Latest news with #Hillel
Vancouver Sun
12-06-2025
- Politics
- Vancouver Sun
Jewish student group calls on TMU to discipline incoming interim dean over anti-Israel social posts
Hillel Ontario is calling on Toronto Metropolitan University to investigate Maher El-Masri, a recently appointed interim associate dean, because the group says he has 'repeatedly engaged with and spread extreme, antisemitic, and deeply polarizing content on his social media account.' Hillel Ontario, a Jewish student organization with a presence on nine campuses across the province, including TMU, sent an action alert last Thursday alongside several screenshots of social media posts from an account Hillel says belongs to El-Masri. The X account is under El-Masri's name and the biography describes the user as the 'son of (a) Nakba survivor,' referring to Palestinian refugees from the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The account states that the user is in Ontario, has a Palestinian flag for its profile picture and a background quote claiming 'humanity is failing the Palestine test.' One message Hillel highlighted from the account concerned a post about Noa Marciano, an Israeli intelligence soldier abducted by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, during its invasion of Israel. Marciano later died in captivity. 'This is what is so scary about people like her,' the TMU professor wrote beneath a graduation photo of Marciano, which claimed she was killed in an Israeli airstrike. 'They look so normal and innocent, but they hide monstrous killers in their sick, brainwashed minds.' Start your day with a roundup of B.C.-focused news and opinion. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder. The next issue of Sunrise will soon be in your inbox. Please try again Interested in more newsletters? Browse here. Marciano's friend, Ori Megidish — another hostage rescued by Israeli forces in late October 2023 — said she was killed by a doctor in al-Shifa hospital. Her parents said the same thing in subsequent interviews. 'I hate everyone who directly or indirectly caused this indignity to the most honorable and most dignified people on Earth,' an undated post flagged by Hillel reads alongside broken heart emojis, an apparent reference to the conflict in Gaza. In December 2023, El-Masri was interviewed by CBC for a story about his brother, who he said was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza while searching for food. El-Masri has continued to post about the conflict on the X account, which remains open to the public. 'Israel is a baby killer state. It always has been,' he wrote on June 6, a day after the Hillel notice. Some of his posts compare Israel to Nazi Germany, a comparison deemed antisemitic by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). On May 7, 2025, El-Masri commented on a photo of a proposed humanitarian zone in Gaza. 'The irony of history: The last time such a concentration camp was erected, it was by the Nazis!' El-Masri returns to the point repeatedly throughout his social media feed. 'How could a people who have endured the worst human persecution in the holocaust carry this deep hate and inflict unimaginable pain on a nother (sic) people who, in fact, had nothing to do with the holocaust!!!!' he wrote last June. 'When the victims of the holocaust call for a holocaust,' El-Masri wrote in early May 2025. He has also downplayed the role of Hamas in the conflict on several occasions. 'This is NOT a war against Hamas. This is a genocidal war against the very existence of the Palestinian people,' he wrote in August 2024. In May 2025, he argued that ''Hamas' is the zionists' code word to dehumanize the Palestinian people.' National Post reached out to El-Masri for comment but the professor responded with an email ordering the Post not to contact him anymore. He described the allegations around the content of his social media account as a 'smear campaign.' Liat Schwartz, a Jewish TMU student in the same department as El-Masri, called his online statements alarming, 'especially since I'm openly Jewish.' Schwartz, the president of a pro-Israel group on campus, called on university leaders to protect 'the well-being of Jewish and Israeli students,' saying El-Masri's presence 'makes me feel profoundly unsafe and unheard within my own faculty.' Hillel Ontario called on TMU to rescind El-Masri's appointment as interim dean. 'TMU's decision to promote Dr. El-Masri, despite his extensive history of promoting antisemitic and extremist content, is egregious,' Jay Solomon, the group's chief advancement officer, told the Post in a written statement. 'Those in leadership positions must be held to the absolute highest standard, and ensure that all students — including Jews and Israelis — feel supported. This appointment sends exactly the opposite message. TMU must act swiftly in removing El-Masri and alter their process to ensure this doesn't happen again.' University spokesperson Jessica Leach underscored the personal impact the ongoing conflict was having on members of the university community but said that El-Masiri's 'posts do not reflect the position of the university.' 'The posts are his personal views as a faculty member, with no mention of or affiliation with TMU. The university is reviewing this matter,' she said in a written statement encouraging university members 'to be respectful, collegial, and empathetic.' Leach initially challenged Hillel's press release, claiming the organization was mistaken and El-Masiri was not a dean. When asked if El-Masiri had ever held the position of dean, interim or otherwise, Leach wrote the Post that he had not. Her response was contradicted by Hillel, who shared with the Post an email sent in early June apparently from the Faculty of Community Services dean announcing El-Masiri's appointment. 'Dr. El-Masri has a demonstrated track record of excellence in teaching, research and service, and he is widely respected for his enormous engagement with health care systems in Toronto, across Ontario, and even globally,' the email says. TMU later followed up with a statement confirming that El-Masri has been appointed an assistant dean, but he has not yet assumed the post. 'His appointment as interim-acting Assistant Dean is not effective until July 1. Until that time, Dr. El-Masri is the director of the school of nursing, a faculty-level position. Directors within faculties, such as Dr. El-Masri's position, are not administrators. They are full members of the Toronto Metropolitan Faculty Association (TFA),' the statement says. El-Masri is scheduled to be the convocation speaker for the Faculty of Community Services graduation event on June 18. Steven Tissenbaum, a recently retired TMU business professor, said the university's failure to properly deal with allegations of antisemitism has coloured life at the downtown Toronto campus since the October 7 massacre. He called the administration's failure to discipline dozens of law students who signed a letter defending 'all forms of Palestinian resistance' days after the Hamas atrocities 'the real defining moment' for him. 'Jewish professors at large recognize that TMU is not a place to be,' Tissenbaum told the Post, explaining this realization is spreading to Jewish students and families as well. Two other academics from TMU reiterated Tissenbaum's point but wished to remain anonymous because they are still actively teaching at TMU. 'I am writing to let you know that it is worse for faculty and staff,' one tenured academic, who wished to remain anonymous, wrote the Post after an earlier story chronicling the harassment Schwartz and other Jewish students experienced on campus was published. 'Faculty who are demonstrably Jewish have been attacked, harassed, and threatened, and some have even resigned.' Tissenbaum taught at TMU for nearly three decades and said the university has grown increasingly insensitive to the concerns of Jewish academics and students. He was particularly alarmed by the university's faculty association passing a motion in May recognizing anti-Palestinian racism (a new term which advocates for the dismantling of the IHRA working definition of antisemitism) at a time of increased Jew hatred. 'The undercurrents of antisemitism have been there,' he said, recalling a time in the nineties when someone drew a swastika on his desk. When he raised the incident during a university diversity and equity session, Tissenbaum says he 'was ghosted' and that no one responded to his concerns. 'It's always been there, but what's happened since October 7 is that it provided a spark for people to be outwardly aggressive with their antisemitism.' Tissenbaum decided to retire early from TMU. He stepped away in August 2024. 'I retired primarily due to the increased antisemitism being experienced on campus due to the lack of administrative support from the president down,' he wrote the Post. Although Tissenbaum said he did not feel physically threatened on campus, he believes the treatment Jewish students have endured in recent years is not conducive to a healthy learning atmosphere. The entrepreneurship professor sees TMU's troubles since the October 7 terrorist attacks as part of a broader national malaise. 'What's happening in TMU is a microcosm of what's happening everywhere else. Canada is not a safe place,' he said. 'TMU is not a safe place for Jewish students. It's not a future.'
New York Post
08-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
Brad Lander says he's ‘so Jewish he almost became a rabbi' — and rips Andrew Cuomo using antisemitism as a ‘political game'
Mayoral candidate Brad Lander said he's so Jewish 'that I almost became a rabbi' while discussing his faith and the fight against antisemitism Wednesday night. Lander, the city comptroller, also took swipes at a chief rival for Democratic nomination, Andrew Cuomo, claiming the ex-governor discriminated against Jews and has weaponized antisemitism for personal gain. 'Donald Trump and Andrew Cuomo are welcome to disagree with my positions. But they don't get to decide who's a good Jew,' Lander said during his speech at the West Side Institutional Synagogue. 5 NYC Comptroller and 2025 Democratic Mayoral candidate Brad Lander holds a presser on the steps of Tweed Courthouse at 52 Chambers street in lower Manhattan on May 6, 2025. Paul Martinka Lander, who described himself as a 'liberal Zionist,' said he has been steeped in Judaism since childhood. 'You may be surprised to learn it, but growing up, I almost became a rabbi,' the St. Louis native said. He was the national social action vice president of the Reform Jewish Youth Movement and a member of the Hillel chapter when he attended the University of Chicago. Lander was also a Hebrew School teacher, a 'so-so songleader' and a 'pretty good canoe instructor' at Jewish summer camp. 5 Brad Lander attends as activists gathered in front of Wall Street Grill in New York on April 24, 2025 to protest a visit by Israeli far-right politician and Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir. Lev Radin/Shutterstock In addition, he organized youths for a 1987 rally in Washington, DC, to free Soviet Jews as well as efforts to fight Republican cuts to social programs. 'I was taught to stand up both for Jews and for all people who are facing oppression — to work to build a more equal and inclusive society grounded in the Jewish value of b'tzelem elohim, that idea that everyone is created in the image of God,' he explained. He named his kids after Jewish heroes. His son, Marek, after Warsaw Ghetto uprising leader Marek Edelman, and his daughter, Rosa, after workers rights advocate Rose Schneiderman. Lander also showed sharp elbows, rapping Cuomo, in particular, over his actions against Jews or unfairly smearing people as antisemites. Polls show the ex-governor is the front-runner in the Democratic primary for mayor. 5 Lander ripped Cuomo saying that he is using antisemitism as a 'political game.' Gregory P. Mango 'Andrew Cuomo, who has been sued for antisemitic discrimination and caught using anti-Jewish slurs, came to this very shul and tried to weaponize antisemitism against me, the highest-ranking Jew in New York City government, for his own political gain — right out of the Donald Trump playbook,' he charged. He was referring to three Jewish congregations that sued the then-governor over a 'streak of antisemitic discrimination' for his crackdown on religious gatherings during the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time, Cuomo said the restrictions were put in place to stem the spread of the deadly virus. Lander also cited a New York Times story that reported that Cuomo condemned Jews observing Sukkot with 'curse words and slurs and 'making fun of our 'tree houses.'' 'When it comes time to score political points, he uses antisemitism as nothing more than a political game. A few years back, he secretly distributed a mailer falsely claiming his opponent was antisemitic, and then pretended he didn't know about it,' he said. 5 Brad Lander speaks at the Mental Health Mayoral Candidate Town Hall presented by The NYC Mental Health Collective at the First Baptist Church of Crown Heights at 450 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn, NY. Kevin C Downs forThe New York Post He was referring to a dirty tricks state Democratic Party mailer in 2018 that slimed Cuomo's primary rival Cynthia Nixon as antisemitic, a controversy reported extensively by The Post. Another mayoral candidate who is Jewish, former city Comptroller Scott Stringer, also criticized Cuomo for exploiting antisemitism for political gain, during a recent West Side Institutional Synagogue address. The Cuomo campaign defended the ex-governor's record combatting Jew hatred. 'Amid a rise in antisemitic attacks, the governor passed the strongest hate crime laws in the nation, made New York the first state in the nation to ban BDS [boycott, divestment and sanctions movement], developed a model program that delivered millions of dollars in security upgrades for synagogues and yeshivas and when Hamas was firing rockets into Israel, he organized a solidarity mission from New York to show the world that we stand with them,' said Cuomo campaign spokesman Rich Azzopardi. 'Lander, on the other hand spent his adult life as a card carrying member of anti-Israel, pro-BDS Democratic Socialists of America and – in the only significant action as comptroller — divested pension funds from Israel bonds. New Yorkers know Andrew Cuomo has the record and the experience to get this city back on track and won't be fooled by Lander's feeble attempts to deflect from his record.' 5 Andrew Cuomo speaks to the congregation at the Mount Ararat Baptist Church. 425 Howard Avenue, Brooklyn, NY. Gregory P. Mango Lander said Jews across the spectrum differ on the actions of the Israeli government and criticism of the Jewish state doesn't make an American Jew any less so. 'I have sharply criticized the actions of the Israeli government, called for a cease-fire in Gaza, for an end to the war, for the resumption of aid to prevent starvation of Palestinian kids, and criticized the ongoing apartheid of life in the West Bank. We aren't going to agree on all of this,' he said. 'We haven't for 2,600 years.' He said not all critics of Israel are anti-semites. 'But let's be clear: if you're using the word Zionist as a slur for Jews, if you're targeting people because they're Jewish, if you're going to a Orthodox Jewish neighborhood and calling the people `gross' and telling them to go back to Europe, if you don't think Israeli Jews are fully human, and deserving of human rights — then you have crossed way over the line into antisemitism, and you are part of the problem. And I will stand up and oppose you fiercely,' said Lander, touting his own plan to combat antisemitism if elected mayor.
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Binghamton students celebrate Israeli Independence Day
BINGHAMTON UNIVERSITY (WIVT/WBGH) – Local college students held a celebration yesterday in honor of Israeli Independence Day. Binghamton University's Hillel commemorated 77 years of Israeli Independence with carnival games, prizes, and even some Israeli food. Following the October 7, 2023, terrorist attack and the ensuing war in Gaza, many Jewish students say these have been challenging times. Hillel's Vice President of Programming, Ellie Spivak, says that celebrating this holiday amidst the war has a deeper meaning. 'This event is very significant, especially now. It's been a very hard time the past two years since October 7th. So it's really important for us to come together today and remember that we are also here to celebrate. We have hard times and we have happy times as well,' Spivak said. The celebration comes the day after another annual remembrance day in which Jews honor fallen soldiers and victims of terrorism. Spivak says Israeli Independence Day is a demonstration of light amid the darkness. SUNY Broome simulates disaster scenarios with local EMS Binghamton students celebrate Israeli Independence Day American Civic Association's annual All Nation's Parade and Festival Windsor students learn different jobs in medical field Brookside students get their hands dirty in the garden with CCE Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
New York Times
29-04-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Harvard Promises Changes After Reports on Antisemitism and Islamophobia
A Harvard task force released a scathing account of the university on Tuesday, finding that antisemitism had infiltrated coursework, social life, the hiring of some faculty members and the worldview of certain academic programs. A separate report on anti-Arab, anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian bias on campus, also released on Tuesday, found widespread discomfort and alienation among those students as well, with 92 percent of Muslim survey respondents saying they believed they would face an academic or professional penalty for expressing their political opinions. The findings, conveyed in densely packed reports that are hundreds of pages long, come at a delicate time for the university. Harvard is being scrutinized by the Trump administration over accusations of antisemitism, and is fighting the administration's withdrawal of billions of dollars in federal funding. Harvard has sued the Trump administration in hopes of restoring the funding, the first university to do so. Other schools that have been targeted by the administration are watching the litigation closely. In a letter accompanying the two reports, Dr. Alan Garber, Harvard's president, apologized for the problems that the task forces revealed. He said the Hamas attack on Israel in 2023 and the war that followed had brought long simmering tensions to the surface, and promised to address them. 'The 2023-24 academic year was disappointing and painful,' Dr. Garber, who took office in January 2024, wrote in the letter. 'I am sorry for the moments when we failed to meet the high expectations we rightfully set for our community.' He continued: 'Harvard cannot — and will not — abide bigotry.' The antisemitism report was produced by a task force made up mainly of faculty, but that also included students, a former Hillel director and Harvard's chief community and campus life officer, whose title was changed from chief diversity and inclusion officer on Tuesday. The report said that bias incidents had been occurring before the Hamas attack and were intensified by the war in Gaza. It found that antisemitism seemed to be more pronounced in branches of the university with a social justice bent, including the graduate school of education, the divinity school and the school of public health. A similar task force held hundreds of conversations with Muslim, Arab and Palestinian students, staff and faculty members about anti-Muslim bias. That task force summed up the feelings expressed by many of those people in two words: 'abandoned and silenced.' The university commissioned the two reports, which were not meant to be investigative. The authors did not seek to verify the experiences described by the people who were surveyed. The antisemitism report recounted an episode in which a student asked not to work with an Israeli partner, and an instructor granted the request because 'in their view, a student who supported the cause of an oppressed group should not be forced to work with a student identified as a member of an 'oppressor group.'' In another episode recounted in the report, people arriving at a visitation day for newly admitted Harvard Medical School encountered students yelling 'Free Palestine' from a walkway. The report said that some courses on Israel and Palestine were partisan and politicized. These courses were disproportionately taught by nontenure track faculty members, who were not as carefully vetted as more senior faculty are, the report said. After Oct. 7, the report said, there was an 'avalanche' of posts by members of the Harvard community trafficking in antisemitic tropes. Jewish students told stories of university-run training sessions about privilege in which they said they were told that being Jewish made them more privileged than being white. Israeli students felt shunned. 'Some people, upon learning that I'm Israeli, tell me they won't talk with someone from a 'genocidal country,'' an undergraduate is quoted saying. The university recently adopted a contested definition of antisemitism, put forward by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, that counts some criticism of Israel as antisemitic. The definition is disputed, and critics say that it silences speech. The anecdotes — gathered from listening sessions with some 500 participants — could expose Harvard to more attacks from the Trump administration. 'The more time we spent on this problem, the more we learned about how demonization of Israel has impacted a much wider swath of campus life than we would have imagined,' the report said. It added: 'The bullying and attempts to intimidate Jewish students were in some places successful.' The two task forces worked together to create a campuswide survey that received nearly 2,300 responses from faculty, staff and students. It found that 6 percent of Christian respondents reported feeling physically unsafe on campus, while 15 percent of Jewish respondents and 47 percent of Muslim respondents reported the same. (The university does not track the total population of these groups on campus.) In addition to the 92 percent of Muslim respondents who worried about expressing their views, 51 percent of Christian respondents and 61 percent of Jewish respondents said they felt the same way. 'Freedom of expression is one of the most critical issues facing the entire Harvard campus community,' the anti-Muslim bias task force said. The results of the survey underscored a dilemma that Harvard and other universities have faced as protests and counterprotests over the war in Gaza intensified. Some Jewish students and alumni have expressed worries about activism and programming veering into anti-Israel bigotry, for example, while supporters of the Palestinian cause say that categorizing their opposition to the war and Israel as antisemitism silences their speech. Some of the students interviewed expressed a constant fear of having their pro-Palestinian views revealed along with their identities, which they worried would lead to revoked job offers. They reported being called slurs like 'terrorist' and 'towelhead' for wearing kaffiyehs. Palestinian students said they felt unsupported by Harvard administrators as they mourned loved ones who had died in Gaza. 'The feeling over and over again for Palestinians is that their lives don't matter as much,' one student told the task force. Pro-Palestinian faculty said they worried that every comment in class and every article in their syllabuses would be dissected and that the administration was seeking to curb speech to placate critics. 'There was a palpable sense,' the report stated, 'that free speech and academic freedom are under grave threat and that many forms of student activism may effectively be dead.' In a counterpoint to many findings in the antisemitism report, the task force found that Jewish students who were critical of Israel sometimes did not feel welcome at major Jewish organizations, like Hillel and Chabad, on campus. It recommended better integrating religious life into campus life. In his letter, Dr. Garber listed a series of actions the university would take to curb bigotry that closely paralleled a list of demands by the Trump administration's own antisemitism task force. Those demands deeply shook Harvard when they were delivered to the university on April 11, because they were viewed as an unconstitutional government infringement on academic freedom. The Trump administration demanded that Harvard institute 'merit-based' hiring and admissions reform, meaning without regard to race, religion, sex and national origin. And it demanded an outside audit of the student body, faculty, staff and leadership, for 'viewpoint diversity,' within each department, field or teaching unit. It also called for an outside audit of programs 'that most fuel antisemitic harassment or reflect ideological capture,' specifying the divinity, education and public health schools among others as 'centers of concern.' And it called for sanctions against faculty members who discriminated against Jewish students or incited protests that broke campus rules. Dr. Garber said that the university's deans were 'reviewing recommendations concerning admissions, appointments, curriculum and orientation and training programs.' He also promised a universitywide initiative to 'promote and support viewpoint diversity.'
New York Times
25-03-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Hillel, the Campus Jewish Group, Is Thriving, and Torn by Conflict
It was chicken tenders night at Yale's chapter of Hillel, the Jewish student group, and the basement dining hall was packed with boisterous, hungry students attracted by overflowing vats of kosher fried chicken and mac and cheese. Some students kissed the mezuza on the way in. Others were not even Jewish, but came for the food and companionship, a sign of the pluralism that Hillel — the dominant Jewish campus organization in the United States — says it embraces. Yet under the surface, there were signs of strain, after months of divisive protests on campus over the war in Gaza. A silent question hung in the air, several students said: 'Which side are you on?' Few American organizations have been touched by clashes over the war quite the way Hillel has. The movement, founded in 1923 at the University of Illinois, now has chapters at 850 colleges and universities around the world, from highly selective private schools like Yale to big state universities like Texas A&M. The Hillel movement, including Hillel International and the campus Hillel chapters, had $200 million in revenue in 2003, received from tens of thousands of donors. Hillel centers are where college students go to cement their sense of Jewish identity, or to discover it. Its slogan is 'all kinds of Jewish,' and it aims to be welcoming to all. But as the conflict in Gaza continues, some Jewish students believe that Hillel is not critical enough of the Israeli government's conduct of the war, and too defensive in its support of Zionism, a belief in the right of Jews to a Jewish state in their ancestral land of Israel. Hillel, for its part, is unapologetic. 'Hillel as an institution has been and remains committed to the support of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, that fulfills the right of Jewish self-determination in an ancestral homeland,' Adam Lehman, Hillel's chief executive officer, said in an interview. The shock of the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023, against Israel has moved many Jewish students to explore what it means to be Jewish, fueling significant growth in interest in Hillel on campuses around the world. During the 2023-24 school year, as the conflict in the Middle East escalated, a record 180,000 students participated in Hillel activities at least once, 12,000 more than the year before, according to the organization. There was also an uptick in the number of 'super-users,' who visited Hillel at least six times. Over the last year and half, though, the solidarity that came with that identity has cracked. The fissures can be felt in public life and in synagogues. And the division among Jews more generally is playing out among Jews on campus, as some complain that Hillel is too aligned with Israel, while others say that it is too open to critics of Israel. Many students find it hard to divorce themselves from Hillel completely, especially in this time when they may not feel safe expressing their Jewish faith and identity outside their own community. Some students, like Emanuelle Sippy, a senior at Princeton, look for a middle ground. She still goes to Hillel for prayer services, meals and lectures. But in the search for a more congenial left-wing political environment, she also helped to revive a small rival group, the Alliance of Jewish Progressives, on her campus. 'There is a group of people — very close friends, people I respect and admire — who are fighting battles within these institutions like Hillel,' she said. 'They might be showing up to events. Hillel might be counting them. It doesn't mean they don't have criticisms.' This is not the first time that there has been a schism among students at Hillel. Students at Harvard launched an Open Hillel movement in 2012, in protest against the parent organization's policy against partnering with anti-Israel groups. In December 2013, students at Swarthmore Hillel declared themselves the first 'Open Hillel' chapter in the nation, vowing to promote open inquiry, regardless of ideology. The current ideological split feels sharper, as campus protests for and against Israel have led to arrests, suspensions and lawsuits. When it comes to the campus Hillel, 'a lot of students don't feel comfortable going in for political reasons,' said Danya Dubrow-Compaine, a senior and a co-founder of Yale Jews for Ceasefire. There is also a growing generation gap. In a Pew survey conducted in February 2024, 38 percent of adults under 30 years old said Israel's reasons for fighting Hamas were valid, down from 41 percent two years earlier. That compares with 78 percent of people 65 and older who said the same, up several points from the earlier survey. Elijah Bacal, a sophomore who is an organizer for Yale Jews for Ceasefire, said the institutional leadership of the Slifka Center, as Yale's Hillel is known, has been slow to adapt. 'I think there is a real, honestly, just like an out-of-touchness,' Mr. Bacal said. Hillel is still one of the first places Jewish students go when arriving on campus, to meet others, do homework and enjoy a meal with friends. 'I was looking for a place where my intellectual life wouldn't be siloed into the classroom, but would spill out to a broader community,' said Medad Lytton, a Yale senior. After Oct. 7, he said, he 'felt a strong sense of peoplehood.' A singing circle at Slifka helped him connect with others to express the his grief. 'It's kind of a second home for me,' he said of the center. Nili Fox, a junior at Washington University in St. Louis, was brought up in a religious Jewish family, and sought out Hillel as soon as she arrived on campus. After Oct. 7, Hillel was her 'rock,' she said. 'It has really been helpful to know that whenever I feel uncomfortable I have a place where I was supported and loved, no matter what,' Ms. Fox said. Other students are dismayed by what they perceive as Hillel's uncritical view of Israel in the face of a complicated and morally challenging reality. Some students object to Hillel houses flying the Israeli flag, which they see as a symbol of a nation that has, from Ms. Sippy's perspective, committed war crimes. Uri Cohen, the executive director of the Slifka Center at Yale, says the flag represents Hillel's values. 'There are some who don't come because it crosses a line for them, and there are many who come,' Mr. Cohen said. 'Slifka is very clear. We are a Zionist institution. We are also not checking anybody's credentials at the door.' In January, Yale Hillel hosted a talk by Naftali Bennett, a former Israeli army commando, defense minister and prime minister, who was once considered a protégé of Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's current prime minister. Many Jewish students objected to Mr. Bennett's hawkish politics. (At a later talk at Harvard Business School, Mr. Bennett joked that he would give exploding pagers to people who disagreed with him, according to The Harvard Crimson.) Mr. Bacal, the organizer with Yale Jews for Ceasefire, helped lead a peaceful protest against Mr. Bennett in the lobby of the Slifka Center. He did not contest Mr. Bennett's right to speak, Mr. Bacal said, but he did not see why the event had been held in a spiritual place, a chapel where students went to pray and that contained an ark with a Torah in it. 'I think it's a real shame, because the Jewish community at college should welcome and represent all Jews on campus to the best of its ability, no matter where they are coming from,' he said. Another student, Netanel Crispe, a senior, said that he objected not to the speaker but to Hillel's having allowed the protest against him. Mr. Crispe said that Slifka staff stopped him and several others from filming the protest. He faulted Yale Hillel for trying 'to play to both sides in a way that doesn't reflect core values.' Mr. Cohen, Slifka's director, defended the invitation the center extended to Mr. Bennett, noting that his talk drew 300 people to a space that only held 100. 'We did it out of our love for Israel and our love for Zionism, and the opportunity of giving access for our students to an influential world leader,' he said. To illustrate Hillel's dilemma, Mr. Bacal, the protest leader, recalled how honored he was to lead Shabbat services for the first time. His parents came to town to be there, and friends attended. But it took place around the time of the Naftali Bennett event, and one of his friends stayed away in protest. She told Mr. Bacal she did not feel comfortable stepping into Slifka that week. 'I totally get that,' Mr. Bacal said.
