably close, and, ultimately, intimidated her to the point where she couldn’t freely document the protest.
She described seeing her peers subjected to the same maltreatment—their attempts to film or take photos were blocked, and, in one case, a protester outright snatched the phone from a student attempting to record the event.
According to other students who also filmed events that night, Slifka staff were present and supervising the protest. One student said she was told by a staff member, “You have to get out of this space; you can’t film in this space.”
Slifka staff didn’t just permit the anti-Israel protesters; they actively shielded them from scrutiny.
When Jewish students tried to document the protest, staff aggressively pressured them to delete photos and videos, citing vague rules against filming. In one instance, a staff member pressured a student to show proof that they deleted videos and photos of the protest. This coercion was a violation of their privacy.
Such actions don’t appear to be isolated. There seems to be a concerted effort by Slifka staff to erase all evidence that Yalies4Palestine and Yale Jews for Ceasefire—groups known for targeting Jews and pro-Israel students—were rallying and intimidating others in the building.
One student asked me in disbelief why the director allowed this to go on. I could hear the student’s sense of betrayal.
Other students said that the Slifka Center’s director and staff owe their community an explanation: Why were anti-Israel protestors—who openly call for Israel’s destruction—granted carte blanche to disrupt a Jewish space, while Jewish students who want to protect Israel are surveilled, bullied and silenced?
Yalies4Palestine and Yale Jews for Ceasefire justify terrorism against Israeli civilians, frame Israel’s existence as a colonial enterprise, accuse Israel of genocide, and urge divestment from the Jewish state. Those smears contradict the beliefs of the overwhelming majority of Jews in the world and at Yale who love Israel and seek to ensure its survival.
Yale’s Jewish students tell me that they are not asking for special treatment by the Slifka Center. They’re asking that the institution live up to its stated mission of being a welcoming space for “open-hearted conversations”—not a threatening one in which students’ phones are monitored and content erased by administrators who don’t want the outside world to see what is really going on.
Students are now asking: Who among the trustees will speak up for those whose well-being is being harmed? Who will take action to stop the intimidation?
Anti-Zionist activism is increasingly infiltrating Jewish spaces, posing as free expression while weaponizing the openness of these spaces against their very purpose.
What’s unfolding at the Slifka Center is, unfortunately, not an isolated incident. It is part of a disturbing tendency to allow genocidal sentiment disguised as criticism of Israel to justify the harassment of Jewish students. Sometimes with the very people tasked with protecting them standing there watching.
This article was originally published in the Jewish News Syndicate.
