Rutgers Jewish faculty, students demand antisemitism crackdown as president faces Congress
Hundreds of Jewish students and professors at Rutgers University are demanding action against widespread campus antisemitism, as the school’s president is set to face tough questions from lawmakers about anti-Israel demonstrators having “taken over the university.”
In a pair of open letters obtained Wednesday by The Post, 208 faculty and more than 160 students denounced “disruptive and antisemitic incidents” that have taken place since Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack in Israel — and delayed final exams this spring.
The letter from Jewish students said they have been shocked that “people we once considered our friends celebrated Hamas’ atrocities” and through funding from national organizations “mobilized” to defend the terror group as having carried out a justified “resistance.”
“Whether in the name of ‘religion,’ ‘ethnic purity,’ or (in our case) ‘decolonization,’ the murder of Jews is always given a ‘reason’ that justifies our deaths,” it adds.
“And in the year 2023 (and still in 2024) we, the Jews at Rutgers University, were condemned as ‘colonizers’ or ‘perpetrators of genocide’ deserving of these atrocities,” it adds.
“With chants of ‘colonizers go home,’ ‘globalize the intifada,’ and ‘from water to water Palestine is Arab,’ these groups made abundantly clear to us and the broader university community how they felt.”
The faculty members blasted the Rutgers administration for failing to uphold the university’s code of conduct and ignoring calls to implement “mandatory antisemitism training.”
“As a result, the entire university community has suffered through the disruption of normal university operations and an often chaotic and intimidating environment on our campuses,” they wrote.
“The administration’s decision to accede to the demands of the encampment protesters undermines the principles of shared governance, and it elevates the voices of a radical few above those of the more reasonable whole.”
Rutgers University president Jonathan Holloway will appear Thursday before the House Education and Workforce Committee to answer for what legislators call his “gravely concerning actions” in response to the protests.
Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) announced May 6 that Holloway will be joined by the presidents of Northwestern University and UCLA, accusing the school leaders of making “shocking concessions to the unlawful antisemitic encampments” and having “surrendered to antisemitic radicals.”
On Tuesday, a member of one of Rutgers’ advisory boards was outed by The Post for regularly posting bloodthirsty pro-Hamas content on his social media accounts — with several posts hailing attacks on Israeli troops as “hunting season.”
Earlier this month, a Rutgers dean also denied a Jewish student group the opportunity to host a post-graduation barbecue, while an anti-Israel tent encampment was allowed to remain on campus.
The New Jersey school’s protesters, who have endorsed and been endorsed by Hamas, have also praised terrorists by spray-painting their images on campus sidewalks and been caught on video screaming “Hitler would have loved you” at Jewish students.
One of those encampments, at the university’s Newark campus, “continues even now,” the faculty noted, with demonstrators calling on the school to divest from Israel.
“These students weren’t alone,” the Jewish undergrads also wrote in their letter. “They had the support of many faculty and staff who guided them in tactics of intimidation and menacing protest, and those faculty and staff members ultimately assisted the students in negotiating their demands with the administration.”
“The actions of these faculty and staff have only added to the isolation experienced by Jewish students. Some of them have allowed for and perpetuated antisemitic behavior in their own classrooms,” they added. “Jewish students have been forced to leave classes and in some cases change their areas of study altogether.”
While they thanked Holloway for not caving in to demands to cut Rutgers’ ties with Tel Aviv University in Israel, the students said that classmates have yet to face consequences for antisemitic harassment and intimidation.
“We join our students in calling on the university administration to take immediate steps to limit disruption and violations of university rules and to mitigate the effects of antisemitism on our campuses,” the faculty members added. “We cannot afford another year like the last one.”
In December, the US Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights opened an investigation into discrimination at Rutgers based on shared ancestry.
