Meet the Jewish students speaking to the American legislators of the demonstrations of Columbia | Education news

Washington, DC – Jewish students involved in demonstrations at Columbia University say that their pro -Palestinian activism is motivated by their faith – and not despite this.

On Tuesday, a group of Jewish militant students met members of the US Congress in Washington, DC, to tell their stories, which, according to them, were excluded from traditional accounts on anti -Semitism on university campuses.

While student protests against the War of Israel in Gaza swept away the country last year, Columbia University of New York has become a flash point.

The University saw one of the country’s first student camps, erected to demand the end of investments in companies accomplices in human rights violations. Shortly after the tents began to appear, the campus also attended some of the first massive arrests of student demonstrators in the Palestinian solidarity movement.

This visibility made Columbia a focal point for the efforts of President Donald Trump to suppress what he called the “illegal protests” and the anti -Semitism of the campus.

Earlier this year, Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil became the first student activist to be held by the Trump administration and targeted for deportation.

The Tuesday delegation of Jewish students came to the congress to push the case that Khalil and others like him should never have been detained on their behalf. They met at least 17 democratic legislators in the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Al Jazeera spoke to several students who participated in the lobbying day, organized by Jew Voice for Peace (JVP), a defense organization. Here are some of their stories:

Tali Beckwith-Cohen

Raised in the northern New York State, Major in history Tali Beckwith-Cohen said that she had grown in a community where Zionism was the norm. She remembers that he was told of the “myths” of Palestine as “a land without a people for a people without land”: a slogan used to justify the establishment of Israel.

But while she was starting to learn Palestinian history and meet the Palestinians, Beckwith-Cohen said her beliefs were disputed.

Finally, after the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023, she got involved in the activism of Palestinian rights.

Human rights groups and United Nations experts have found evidence that Israel’s tactics in Gaza are “consistent with genocide”. Until now, more than 52,615 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict.

“For a long time, I had this kind of feeling of discomfort, this feeling of struggle, this feeling of dissonance perhaps cognitive, and how can I estimate that these values ​​are expensive with Zionism?” Beckwith-Cohen told Al Jazeera.

“We see the bombing, the contempt for human life, for children, for hospitals, for schools. It forced me to make a choice. ”

She pointed out that the demonstrations were spaces of solidarity, where students from all walks of life were attached to the idea that their security is intertwined.

“There are so many things in the account of the media on what is happening on the Columbia campus which is simply fallacious and so false to what we have experienced,” said Beckwith-Cohen.

“We are therefore here today to tell our people in Congress that what we see on campus is clearly an authoritarian fascist repression against any dissent, not only students pleading peacefully for the end of the genocide.”

Carly Shaffer

When Carly Shaffer expressed her concern about Israeli escalation in Gaza during a university Whatsapp cat, some of her comrades questioned his Judaism.

Of the hundreds of people on the cat, she remembers that Khalil – the activist arrested for expulsion – was the only person to have contacted him directly to reject the comments to which she was submitted.

By making Khalil known, she came to consider him as “the incarnation” of someone who cared about the security of all the students on the campus.

Shaffer told Al Jazeera that she felt “sick” and “horrified” when Khalil had been arrested. Her discomfort was then aggravated when she saw that the White House Trump celebrated her detention on social networks with the phrase “Shalom, Mahmoud” – a Jewish greeting has reused like a taunt.

Shaffer, who pursues a master’s degree in human rights and social policy, grew up in California and was raised by a single mother in a low -income household.

She said that division against injustice – including in Palestine – is a practice rooted in her Jewish faith.

“Columbia’s protest movement is a movement of love. It is a solidarity movement,” said Shaffer. “And Jewish students are also an integral and crucial part for this movement.”

She said that when demonstrators of Jewish students organized religious events on campus, their camps of the camp joined them and inquired about their traditions.

“These are the same students who are described as anti -Semites, who put themselves in four to learn more about Passover and celebrate a Jewish party with their Jewish friends,” Shaffer in Al Jazeera told.

It has decreed “the armament of anti -Semitism”, saying that the problem is used to close conversations on Israeli atrocities in Gaza.

“Jewish students are used as pawns in Trump’s political agenda,” she said. “And the armament of anti -Semitism to dismantle this movement is not only a threat to Jewish students; It is a threat to all of us. This is why it is so important for us as a Jewish student to directly correct this false story. ”

Sarah Borus

The student of the Barnard College, Sarah Borus, who was arrested during the repression against the Columbia camp, said that she had grown in a anti -Zionist family in a “very Zionist community”.

She thought it was important for Jewish students like her to transmit their experiences directly to people in power in Washington, DC.

“We are talking to the members of the Congress to tell them our stories which are excluded from the new public public,” said Borus to Al Jazeera.

“Trump’s mission is not to protect Jewish students. It is a question of using the fears of anti -Semitism – because of the way in which the Solidarity Camp of Gaza was represented last year – in order to target non -citizen student activists, in order to target academic freedom, freedom of speech and really put many people in danger.”

When asked how she thought of the potential reaction of her activism, Borus recognized that the current political climate left her afraid.

“I’m afraid, but in the big scheme of things, I am proud of the choices I have made,” she said. “I would not do it different, and I am ready to take the risks, if that’s what should be done.”

Shay Orentlicker

Shay Orentlicer has no regrets to participate in the camps of Columbia University, despite administrative and political repressions.

Orentlicer said that Christian nationalists are trying to erase the prospect of pro-Palestine Jewish students and define Judaism in a way that corresponds to their political objectives.

But protesting the murder of the Palestinians, said Orentlicker, is the expression of Jewish and humanist values. And Orentlicer thinks that Columbia’s demonstrations have helped to raise awareness.

“Despite the oppression, we were confronted, despite the suffering, and despite the despair of worrying that we did not do enough to stop the genocide, to defend the Palestinians in Gaza and in the West Bank, I think we have moved public speech in a very important way,” said Orentlicer.

“And we have also built a very beautiful community. And I do not regret at all what I did. I would not change anything. ”

Raphie

Raphie, who chose to identify only by his first name, said that he had grown up “very Zionist”. But as he learned more about the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians, he considered that he had been deceived.

“The Jewish primary school in which I went, for example, had a card of Israel, and it was like a diamond-no West Bank or Gaza,” he said.

“When I saw the real map with the occupied territories, I said to myself:” Wait, I was lied to “. And this genre made me go in all this journey to explore what Zionism is, what occupation is, what is colonialism of the colonists. »»

Raphie, who studies mathematics, said that the war against Gaza, campus demonstrations and the backlash that manifest students faced everyone to feel a “personal responsibility for fighting for good”.

According to his experience, the demonstrations were welcoming, not anti -Semitic. What was anti-Semitic, he said, was the fact that the university targeted demonstrators of Jewish students for their political opinions.

Several students, including Raphie, said that Columbia had refused to grant students associated with the Jewish voice for peace the permission necessary to organize religious celebrations in public spaces. They described this rejection as a form of discrimination.

The university did not respond to the request for comments from Al Jazeera at the time of publication.

Raphie has also established a distinction between feeling uncomfortable about ideas that challenge the vision of the world and in fact being dangerous.

“It is normal at the University to meet new points of view, new perspectives. This is how I became a pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist,” he said. “I first felt uncomfortable when I met anti -Zionist views, but I then grew up to understand them. It’s normal. “

Raphie stressed that real suffering occurs in Gaza.

“Students who are not safe at the moment, of course, are the students in Gaza. Each Gaza University has been destroyed. They haven’t had food for 60 days. “