“Antisemitism has gone from a problem to a crisis, and now it’s just getting to the point where it’s not business as usual. If you’re Jewish at one of these schools, then you have to do something,” Eyal Yakoby, a 21-year-old student at the University of Pennsylvania, told The Post.
Yakoby is among a wave of students who are now suing their university for alleged antisemitism.
Penn, Harvard and NYU have all been hit with lawsuits alleging that the schools failed to protect Jewish students from harassment following the October 7 attack on Israel, which violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.
“Even before this semester, there were always incidents of antisemitism. But this semester is when I think most students realize that it’s not an isolated incident but a systemic problem,” Yakoby said.
New York University, the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University have all been sued by Jewish students following the October 7 attacks. Helayne Seidman
He and fellow Penn student Jordan Davis filed their lawsuit in December, alleging that the Ivy League school has “turned itself into an incubation laboratory for anti-Jewish hatred, harassment and discrimination.”
Yakoby said the “tipping point” that led him to take action came in November when Penn’s Jewish student center was the target of a bomb threat and failed to alert students inside.
“Students like me were in the Hillel dining hall during an active bomb threat,” recalls the Princeton, New Jersey resident. “We’re just sitting there with bomb-sniffing dogs walking around the building.
“You can only describe [the school’s response] as ignorance or indifference to a very serious threat on campus.”
Eyal Yakoby is suing his college, the University of Pennsylvania. courtesy of Eyal Yakoby
A similar lawsuit was filed last week against Harvard University, alleging the school “selectively enforced its policy to avoid protecting Jewish students from harassment … and ignored Jewish students’ pleas for protection.”
Shabbos Kestenbaum, a 25-year-old graduate student at Harvard Divinity School, is one of six student plaintiffs.
The resident of Riverdale, New York, is thrilled when he is accepted to study the interaction of public policy and religious communities, but is later shocked to discover that his dream school is actually a bastion of antisemitism.
“When I was accepted two years ago, I was very happy. I can’t express how happy I am. And then to contrast that with how frustrated and abandoned I feel right now … well, I can’t even put it into words,” Kestenbaum told The Post.
Shabbos Kestenbaum is one of six Jewish students who sued Harvard University. shabbi.kestenbaum/Facebook
He said his two years at Harvard were marred by swastikas on campus, online student forums filled with antisemitic tropes, and inflammatory student protests.
Last December, Kestenbaum said, he had to move his studies to avoid the school’s Widener Library when hundreds of pro-Palestinian student protesters occupied the building.
“I couldn’t go to the Widener Library because I was obviously Jewish. I wear my Kippah and my ritual fringe every day, and I don’t want any confrontation,” he said.
Kestenbaum and his classmates called for the expulsion of students and the dismissal of faculty involved in antisemitism. They are also seeking damages for “diminished educational opportunities.”
Kestenbaum said Harvard President Claudine Gay and school leaders failed to protect Jewish students this fall. Getty Images
“Words cannot express my sense of betrayal, my disappointment, my anger. This feeling of abandonment is truly palpable, and it has harmed not only my mental health but also my academic career,” Kestenbaum said.
Although he said the lawsuit is a “last resort,” Kestenbaum hopes it will make a difference for future Jewish students.
“I think this will create real change,” he said. “This will put Harvard under an uncomfortable spotlight, but still a spotlight they deserve to be under, so we can study the root of this antisemitism and so we can begin real reform.”
For Yakoby, who is studying political science and modern Middle Eastern studies with the goal of being involved in the peace process in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the December congressional testimony of the presidents of Penn, MIT and Harvard was a shock.
Yakoby said that the testimony of the president of the University of Pennsylvania, Liz Magill before the Education and Workforce Committee of the House was disturbing. Getty Images
“The entire hearing shows the wild indifference and lack of moral clarity possessed by all three presidents,” he said.
Particularly galling were former Penn president Liz Magill’s claims that she supported student free speech.
“It’s interesting to me that Penn uses freedom of speech as an excuse why calling for the genocide of the Jews is not a violation of the code of conduct. But if you just look at Penn’s track record, they limit free speech all the time,” Yakoby said.
“Free Palestine” was spray-painted on a University of Pennsylvania campus sign.
“At this point, you have made your bed, now you have to lie on it. You can’t pick and choose when you limit speech and when you don’t. You set the precedent. It’s your fault.”
Yakoby is a dual citizen of the United States and Israel, where his family currently lives. He said his family had called him after October 7 to check on his well-being at school more than he had called them.
A pro-Palestinian message was recently displayed on a school building on the University of Pennsylvania campus. The Free Penn Police “Zionism Is Racism” was also projected onto the building. Israelwarroom / Instagram
According to Yakoby, the recent explosion of antisemitism is a symbol of the pervasive and corrosive ideology on campus.
“I think many elite institutions have been dominated by the ideology of double standards, indifference to certain types of hate, and not encouraging students to think critically but to think like the professor mafia does,” he said.
As the spring semester draws to a close, both students return to campus – but with caution.
Although Kestenbaum’s mother urged him not to return home out of concern for his physical safety, he was determined to do so.
“I don’t expect to go back to Harvard, but I will,” he said. “I have a right to be there. The problem is not me. The problem is anti-Semitism, and why should I be punished for their bigotry?”
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
