The day after an antisemitic mob at the University of California, Berkeley, forced the evacuation of Jewish students from an event where an Israel Defense Forces reservist was speaking, the university’s two top leaders sent an email to the entire Berkeley community.

“Upholding our values,” its subject line read. 

When Danielle Sobkin, a third-year student and the co-president of the pro-Israel student group that had organized the event, saw the email, she hoped it would address the targeting of Jewish students that occurred during the Monday night incident. Roughly 200 protestors surrounded the building where the event took place and tried to push their way in, shattering a door and several windows while chanting “Intifada!” Three Jewish students were injured. A junior told J. The Jewish News of Northern California he was called a “dirty Jew” and a Nazi. 

But rather than addressing anything specific about the protesters’ Jewish targets, the email — written by Chancellor Carol Christ and Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Benjamin Hermalin — described the incident as an attack on the “fundamental values of the university, which are also essential to maintain and nurture open inquiry and an inclusive civil society, the bedrock of a genuinely democratic nation.”

“The entire email didn’t even mention antisemitism. Not one word of it,” Sobkin told Jewish Insider on Thursday. “I think the entire response is a huge failure on the part of the administration, on the part of the chancellor. And I think students are just really disappointed that fear and the Jewish hate that was so blatantly perpetuated on Monday night has been essentially sidelined, not being recognized, nor has anything been done about it.”

Well before the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in Israel touched off a dramatic rise in antisemitism at American college campuses, Berkeley had grappled with an active and virulent anti-Israel faction whose supporters sometimes crossed the line into antisemitism. In 2022, several student groups at Berkeley’s law school pledged not to host speakers who had ever supported Zionism, prompting a civil rights investigation from the Department of Education. 

The failure to mention “antisemitism” in the university’s official condemnation of the protest reflects what several Jewish community leaders at Berkeley and in the Bay Area have long identified as a glaring blind spot at the prestigious university.

“I found it to be shocking that the statement from the administration didn’t use the word ‘Jewish’ or ‘antisemitism’ anywhere,” said Tyler Gregory, CEO of the Bay Area Jewish Community Relations Council. “It feels like they’re trying to gaslight people about who the victims are. Whether that was intentional or an oversight doesn’t matter. Either way, we’ve got a problem here.”

In a Wednesday conversation with JI, Dan Mogulof, Berkeley’s assistant vice chancellor for executive communications, did not mention antisemitism when discussing the incident or how the university would respond to it. He said the school may consider adding a required seminar about “the importance of diversity and perspective and civic discourse and freedom of speech,” but added that he “would be hard-pressed to think of policies that would be unique to the Jewish community that would be necessary or effective.”

In a follow-up conversation on Thursday, Mogulof acknowledged that the Monday incident had, in fact, been “informed by antisemitism, but that’s different than saying that everybody there was motivated by that or engaged in that.” The email from the chancellor did not mention antisemitism because, on Tuesday morning, the school had not been able to verify whether there had been antisemitic incidents, Mogulof said, and they wanted to send something out. “The only source of reports about antisemitic expression was on social media.”

Mogulof had been at the Monday event, which he described as “terrible.” But he claimed he had not witnessed any antisemitic actions. “It was really chaotic,” said Mogulof. 

As the administrators drafted the email to students, “we wanted to universalize it,” he said of the Monday incident. “It’s just unacceptable, no matter who was being targeted. It applies to everybody.” He then downplayed the importance of the email, saying “they have a wonderful symbolic value” but that only about 15% of students open the email. “We’re not just relying on campus messages.” On Friday, he noted, several administrators will meet with Jewish community members in an event organized by the chancellor’s advisory committee on Jewish life and campus climate, a body created years prior to Oct. 7. 

When asked if the event constituted a security failure for the university, Mogulof demurred. “Well, I don’t know. You’ve heard me speak. Would you?” he asked. “The fact that we were able to safely evacuate the building and get people away from the mob with what so far are two reports of minor injuries, I’m thankful that happened.” 

“I think what happened on Monday was more of a wake-up call that we’re in new territory,” Mogulof said.

But Jewish community members on campus view the security and planning failures that led to a mob successfully shutting down an event organized by pro-Israel events as an almost inevitable consequence of the Berkeley administration not responding forcefully enough as Jewish students have faced harassment and exclusion in recent months. 

“It can’t be just brushed under the rug, like it’s been done. This is a pattern,” said Berkeley Chabad Rabbi Gil Leeds. “It’s unspeakable, the level of, I think, negligence and cover-up for these actions.”

A spokesperson for California Gov. Gavin Newsom told JI that, “the Governor vehemently condemns antisemitism and has called on California’s university systems to take additional steps to protect student safety.”

In a statement to JI, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), who is running for Senate, decried the incident and called out university administrators for failing to act. 

“Over the last several months, we’ve seen a wave of antisemitism on college campuses across the country. What happened at Berkeley is just the latest, horrifying example,” said Schiff, days before California’s Senate primary. “It’s unacceptable in any setting, especially in a California university that prides itself on inclusion. And yet, this kind of intimidation — and inaction from administrators — is an all-too-common reality for so many Jewish students today.” 

Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA), who is one of Schiff’s competitors in the race and a former visiting professor at Berkeley, condemned Monday’s incident in a statement.

“Hate has no place in our communities. It’s on all of us to combat it by speaking firmly against bigotry, especially on college campuses — where free speech should be respected, but hate speech never tolerated. As a former UC Berkeley faculty member, I strongly condemn Monday’s events,” said Porter. “Stopping hate includes condemning antisemitism, and I will continue to speak out against hate targeting our Jewish communities.” 

A spokesperson for Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), the third major Democrat vying for the Senate seat and the congressperson who represents Berkeley, did not respond to a request for comment.

Berkeley has not faced the same public pressure from Jewish donors like at other top schools, most notably Harvard and Penn. Gregory, from the JCRC, and Rabbi Leeds both called on philanthropists to consider putting pressure on Berkeley.

“I would call upon them to really consider making sure that the university — if you’re giving so much money to a school that bears your name, you would want it to definitely have a certain character and definitely not be a place that is unfriendly to Jewish people,” Leeds said. 

The Koret Foundation, a major Jewish philanthropy in the Bay Area, has been a major supporter of universities in the area, including a $12 million gift to Berkeley in 2020. The nonprofit’s CEO, Jeff Farber, told JI that the organization “has always taken current circumstances into consideration for decisions about grants.”

“In addition to punishing the perpetrators of this violent intimidation, universities and those who fund them must do more to protect and support Jewish students. Simply put, those entrusted with the safety and education of the future generation must have the moral clarity to stand up for what’s right. The world has changed and stronger responses are necessary to protect Jewish students,” Farber said. “We are in close contact with administrators at the universities we partner with and will continue to insist they implement serious, meaningful action to address antisemitism on their campuses.” 

The university has opened disciplinary investigations into the students involved, and campus police have begun investigations, including a hate crimes probe, Mogulof said. He declined to comment further, citing student privacy concerns. He also declined to say whether Bears for Palestine — the Students for Justice in Palestine-affiliated group that organized the protest and is a registered student group on campus — would face any consequences.

“We cannot punish or sanction anyone or any group for constitutionally protected language. We can and we will punish any individual or any group that engages in expression not protected by the First Amendment,” Mogulof said.

The leaders of Bears for Israel, the pro-Israel group that organized the event, had been seeking a meeting with Berkeley’s chancellor since October. They reached out again this week but have not heard back. Mogulof said the chancellor would “absolutely” consider a meeting with them but declined to say more.

“It’s really difficult to be a Jewish student leader, just in general, but especially right now it’s especially isolating. Nobody’s really in your corner,” said Sobkin. “That further develops this feeling of hopelessness and loneliness in what we’re doing.”

On Monday, after campus police moved the event from its original location and then failed to secure the second location, and after attendees were forced to evacuate through the basement to exit from a parking garage away from the protestors, the speaker — Ran Bar-Yoshafat — did deliver his talk, at the campus Chabad house. Not everyone made it; Rabbi Leeds got a frantic phone call from the mother of one student who had been separated from the group, and who had called her crying. But the event continued, almost like a therapy session. Leeds promised that the students would invite more pro-Israel speakers, and would not be afraid.

“On the Sather Gate, where they’re protesting and blocking daily, it says the motto of the school, ‘Fiat Lux. Let there be light.’ It’s from the Bible,” Leeds said, referring to a well-known gate on campus. “It’s the Jewish people; that’s what we stand for, and we want to make sure that there’s only light coming out of Berkeley again. This is definitely a dark day in the history of Berkeley, and all of all of higher education. But from the greatest darkness comes the greatest light, so we can really make a difference.”