As a Jewish student, Eden Roth always has felt safe and welcome at Tulane University, where more than 40% of the students are Jewish. That has been tested by the aftermath of last month’s Hamas incursion into Israel.
Graffiti appeared on the New Orleans campus with the message “from the river to the sea,” a rallying cry for pro-Palestinian activists. Then came a clash between dueling demonstrations, where a melee led to three arrests and left a Jewish student with a broken nose.
“I think that the shift of experience with Jews on campus was extremely shocking,” said Roth, who was in Israel last summer for a study-abroad program. “A lot of students come to Tulane because of the Jewish population — feeling like they’re supported, like a majority rather than a minority. And I think that’s definitely shifted.”
Tulane isn’t alone. On other campuses, long-simmering tensions are erupting in violence and shattering the sense of safety that makes colleges hubs of free discourse. Students on both sides are witnessing acts of hate, leaving many fearing for their safety even as they walk to classrooms.
“To condemn Hamas is a good thing,” said Elrabieey, a native of Egypt and a visiting scholar in Tulane’s Middle East and North African Studies program. “But at the same time, if you didn’t condemn Israel for committing war crimes, this is a double standard.”
At least one person there has a good grasp.
I just last week took a walk on the Tulane campus and there was a lot of the usual sidewalk chalk activism I expect on a college campus. There was a huge list on one path of just names of children killed in Palestine, that one stood out in my memory for maybe obvious reasons.
The campus is also directly adjacent to Temple Sinai, a progressive reform synagogue which is very pretty and big. There’s a lot of “we stand with Isreal” posters up and around the temple. There’s a much smaller mosque and student Muslim association on the campus. So the whole area is pretty heated about the situation, as you might imagine.
I’m sure also that the regional majority of Christians rooting for Isreal to kick off the Apocalypse doesn’t really help the situation (or the reporting quality) much either.
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What happened to all the Punch a Nazi in the face people? Does it not apply to Zionists? Or only after a genocidal ethno state is ended?
