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A group of “out of control” pro-Palestinian protesters disrupted a town hall at Rutgers University on Thursday, shouting anti-Israel slogans such as “one solution, intifada revolution” and forcing officials to end the meeting early while they and the Jewish students were led away. discovered by police, a student told Fox News Digital this weekend.
The student, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, said Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway and administrators “fled,” “leaving the Jewish/pro-Israel students behind to face an unruly and obviously anti-Semitic crowd, whose attention was focused on the Jews after the administration left.”
They said police ushered students in through the back door because it was too dangerous to leave through the front door.
Cory Rothbort, an attorney with Mazie Slater & Freeman, who represents student Rivka Schafer along with another student, called it a “horrible experience” for the Jews present.
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Rothbort said that the Jewish students had gone to City Hall to “get some answers from President Holloway, they wanted to know what he was going to do to help protect them on campus, and instead they were met with the same behavior as seeking protection.”
Video Schafer took from City Hall shows pro-Palestinian protesters starting to chant after Holloway said the school will not sever ties with Tel Aviv University, a school with which it has a relationship.
Rothbort said the town hall was organized by the Rutgers University Student Assembly, which had also put to a vote two BDS referendums on severing ties with Tel Aviv University and divesting from all things Israel.
BDS is a pro-Palestinian movement that stands for “boycott, divestment and sanction” and “is directed solely at the only Jewish state of Israel,” Rothbort told Fox News Digital. “Their goal is to economically isolate and basically discriminate against the Jewish state.”
He said numerous states, including New Jersey, have adopted anti-BDS legislation stating that “the government will not fund or provide pension money or do business with any company that promotes or supports BDS.”
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Rothbort said the Rutgers administration was told that a referendum on BDS could “inflame anti-Semitic behavior,” but “Rutgers said they weren’t going to do anything.”
Joe Gindi, another Jewish student who attended the town hall, told Fox News Digital: “It’s been a tough couple of months since October 7th at Rutgers. I wasn’t prepared for a protest. No Jewish students brought any signs or flags, nor did they bring any signs or flags.” The students yelled or something or disrupted the event. “We were just there to listen to a town hall.”
He said he had experienced previous incidents of anti-Semitism and even testified before the House Education Committee.
He said the RUSA referendums “shaken things up in a way that we haven’t seen at Rutgers. The number of incidents, the scale of some of these incidents is just unfathomable.”
Holloway sent an email to students defending the decision not to cancel the referendum, Rothbort said. “In it, he cites one of the reasons: he says that basically I trust the student government and secondly, I hope that students will engage in responsible civic practices.”
In addition to the meeting, Rothbort said Schafer was also attacked by pro-Palestinian students in her dorm the same week the BDS referendum came up for a vote. When she woke up one morning, she found flyers, “posted outside her room and throughout her bedroom, on every floor, with her face and pro-Palestinian language related to the BDS referendum.”
She filed a report with the Rutgers University Police Department, but told the New York Post that she felt “completely unsafe” and “attacked” for her religious beliefs.
“It was very clear that they were targeting her right where she sleeps, and it was an intimidation tactic, a message to both the Jewish students and Rivka: ‘Don’t support Israel, we know where you sleep,'” Rothbort said. “That’s the definition of biased behavior, and that’s why I’ve been helping Rivka navigate those waters.”
Gindi called the Schafer skinning incident a “level of bullying that is disgusting. We haven’t had anything like it, at least at Rutgers, before.”
Despite the incident, Schafer went to city hall.
“Rivka is a very brave person and Rivka was not going to allow these individuals to keep her quiet and suppress her ability to support Israel,” he added.
Rothbort said he had learned from students that much anti-Semitic behavior is not overt, but rather through “typical bullying behavior,” such as group chats via text messages, WhatsApp or other online messaging apps. line.
He said Schafer was in a chess group chat one time “and suddenly the president of the chess group shared some unexpected messages that basically said boycott Israel, don’t let your tuition money go to murderers or genocide.” . He said Schafer told him: “I can’t participate in the chess club now, I’m not welcome here.”
He said there have been other anti-Semitic incidents on campus.
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“How can you have a culture in which singing for a one-state solution is acceptable? How can you have a culture in which singing for globalizing the Intifada or long live the Intifada or there is only one solution , the Intifada revolution? I mean, that’s anti-Semitic. That’s directed at the Jewish people,” Rothbort said.
He said Rutgers has defended its “inaction” by relying on “First Amendment grounds and saying you have the right to say whatever you want to say. Well, that’s not true. The First Amendment does not protect all speech, and it does not protect all kinds of expression.” “It doesn’t protect all types of conduct. It doesn’t protect speech that incites violence and it doesn’t protect conduct that incites hatred.”
Schafer has not yet made a decision to sue the school. “We are evaluating our options and there is a criminal investigation underway,” Rothbort explained.
Rutgers and other universities “can’t continue to bury their heads in the sand and say, ‘Well, we can’t do anything about this,’ citing First Amendment rights,” Rothbort said. “You have a legal obligation and obligation to prevent your students from being bullied, harassed, and discriminated against because of their religion or other characteristics.”
Gindi said that while most people left City Hall through the emergency exits, “I actually refused to go with the majority of the group. I refused to let these bullies intimidate me to the point that I had to leave through the fire exits.” emergency exit, so I refused and left through the main exits at my own pace.”
He added that he is “grateful” to Holloway for “really standing up for the university’s relationship with Tel Aviv University and calling out the horribleness of BDS. I have a lot of respect for him for that and I really, really thank him for standing by him.” with the Jewish community at least in this sense.
Rutgers told Fox News Digital in a statement about the town hall incident: “Students who opposed President Holloway’s belief that the BDS movement is wrong and counterproductive and who disagree with his support for the continuation of the Rutgers’ partnership with Tel Aviv University disrupted a meeting of the Rutgers University Student Assembly (RUSA) where the president was discussing issues of interest to RUSA.”
“RUSA leaders ended the meeting and President Holloway, with his driver, who is a Rutgers University police officer, and other attendees left the meeting without incident.”
On April 1, Holloway said in a statement: “On the issue of divestment, I believe the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is wrong. I believe in compromise, not isolation. I believe enlightenment comes of participation and that Progress and peace are the result of diplomacy and debate. Please also note that the University’s Joint Investment Committee has authority over investment policy. In 2020 a request for divestment from companies doing business in Israel, and it did not move forward.
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“Our partnership with TAU adds to our critical academic and research mission. This relationship was first established in 2016 and will continue at HELIX, our new research facility in central New Brunswick. I traveled to Tel Aviv in 2021 with a New Jersey delegation. “Renew the memorandum establishing the partnership and show my commitment to global academic exchanges and international engagement. “Rutgers has relationships like this with universities around the world and they help advance our mission.”
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