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New York Post
25-04-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
Jewish student claims he was blocked from part of Yale campus, called ‘scum' by protesters
Pro-Palestinian students at Yale pitched a short-lived encampment on Tuesday night — and formed a human chain that kept their Jewish peers from seeing what they were up to, according to a viral social media video. Yale senior Netanel Crispe alleged that the protest was far from peaceful. 'I was shouted at quite a lot,' he told The Post. 'I had people shoving me. I had people putting their flashlights in my eyes to try to keep me away. I was physically barred and blocked, at times followed and surrounded and pushed and shoved.' Crispe said his exchange with agitators who gathered on Tuesday night to protest an upcoming speech by Israeli security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir culminated in him being physically blocked from accessing parts of the campus quad. Some of the interaction was caught on a video that he posted on X on Wednesday and has attracted 7.6 million views. 6 'I was shouted at quite a lot,' Netanel Crispe told The Post. @NetanelCrispe/X 'There was one protester specifically who called us scum,' Crispe, who showed up to the rally with a couple of his friends, alleged. In a video posted to social media, a protester tells him 'you people' are 'trying to victimize yourselves.' When Crispe asks who 'us people' are, the man says, 'You're Israelis, bro, you're Zionists' Though the roughly 200 student protesters promised an overnight encampment — they screamed 'We're here, and we're staying the night' on a megaphone — they ultimately dispersed before 11:30 p.m., following a final warning from the university, according to the Yale Daily News,. 6 Yale student protesters formed a human chain on Tuesday in a now viral video. @NetanelCrispe/X Crispe, a 22-year-old who has both Israeli and American citizenship, grew up in Danby, Vermont. He believes the fact that he is visibly Jewish — he wears a yarmulke every day — caused the protesters to be so hostile. 'They created this human chain which they've used as a tactic in the past to keep Jewish students out,' he said. His experience echoes that of some Jewish students at Columbia, who also faced a human chain last spring when they attempted to enter their classmate's pro-Palestine encampment. 6 Netanel Crispe believes he was treated with hostility by the protesters because he is visibly Jewish. courtesy of Netanel Crispe Videos posted to social media showed a Columbia student encampment leader screaming, 'Excuse me, everybody, we have Zionists who have entered the camp,' as Jewish classmates attempted to access the 'liberated zone,' which was in a public area of campus. 'We are going to create a human chain where I am standing so that they do not pass this point and infringe on our privacy and try to disrupt our community,' the leader yelled. 'I 100% felt physically unsafe,' Jessica Schwalb, one of the Columbia students who was blocked from entering the encampment told The Post at the time. 'If this sort of thing was happening to any other minority group, the whole world would shut down.' I was never subjected to any sort of human chain while reporting on Columbia's encampment as a non-Jewish part-time student last school year, but I was told by a student protester that I wasn't allowed to access the tent city because I hadn't pledged allegiance to their community guidelines. 6 Columbia University's Gaza Solidarity Encampment enforced community guidelines. @wesyang/X Those who enter must 'recognize our role as visitors, and for many of us colonizers, on this land,' promise '[to grant] ourselves and others grace,' and '[refuse] to comply with any demands if the NYPD or Columbia admin try to force us to disclose the identities of any fellow campers,' the guidelines read. For Crispe, the human chain was just one of many painful experiences he's had on Yale's campus since October 7th. 'Immediately following the massacre, hundreds of my classmates and professors were gathering right off campus for a protest rally to celebrate the resistance's success,' he said. 'We were still mourning the loss of our friends and our family members in the immediate aftermath, and this is the type of response that we received from the larger Yale community.' 6 Netanel Crispe says anti-Israel and anti-American sentiment is pervasive at Yale. courtesy of Netanel Crispe Crispe lamented that 'vehement anti-Semitism and anti-Western ideologies' are pervasive on his campus. 'That was not something that I expected to be facing at Yale,' he said. 'This was a place that at one time I considered to be a home, but now it feels more like an asylum that has been taken over by the inmates.' But Crispe is glad that Yale is finally starting to stand up to these students. After the incident on Tuesday, the university revoked Yalies4Palestine's official status as a student organization. The school also announced plans to investigate antisemitic conduct that night. 'I give them credit for taking these initial steps,' he said. 'I hope to see more of it.' 6 Students occupied a lawn at Yale last school year and created an encampment in support of Palestine. Corbis via Getty Images The university did not respond to The Post's request for comment. As the federal government cracks down on schools such as Harvard over antisemitism, Crispe hopes his viral experience at Yale might encourage the administration to straighten out his university ,too. He said, 'Yale is finally getting the attention that it requires and deserves, which I hope will inspire the federal government to prioritize this place and really come down with force.'
Yahoo
25-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Yale Jewish students speak out after anti-Israel demonstrators refuse to let them walk through campus
Jewish students at Yale University who were subjected to verbal abuse and had their right of way blocked on campus by anti-Israel demonstrators are speaking out about the antisemitism they've experienced. "This type of discrimination and ongoing harassment of Jewish students on campus has not only disrupted, but completely shattered the framework that I had and that many of my peers had upon arriving at Yale," student Netanel Crispe told Fox News Digital. "The one word I would choose is devastating." Crispe, 22, was seen on video this week with a human chain of anti-Israel demonstrators barring his way as he attempted to walk through Yale's Beinecke Plaza. An anti-Israel tent encampment had sprung up on the New Haven, Conn., campus ahead of a Wednesday speech by firebrand Israeli right-wing minister Itamar Ben Gvir. Iran-born Yale Scholar Fired Over Allegations Of Working With Terrorist-tied 'Sham Charity' Gvir had been invited to deliver a speech on Yom Hashoa, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, by Shabtai, a Jewish intellectual society not officially affiliated with Yale. Demonstrators were seen on video hurling water bottles at Ben Gvir and attendees of the lecture as they were exiting the Shabtai building on Wednesday. Read On The Fox News App Crispe, a senior who is studying U.S. history, said that when he got word that a new "emergency" anti-Israel protest had sprung up on Tuesday, he decided to walk around the plaza to show that he and other Jews wouldn't be driven out of what should be a communal university space. When the demonstrators saw him roaming the grounds, he said they called out instructions to form a human chain and bar his way. He said they similarly obstructed the path of other Jewish students attempting to exercise their right to walk through university grounds. Crispe alleged that the demonstrators would break the human chain to allow non-Jewish students to pass through. "I was trying to access the space. This is a communal space that is supposed to be available to students and that all students pay a lot of tuition to be able to use," Crispe said. Sahar Tartak, a Yale junior, said an anti-Israel demonstrator had referred to her, Crispe and another Jewish student as "scum" as they strolled the university grounds and subjected them to other racist abuse. Video of the aftermath of the incident was posted online. Antisemitism At Yale, Univ. Of Michigan To Face Congressional Scrutiny "You're trying to victimize yourself, is that what it is? That's what you people do, so I should get used to that," the demonstrator can be heard saying. When asked who he was referring to by the phrase "you people," the demonstrator replied "Israelis, Zionists… Caucasians." Tartak had been assaulted at a prior anti-Israel Yale demonstration in April 2024, where a demonstrator allegedly jabbed her in the eye with a Palestinian flag. She says being a Jew at Yale the last two years has been "terrifying." "Anybody who stands up for a Jewish right to life, and that tends to be Jewish students, that puts a target on your back," Tartak said. Crispe, a practicing Hasidic Jew, said that antisemitism on Yale's campus has been "pervasive" since the horrific Hamas Oct. 7, 2023 attacks on Israel, which saw more Jews killed in a single day since the Holocaust. The student group Yalies4Palestine called for a march to "celebrate the resistance's success" just two days after the attack. Yale associate professor Zareena Grewal wrote "settlers are not civilians" and "Palestinians have every right to resist through armed struggle" on social media as the attacks were still ongoing. Click Here For More Coverage Of Media And Culture Yale revoked recognition of Yalies4Palestine, which is the university's chapter of "Students for Justice in Palestine" a far-left group linked to many of the explosive campus protests, after members "flagrantly violated the rules" with their campus encampments. According to the Yale Daily News, Yalies4Palestine denied organizing the protest this week, but it was held responsible for amplifying the event with social media postings. The organization wrote on Instagram that "disbanding a group doesn't stop a movement" and it wouldn't be silenced. Yale also claimed it's taking disciplinary action against students who participated in the "disturbing" campus demonstration. The university said it had cleared the encampment from university grounds due to its violating campus rules. "Concerns have been raised about disturbing antisemitic conduct at the gathering. The university is investigating those concerns, as harassment and discrimination are antithetical to learning and scholarship. Yale condemns antisemitism and will hold those who violate our policies accountable through our disciplinary processes," the school said in a statement on Wednesday. "I arrived at Yale with the hope and excitement of being able to learn from and contribute to this broader diverse community and to be able to contribute what I had to give as a Hasidic Jew, to be able to be proud and open in this space, and all that was shattered as a dream," Crispe told Fox News Digital. Fox News Digital reached out to Yale for additional article source: Yale Jewish students speak out after anti-Israel demonstrators refuse to let them walk through campus
