Jewish community members outraged by UC-Berkeley chancellor’s approach to anti-Israel protesters

University of California Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ is retiring in just over a month, but nothing about her job is quieting down in her final days. Instead, the English professor is facing blowback from some in the local Jewish community regarding a series of actions she took this week to try to end the school’s Gaza solidarity encampment.

On Tuesday, Christ sent a letter to the “Free Palestine Encampment” outlining an agreement she had reached with the protest leaders in exchange for them ending their encampment. The letter quickly raised eyebrows among Jewish leaders for its concessions to the protesters and language it used around antisemitism. The next day, after the tents were taken down, several dozen pro-Palestine activists occupied a campus building that was not in use. They hung up the Palestinian flag and drew antisemitic graffiti that said “Zionism = Nazism” and equated the Jewish star to the swastika. 

Amid all of the tumult, Christ reached out on Wednesday to the members of the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on Jewish Life and Campus Climate, a group consisting of Jewish faculty members, students and local leaders, to schedule a meeting for Thursday. The advisory committee had not been consulted in the course of Christ’s negotiations with the anti-Israel protesters, despite several reported instances of antisemitism on campus, one person who was at the meeting told Jewish Insider. 

The person who attended the meeting, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about the conversation, said it “went badly,” with “students crying [and] professors angry.” 

“She started the meeting by saying our primary objective was trying to not disrupt the semester, to make sure people continue to study and take their finals. But what about the Jewish students whose lives had been upended by this?” the attendee told JI. “It felt like we were slighted. And then the public statements that she’s made, and the way that we were engaged, was just really a lack of respect.”

In Christ’s Tuesday letter to the encampment leaders, she described their conversations as “quite valuable” and recognized the group’s “efforts to maintain a professional, organized, and productive approach during a very difficult time.” She responded politely to the protesters’ demands while seeming to absolve them of the antisemitic behavior that university officials acknowledge took place. 

She said the university is prohibited from divesting from Israeli businesses by state law, but that she will investigate whether the school’s investments “continue to align with our values.” She also said she opposes academic boycotts, but that she will review the school’s academic partnerships and ensure that none exhibit anti-Palestinian discrimination. (The protesters, in their own public post explaining what happened, call this provision a “pathway to boycott of Israeli university programs on grounds of anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab discrimination,” a charge that a university spokesperson denied.)

Christ’s letter did not refer to any of the protesters’ hardline language targeting Zionists, or instances of antisemitism perpetrated by the activists. She told the encampment leaders that she plans to make a public statement “sharing my personal support for government officials’ efforts to secure an immediate and permanent cease-fire. Such support for the plight of Palestinians, including protest, should not be conflated with hatred or antisemitism.” The letter made no mention of the Israeli hostages, Hamas’ attack, or any Israeli victims of the current conflict. 

Dan Mogulof, assistant vice chancellor for communications, told JI on Thursday that “there’s no doubt that there were individuals in the encampment who engaged in antisemitic expression, and that some of the signs that went up were antisemitic expression.” But, he added, choosing not to engage with the group because of “antisemitic expression emanating from certain individuals” would have “amounted to collective punishment.” 

In another Tuesday letter, to the university’s academic Senate, Christ said she was “greatly relieved that we were able to bring this protest to a peaceful end.” But less than a day later, a group of anti-Israel demonstrators had taken over Anna Head Alumnae Hall. Mogulof insisted that the protesters in the occupied building were not the same ones that Christ had negotiated with. 

“All the information we have [is] we don’t see the same people. We’ve spoken to them and they say we didn’t have anything to do with getting this started,” said Mogulof, who called the incident a “crime scene.” Police were dispatched there on Thursday night. 

The leaders of the encampment took to Instagram to cheer on those who had occupied the building and called on supporters to go defend it from police. Berkeley’s graduate student chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, which was also heavily involved in the encampment, expressed a “statement of solidarity” with those at the occupied building, and explicitly condemned Mogulof’s language, calling his separation of the two groups “inaccurate, untrue, and destructive.” 

Christ, who has served as chancellor at Berkeley since 2017, has enjoyed a close relationship with the Bay Area Jewish community for much of that period. The Jewish Community Relations Council of the Bay Area honored her with their “Courageous Leadership Award” at the group’s 2020 gala. 

She faced a different reaction from the group this week. After the Thursday meeting with the Jewish life advisory committee, the JCRC released a statement expressing “no confidence” in Christ’s leadership. “We call on the UC Board of Regents to take swift action amid this leadership vacuum to restore order to campus, and safety for Jewish campus life,” the statement said. 

“She’s retiring at the end of this academic year, so she only has a few weeks left,” JCRC executive director Tyler Gregory told JI. “I think our statement would have been different if she weren’t leaving already.”

House antisemitism investigation targets University of California, Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley, on Tuesday became the fifth target of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce’s expanding investigation of antisemitism on college campuses.

In a letter to Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ, University of California President Michael Drake and University of California Board of Regents Chair Richard Leib, Rep.Virginia Foxx (R-NC) requested documents relating to the school’s handling of incidents and reports of antisemitism, and internal communications and meeting notes relating to antisemitism and Israel. 

It also requests documentation relating to the school’s equity and inclusion office and related programs, as well as foreign donations to the school.

The letter highlights a number of antisemitic and anti-Israel incidents on Berkeley’s campus, including a riot targeting Jewish students that shut down a recent speaking event; multiple incidents of assault, harassment, vandalism and robbery; an ongoing blockade of a campus gate that the school has declined to break up; an incident when students were offered extra credit for attending a pro-Palestinian protest; a public statement by a pro-Palestinian student group praising the Oct. 7 attack; anti-Israel and antisemitic comments by faculty; and the college’s own response to Oct. 7.

It also notes that in August of 2022 — months before the Oct. 7 attacks — nine Berkeley Law School student groups adopted bylaws committing to boycotting speakers who support Zionism or Israel.

“An environment of pervasive antisemitism has been documented at UC Berkeley dating back to well before the October 7, 2023, terrorist attack,” Foxx wrote. She also referenced several instances of internal criticism from students and faculty, as well as condemnation from the California Legislative Jewish Caucus.

Foxx gave the school until April 2 to respond to the request.

A UC Berkeley student spoke to a committee roundtable on antisemitism last month; five of the nine schools whose students appeared at the event have now been hit with document requests. UC Berkeley is the first public university to become part of the investigation.

Dan Mogulof, a UC Berkeley spokesperson, said that the school would “provide a comprehensive response to the committee’s questions and concerns,” adding that “UC Berkeley has long been committed to confronting antisemitism, and to supporting the needs and interests of its Jewish students, faculty, and staff” and “has an unwavering commitment to ensuring every student feels safe and welcome, at all times, in all places, regardless of who they are, or what they believe in.”

He also noted that the speaker whose event was called off due to the riot in February spoke on Monday without incident.

Columbia’s proposals to tackle antisemitism draw mixed reviews from Jewish leaders

The recommendations handed down earlier this week from Columbia University’s task force on antisemitism painted a picture of Jewish students feeling “isolation and pain” in the wake of pro-Palestinian protests that have gripped the campus since Oct. 7. 

They also cited a lack of disciplinary response from the university regarding unauthorized protests of the Israel-Hamas war as contributing to Jewish students’ struggles on campus, and called for the university to more effectively investigate policy violations by creating an easier process for filing complaints.

But on the pivotal question of whether some of the slogans chanted at those rallies veer from legitimate political speech into antisemitism the task force’s recommendations are ambiguous.

The report states, “Obviously, the chants ‘gas the Jews’ and ‘Hitler was right’ are calls to genocide, but fortunately no one at Columbia has been shouting these phrases… Rather, many of the chants at recent Columbia protests are viewed differently by different members of the Columbia community: some feel strongly that these are calls to genocide, while others feel strongly that they are not.” 

The report does not, however, specifically address the slogan “from the river to the sea Palestine will be free,” which has frequently been chanted at protests on Columbia’s campus and is widely viewed by Jewish groups as a call for genocide of Israelis.

According to David Schizer, a professor of law and economics and dean emeritus of Columbia’s law school, who is one of the three co-chairs of the task force, the key issue that the 24-page report addresses is the thorny matter of campus free speech — emphasizing that “everyone needs to have a right to speak and to protest,” he said. 

“How can we make sure the people have the right to speak and protest, while at the same time ensuring that protests don’t interfere with the ability of other members of the community to teach classes, study for a test, to hear their professors,” Schizer, who is also the former CEO of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, continued. While the report emphasizes the right to peaceful demonstrations, it also condemns faculty for participating in unauthorized demonstrations.

But some prominent leaders of the movement to fight antisemitism in higher education expressed skepticism that a set of recommendations could fix the raging antisemitism on Columbia’s campus — which has included repeated violations of the rules on protests and physical assault and other serious attacks on Jewish students. 

“The new recommendations have some technically good work which could provide incremental advances, but it’s certainly not the kind of thing that will solve Columbia’s problems,” Kenneth Marcus, founder of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, told JI. The Brandeis Center recently filed federal complaints against the University of California for antisemitism at UC Berkeley and American University, while the Department of Education is currently investigating Brandeis Center complaints filed against Wellesley, SUNY New Paltz, the University of Southern California, Brooklyn College and the University of Illinois for violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and for discrimination against Jewish students.

The recommendations come as Columbia faces pressure from donors and investigations by Congress and the Biden administration over antisemitism. It also comes in the wake of scrutiny regarding a number of antisemitism task forces set up at elite universities as a response to the surge in antisemitism that erupted following the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks in Israel. Five months later, questions remain over the effectiveness and direction of such groups — with some experts claiming task forces have been all talk with minimal action so far. 

But Schizer said that in Columbia’s case, there have been months of ongoing research of university policies, including interviewing students. It aims to release a series of reports in the coming months with the goal of gaining a deeper understanding of the campus climate and providing further recommendations.

The report states that while it agrees with the university’s principle that calls for genocide, like other incitement to violence, violate the rules, “the application of it should be clarified.”

It goes on to encourage the university’s legal team to “provide more guidance on this issue,” and emphasizes that clearer guidance is needed, like the university has done with its rules on gender-based misconduct to include “scenarios,” “to provide greater clarity help to provide fair notice, so Columbia affiliates have more of a sense of what is permissible (even if offensive) and what is not.” 

Columbia administration plans to review the task force’s interim policy at the end of this semester. Minouche Shafik, the university’s president, said in a statement that the new recommendations —  the first set in a series — are welcomed by the university and “will continue across a number of fronts as the University works to address this ancient, but sadly persistent, form of hate.” 

Marcus said it’s “good that Columbia finally has good people asking serious questions about harassment and disruptive protests,” but he added, “What’s needed is not just a few recommendations regarding the rules on protest. The fact is that there’s been antisemitic bigotry [at] Columbia University for decades now.”

“It’s not as if a few changes to the protest policies are going to substantially change the institution as long as they continue business as usual,” he continued. “Much of what’s in this new set of recommendations could have been written on Oct. 6 given everything that’s happened since. What’s needed is not a series of incremental measures, but a rethinking of what Columbia is doing to cause harm, not just to Jewish students but also to the surrounding community. These recommendations may lead to technical and marginal changes in the ways that the university responds to specific incidents, and generally speaking that’s a good thing. 

But it’s certainly not a solution to the problem.” 

Marcus noted that the recommendations are “framed fairly narrow, with response to only one narrow piece of the problem.” 

“I know this is only one of the series of reports that we can anticipate, but if this is an indication of what’s to come, it may provide some useful professional iteration but not a truly substantial change,” he said. “It does not indicate a new mindset that is ready to deal with the problems Oct. 7 has revealed.” 

Mark Yudof, chair of the Academic Engagement Network, expressed a similar sentiment as Marcus, but added that he’s “hopeful” the report will bring change. Schizer, as well as the two other co-chairs of the task force, Ester Fuchs and Nicolas Lemann, are all longtime members of AEN. 

“We need adequate rules about speech and we need to put teeth into it and have reasonable procedures in which people are actually disciplined for violating the rules,” Yudof said, calling the report “complex.” 

While skeptical, Yudof also expressed praise for the recommendations — “I think Columbia’s report gets at the core problem of education and I applaud them,” he said. 

“I like the report and am hopeful… I would urge the Columbia administration to adopt the recommendations of the task force, but the proof will be in the pudding.”

‘It’s unspeakable’: UC Berkeley Jewish leaders decry university’s response to antisemitic mob

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.”

Jewish students recount a series of campus horror stories at congressional roundtable

For two hours on Wednesday, lawmakers heard from a parade of Jewish students, each delivering the same message: They do not feel safe on their college campuses.

Speaking to a roundtable organized by the House Committee on Education & the Workforce, Jewish students from Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Columbia, Rutgers, Stanford, Tulane, Cooper Union and University of California, Berkeley spoke about about the harassment, threats and violence they’ve faced on their campuses since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

The students’ accounts were all remarkably similar, despite coming from a range of locations and school types, including openly antisemitic taunts and harassment, angry mobs rampaging through campus and overtaking campus buildings, vandalism and in some cases threats of or actual incidents of violence, all going largely or completely unaddressed by university administrators and campus police, despite repeated and sustained pleas from the students for help and support. 

In some cases, the students said professors and administrators were complicit or actively involved in the antisemitic activity. Students said that they feared for their safety and even their lives.

The students, saying they felt abandoned by their universities and had no faith in them to act to protect them, pleaded for action from Congress. They said that they hoped their testimony could serve as a wakeup call to both Congress and the American public.

“As my friends from Harvard and UPenn can tell you, it doesn’t end simply because presidents are replaced. Systemic change is needed,” Kevin Feigelis, a Stanford student, said. “Universities have proven they have no intention of fixing themselves. It must be you, and it must be now.”

Shabbos Kestenbaum — a Harvard student who said he’d contacted the school’s antisemitism task force more than 40 times without a response and had been threatened in a video with a machete by a still-employed Harvard staff member — called Congress and the courts the students’ “last hope.”

Multiple students and lawmakers said that the current events on campus carry echoes of 1930s Germany or the pogroms in Russia.

Some suggested potential courses of action that Congress and other federal branches could take, including leveraging U.S. taxpayer funding or the schools’ tax-exempt statuses, placing third-party monitors on campus and enforcing diversity requirements in Middle East studies departments requiring them to include pro-Israel views.

Students from Harvard, Penn and MIT all said that little has changed on their campuses since last year’s blockbuster congressional hearing on campus antisemitism, which prompted the ouster of Harvard and Penn’s presidents.

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), the committee’s chair, vowed that she and her colleagues would not stop their efforts to tackle antisemitism on campus.

“I was very emotional,” Foxx told Jewish Insider, “I’m a mother and a grandmother. I have one grandchild who went to college and I’m not sure what I would have done if he had come home to say he felt threatened on his campus like these students feel threatened. No student on a college campus, in this country, in the year 2024, should feel threatened.”

Foxx said that the committee’s antisemitism investigation is proceeding deliberately, but that the schools will be held to account. The committee has already requested documents from Harvard, Penn and Columbia and has now subpoenaed Harvard. Foxx suggested that other schools whose students had appeared Thursday could be next.