CUNY’s Baruch College put on blast for trying to block Rosh Hashanah celebration: ‘Appalling’
CUNY’s Baruch College tried to block a campus celebration of Rosh Hashanah over safety concerns — and only reversed course after it was put on blast for kowtowing to anti-Israel agitators instead of protecting its Jewish students.
Jewish students at the public college in Manhattan were told by school officials not to hold the Sept. 26 event celebrating the Jewish New Year because Baruch could not “guarantee their security,” Baruch College English professor and Hillel director Ilya Brayman told The Post.
“We were told by the administration that the campus can’t guarantee the safety of Jewish students because of other agitators who want to hurt, intimidate or harass them,” Brayman seethed.
“It’s appalling. It’s insane.”
CUNY officials only “changed their mind” after New York Rep. Ritchie Torres joined Baruch trustees and Jewish students and faculty to push back.
In a scathing letter sent Tuesday to CUNY Chancellor Felix Matos Rodriguez, Gov. Kathy Hochul, Mayor Eric Adams and Interim NYPD Commissioner Tom Donlon, Rep. Torres blasted the “under-policing” of antisemitism on campus.
“Public safety should not be an excuse for denying religious liberty, which is a protected right under the First Amendment. Religious liberty should be a reason to guarantee public safety,” Torres wrote.
The congressman then urged the CUNY and city leaders to act with “urgency” to stamp out Jew hatred flourishing on Empire State campuses.
“What is it going to take to get New York and CUNY to treat campus antisemitism with the urgency it demands? Must there be a violent assault? Or the loss of a student’s life?,” Torres asked.
“Imagine, for a moment, if the KKK were harassing black students on or near CUNY’s campus. Or if the congregants of the Westboro Baptist Church were harassing LGBTQ students. Or if white nationalists, acting on the Great Replacement Theory, were harassing immigrants?,” he continued.
“Does anyone think the response from the NY political and academic establishment would be anything other than overwhelming outrage?”
Torres charged that Jewish students have been “hijacked by the menacing atmosphere of antisemitic harassment and intimidation that has taken hold at CUNY,” adding that he was startled after hearing “heartbreaking” stories about the rampant antisemitism described during a meeting with the CUNY Alliance for Inclusion (CAFI) last week.
He specifically mentioned the “violent mob” of pro-Hamas protesters who recently taunted Jewish Baruch freshman attending a dinner at a kosher restaurant called Mr. Broadway earlier this month, sponsored by the group Hillel International.
The hateful harassers called the students “genocide enablers.”
“The under-policing of antisemitic incidents, which have risen to historic highs, has become its own form of institutionalized antisemitism,” the lawmaker said.
“Antisemitism is endemic because there are no repercussions,” added Brayman, who said that groups allied with Students for Justice for Palestine are planning rallies on Oct. 7 to celebrate the anniversary of Hamas’ sneak attack on Israel.
Baruch College on Tuesday denied that it tried to block the celebration.
“Baruch College did not request that students or faculty cancel Rosh Hashanah celebrations and any reports suggesting otherwise are entirely false,” the college said in a statement.
“A Rosh Hashanah Festival will continue as planned on the nearby public plaza on September 26. Baruch College does not tolerate antisemitism or any act of hate and is dedicated to providing a learning environment that is safe and fosters respect and inclusion for every member of the community.”
Rep. Torres called on both the state and city, CUNY and the NYPD to partner with CAFI to implement a strategy for protecting Jewish students who feel threatened by the outbreak of antisemitism in the wake of Oct. 7.
A spokesperson for Interim Police Commissioner Donlon assured that the NYPD “remains committed to ensuring the public safety of students” on all Big Apple campuses.
“The Department takes any report of hate crimes seriously and will conduct thorough investigations with the goal of making arrests and bringing the individuals responsible to justice,” the spokesperson said in a statement to The Post.
Rosh Hashanah is celebrated from Oct. 2-4.
