Columbia University is investigating after masked pro-Palestine protesters disrupted an Israeli history class and handed out flyers with ‘violent imagery’ to students.
The incident took place on the first day of the New York college’s History of Modern Israel class, shortly after students had just been introduced to the course content.
Three protesters – seemingly wearing keffiyehs, a Middle Eastern scarf which symbolises Palestinian identity – entered the classroom on Tuesday and refused to leave.
One read a speech to the students while others handed out the anti-Israel leaflets, undeterred by the students asking for them to leave so they could get back to the class.
One flyer shows a burning Israeli flag beneath the words ‘Burn Zionism to the Ground,’ while another emblazoned with the slogan ‘Crush Zionism’ depicts a large black boot stamping on the Jewish Star of David, pictures shared by a student in the class show.
‘It was shocking for everyone in the class,’ Elisha Baker, a junior studying Middle Eastern history, told CNN. ‘I’m still super excited for this class. It’s a shame that this incident is going to put us on edge inside the classroom.’
Professor Avi Shilon, who had recently moved from Israel to New York to run the module, said that his ‘first instinct’ when the masked group entered the room ‘was to think they were terrorists’.
The lecturer said he soon realised they did not pose a threat, ‘regained my composure and stood up toward them’.
He said he tried to ‘calm the commotion’ and even asked the ‘rioters’ to join his class to ‘learn and express their opinions’, but that they did not respond to him.
The professor said the group ‘continued to shout’ and quoted something he had previously written, declaring that he had come ‘from Israel to teach Zionism’.
Writing for the Ynet news website, Prof Shilon stated that his class was about students ‘challenging perceptions’ about Israeli history and that it included studying ‘conflicting narratives.’
He described his surprise at their response, saying: ‘Although I knew about the protests, of course, I did not imagine that they would burst into the classroom, and that students would allow themselves to threaten other students just because they chose to learn about – not necessarily support – Israel and the conflict.’
He said that while he found Columbia, in particular his department, to be ‘supportive and inclusive’, the fact that masked people were able to come into his classroom after months of protests ‘equires the university to reevaluate.’
The professor, along with others, suggested that the incident should make the university evaluate whether students should be allowed to wear masks around campus.
The university’s interim president Katrina Armstrong responded with a statement saying that it ‘condemned’ the disruption as well as the content of the flyers, which she deemed ‘unacceptable’.
‘No group of students has a right to disrupt another group of students in a Columbia classroom,’ she said in a statement.
‘We want to be absolutely clear that any act of antisemitism, or other form of discrimination, harassment, or intimidation against members of our community is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.’
Armstrong said that the university will ‘move quickly’ to investigate the incident and added that ‘any act of antisemitism, or other form of discrimination, harassment, or intimidation against members of our community is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.’
Armstrong took over after the college’s former president Minouche Shafik resigned following outrage over her handling of anti-Israel protests on campus last summer.
Columbia was rocked in April and May last year as protesters occupied parts of the New York City campus in opposition to Palestinian civilian deaths in Gaza, resulting in hundreds of arrests.
Baroness Shafik was responsible for permitting New York Police Department (NYPD) officers to swarm the Columbia University campus, a controversial move that led to around 100 students being arrested.
The chaotic scenes marked the first time that mass arrests had been made on the campus since Vietnam War protests more than five decades ago.
It also led to the breakout of protests across dozens of other colleges across the US, Canada, the UK and across Europe.
Four months after the Gaza protests, Baroness Shafik stepped down, saying she had overseen a ‘period of turmoil where it has been difficult to overcome divergent views across our community’.
‘This period has taken a considerable toll on my family, as it has for others in our community,’ she added.
The demonstrators denounced Baroness Shafik for calling police onto campus to halt the demonstrations, while pro-Israel supporters castigated her for failing to crack down sufficiently.
Donations began to dry up as wealthy benefactors reacted with disgust to the protests, and Shafik herself was widely criticized after appearing before Congress where she refused to say whether the phrase ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’, should be considered anti-Semitic.
Her resignation came following leaked text messages from three deans which mocked concerns about anti-Semitism.
The texting occurred during a meeting in May last year at the Ivy League school in which Jewish students described the anti-Semitism that they were experiencing on campus in the wake of Hamas’ brutal assault on Israel on October 7.
The trio were put on leave, according to a letter from Shafik and University Provost Angela Olinto that was sent to members of the school community after the texts emerged in June.
The three in question were former Associate Dean for Student and Family Support Matthew Patashnick, Vice Dean and Chief Administrative Officers Susan Chang-Kim and former Dean of Undergraduate Student Life Cristen Kromm.
The meeting was titled Jewish Life on Campus: Past, Present and Future. It took place on May 31.
The text messages that were publicly released include Chang-Kim’s words: ‘Comes from such a place of privilege… hard to hear the woe is me, we need to huddle at the Kraft center. Huh??’
Kromm responded: ‘Amazing what $ can do,’ while talking about an op-ed that was published in the school’s Columbia Spectator newspaper.
The messages were later published as part of an investigation by the House Committee on Education and Workforce.
Dean of Columbia College Josef Sorett was also on the text thread but did not participate to the same extent.
‘This incident revealed behavior and sentiments that were not only unprofessional, but also, disturbingly touched on ancient anti-Semitic tropes,’ Shafik told the school’s community at the time.
‘Whether intended as such or not, these sentiments are unacceptable and deeply upsetting, conveying a lack of seriousness about the concerns and the experiences of members of our Jewish community that is antithetical to our University’s values and the standards we must uphold in our community.’