Columbia University’s new hire for senior associate dean of community and culture was a signatory of a 2021 letter supporting the Palestinian “indigenous resistance movement” and rejecting the “the fiction of a ‘two-sided conflict.’” He is tasked with leading “meaningful dialogue” in his new position. 

Jonathon Kahn signed on to the “Vassar Community Members’ Statement of Solidarity with the Palestinian People” while a professor of religion at Vassar College. 

“We affirm that the Palestinian struggle is an indigenous resistance movement confronting settler colonialism, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing, and stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people,” the letter read. It came amid the May 2021 Israel-Hamas conflict, in which at least 13 Israelis were killed by Hamas rocket fire. The open letter also “includes a commitment to academic BDS, which, if put into effect, would restrict the educational opportunities and academic freedom of students and faculty who want to study about or in Israel.” 

In his new role at Columbia, Kahn will “build and lead initiatives that cultivate curiosity, civic purpose and meaningful dialogue — facilitating student engagement with faculty outside the classroom, and helping reimagine what a liberal arts and sciences education can be in the next century,” Josef Sorett, dean of Columbia College and vice president for undergraduate education, said in a statement announcing the appointment on Tuesday. 

Columbia University did not respond to an inquiry from Jewish Insider asking whether the school was aware of the petition before hiring Kahn.

The senior associate dean of community and culture role is a new position, created in the wake of increased antisemitism that has plagued Columbia’s campus since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks in Israel.  

Kahn, who has no known social media presence, said in a statement sent to the Washington Free Beacon on Wednesday regarding the petition that he is “a Zionist” who “believe[s] deeply in Israel’s right to exist and thrive as a Jewish state” and also “deeply value[s] Palestinian life and Palestinians’ aspirations for statehood.”

“My beliefs are not fully captured in this letter that was authored more than four years ago,” he said. “I didn’t agree with every sentence then, and I still don’t. But I put my name to that letter at a time when I felt in deep disagreement with actions taken by the Israeli government and I wanted to signal my support for the Palestinian civilians who were suffering.”

Kahn’s appointment comes just over a month after Columbia reached a deal with the Trump administration, in which it has to pay a $200 million dollar settlement, to restore some $400 million in federal funding that was cut by the government in March due to the university’s record dealing with antisemitism.