‘Not in our name': Jews in NYC say Trump attacks on Gaza activists not about fighting antisemitism

Yahoo

19-04-2025

NEW YORK — As the Trump administration escalates its campaign against international students and Palestinian activists, Jewish New Yorkers are increasingly refuting the idea that the president's efforts are actually about fighting antisemitism.
After Columbia student Mohsen Mahdawi was arrested at his U.S. citizenship test in Vermont, a group of his Israeli classmates penned a letter against his detainment, which they called immoral. A day later, a wide-ranging coalition of Jewish organizations issued a statement rejecting what they call a 'false choice' between Jewish safety and protecting democratic principles.
'Trump doesn't give a damn about Jews,' said Sarah Chinn, an English professor at Hunter College who has family in Israel. 'This is part of a concerted attack on higher education — that's it.'
During a nationwide day of campus protests, one Jewish speaker in Lower Manhattan said he felt compelled to speak out against Trump's deportation efforts as Jews 'of conscience.' Further uptown, a leftist Jewish group held a 'Seder in the Streets,' where activists condemned the federal government's actions.
For Aharon Dardik, 24, an Israeli-American student at Columbia, the Trump administration's crackdown is not only the stuff of headlines, but an active threat to his friends.
Dardik, who helped found a Jewish group at Columbia calling for a ceasefire, and Mahdawi took a class together on peacemaking and negotiations. They were working on a 65-page framework for a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, when the activist started pulling back from daily life.
After Mahmoud Khalil, another Palestinian activist at Columbia, was detained on March 8, Mahdawi stopped texting friends, relying on the encrypted messaging platform Signal for communication, before a 'self-imposed house arrest' because he feared the government, Dardik said. He was detained Monday by federal immigration authorities.
'As Israelis who knew him very well, we wanted to write a bit about more broadly, what it means for the administration to be doing this in our name,' Dardik said, 'and how simple it was for us, as people who know Mohsen well, to see how preposterous of an understanding of Jewish interests the United States government has — if it's something they care about at all.'
Dardik and his classmates' open letter topped 400 signatures by the end of the week.
'Many of us experienced the past year and a half on Columbia's campus in a deeply personal and emotional way,' read the memo, which was first published in the Jewish news outlet The Forward. 'We are deeply impacted by the experiences of antisemitism and hate on our campus, and disheartened by the lack of nuanced dialogue on campus and within society at large about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.'
'However, we adamantly oppose the use of the immigration system as a punitive political tool and an alternative to the criminal justice system when no crime has been committed.'
On Tuesday, American Jewish organizations from three denominations — Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist Judaism — released a joint statement against holding activists for constitutionally-protected speech and threats to federal research funding.
'We at JCPA have been speaking out on this since the first arrest, making clear that two things are true at the same time,' said Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the Manhattan-based Jewish Council for Public Affairs, which convened the groups.
Spitalnick went on to say that she met last week with about 50 Jewish students at Columbia, part of a leadership program at Hillel, who shared the feelings of American Jews more broadly: 'The deep, rightful concerns they have about how their university has handled antisemitism over the last year and a half — and concerns that the administration is now exploiting that fear.'
The Trump administration has defended its actions, saying it is a privilege and not a right to study on American college campuses. In recent weeks, the federal government has taken immigration action against visa and some green card holders for pro-Palestinian activism and minor legal infractions, such as a speeding ticket. In the cases of Khalil and Mahdawi, the government alleged their advocacy could have an adverse effect on foreign policy interests to combat antisemitism. (Their lawyers deny the claim.)
The Columbia Jewish Alumni Association, an organization formed during last school year's campus protests, has reviled both activists on social media and questioned public sympathy for them in the aftermath of their arrests.
But Chinn, the professor at Hunter, part of the City University of New York system, said antisemitism is 'clearly pretext' for the Trump administration's actions.
'I understand why some diaspora Jews feel very connected to Israel. It's like in your bones,' Chinn said. 'The same way if you're a child or grandchild of a Palestinian refugee, this is generational trauma.'
'I don't think being angry is by definition violent.'
On Thursday, hundreds of faculty and students from Columbia, CUNY and other New York colleges participated in a national day of action for higher education, where students and faculty held rallies on campus, before marching from Washington Square Park to Foley Square.
Jonah Inserra, a New York University student and member of its graduate student union, started his speech in the Federal Plaza, just steps away from where Khalil was first held in immigration court, by arguing for the importance of standing up 'as a Jew of conscience.'
'We at NYU have so far been spared the kidnappings and arbitrary arrests of organizers and protesters,' said Inserra. But he accused college administrators of missing the moment to get organized.
'The total abdication of responsibility for the lives and well-beings of their students by the highest levels of university administration has left the task of securing our safety and our futures wholly to us,' he continued. 'And the number of people here today tells me that we are rising to meet the occasion.'