Earlier this year we covered the explosion of anti-Israel and pro-Palestine demonstrations on U.S. college campuses. The protests, while largely peaceful, also featured dueling violence between protesters and counter-protesters, as well as concerning antisemitic speech from students and outsiders alike. We also featured important stories on the edge cases, gray areas and nuances often left out of the competing narratives that developed.
As the new school year has begun, and after the highly publicized police crackdowns on many of the campus encampments during the end of the last semester, interest by the protest movements, in both the war itself and in the campaign for university divestment, has waned. In turn, much of the attention of anti-Israel protests has been refocused on a different issue: campus Hillels.
Hillel was founded in the 1920s as a way to support Jewish college life at elite universities at a time when Jewish admission to the institutions was still limited by a quota system. For many, campus Hillels have served as a lifeline and invaluable resource for Jewish college students. Others have criticized the group for its opposition to anti-Zionist positions and its exclusion of students who espouse those views, although Hillel contests this characterization.
In one oft-cited recent incident, the Hillel at Harvard called the police after student members of J Street U used Hillel funds to print posters featuring pictures of the destruction of Gaza, and Hebrew liturgy, displayed outside the organization’s campus location. J Street U, itself a Zionist organization that supports a two-state solution, was subsequently suspended from Hillel. Incidents like these have led to accusations that campus Hillels and the national organization are hostile to and not inclusive of opinions that do not support the Israeli government and its policies. In an interview with Moment, Adam Lehman, President and CEO of Hillel international, disputed this claim, stating that “Hillel remains the most inclusive Jewish student organization and one of the most inclusive and pluralistic Jewish organizations. Period.”
There have also been troubling anti-Hillel incidents that veer into antisemitic territory. In one such example, at Baruch College, part of the CUNY system, the local Hillel was hosting an event for new students when a group associated with Baruch’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine protested outside. The demonstrators held banners saying “Bring the War Home,” “Let the Intifada Pave the Way for People’s War” and “Hillel Go to Hell,” with the red triangle symbol associated with Hamas, statements that could be interpreted as a call to violence against Jews in the U.S.
In another recent incident, at the University of Rochester, protestors posted “wanted” posters around campus, targeting largely Jewish faculty members and Hillel staff on the basis of their support for Israel.
More recently, the National Students for Justice in Palestine organization has launched a new movement, titled “Drop Hillel,” aimed at defunding and delegitimizing the Jewish student organization. The campaign largely opposes Hillel on the basis of opposition to Zionism, a much contested and polysemic term that “Drop Hillel” describes as “a project invested in white supremacy and settler colonialism,” but which others note is a term with a wide range of meanings. The national SJP also charges Hillel with surveilling and harassing Palestinian and anti-Zionist Jewish students, while also excluding them from its events. “Drop Hillel” states its goals as exposing Hillel as being explicitly Zionists, building alternative, non-Zionist campus organizations and delegitimizing Hillel as an authority on antisemitism.
Amanda Berman, Founder and CEO of Zioness, a coalition of progressive Jewish activists, says SJP’s goal is explicitly antisemitic. Specifically, she argues that, because Hillel is an anchor for Jewish life for so many students, whether that comes in the form of kosher food, Shabbat services, High Holiday celebrations, or simply meeting Jewish peers “to attack Hillel on campuses is to attack Jewish life on campus.”
While “Drop Hillel” may be unlikely to achieve its goals in the immediate term, the problems for Hillel are real, with many students expressing disagreement with the group’s stance on dissenting opinions while also articulating their admiration for the role the organization serves and the good it’s done over the decades. How Hillel responds to this new challenge could prove deeply influential on the experiences of Jews, and the dialogue surrounding Zionism, on U.S. college campuses in the years ahead.
Featured image: protests at Columbia University. Photo credit: ProudFarmerScholar via Wikimedia Commons.