When aggressive student protesters prevented Jewish attorney Ran Bar- Yoshafat from speaking at the University of California, Berkeley, next month, the school’s chancellor, Carol Christ, decried the move as an “attack on the basic values of the university”. In a check to see whether they could keep an event without causing significant disturbance, Jewish students invited Club- Yoshafat to return to campus earlier this week. She declined. According to the head of a Jewish scholar party, she also ignored the requests of Israeli student leaders to take another school representative to do so.
Three weeks prior to Bar-Yoshafar’s scheduled speech in Berkeley, which had been delayed by violent protesters who attacked Jewish students and shut down the venue where he was scheduled to address the Israel-Hamas war, Bar-Yoshafar returned to Berkeley.
Vida Keyvanfar, a Berkeley senior and the co-president of the Jewish organization Tikvah, reported to the Washington Free Beacon to the Washington Free Beacon that Christ responded to the invitation with a one-line decline and did not respond to a request that she provide a video greeting for the audience.
If someone who is supposed to be running our campus in the name of free speech is so afraid to conflate herself with us, it makes it more and more frightening, according to Keyvanfar, who said. You are unable to pick and choose the rights to defend.
Christ’s defiance came after she told Jewish students that Bar- Yoshafat should go back and expressed shock and dismay over the disruption of Bar- Yoshafat’s February visit. Berkeley allegedly did not give Bar-Yoshafat’s first appearance enough security, and the university later held the university responsible for the alleged failure to give enough advance notice.
Berkeley’s assistant vice chancellor of communications, Dan Mogulof, said Christ” took the time to meet personally with the students, and reiterated her support for free speech and condemnation of antisemitism”.
She informed the students that she already had commitments that night when she was invited to the event, according to Mogulof in an email. The chancellor expressed her support for free speech by making sure that the campus took the necessary steps to ensure that the event could proceed without disruption, and yes, she opted not to do a video greeting.
On Berkeley’s campus, there has been a raging free speech debate for years, along with a rise in anti-Semitic activism. In 2022, nine student groups, including Women of Berkeley Law, the Queer Caucus, and the Womxn of Color Collective, signed on to a bylaw banning all speakers who support Israel. The bylaw was led by the law school’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter and included a commitment to the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement against Israel.
Just last week, the student senate unanimously passed a resolution condemning Bar- Yoshafat’s return and creating a work group to set “guidelines” for inviting speakers to campus.
Mogulof declined to comment on this bill, noting that student government resolutions “do not represent the position or perspectives of the university.”
Meanwhile, anti- Israel protesters have been harassing other students in a weeks- long “blockade” at Sather Gate, a central campus thoroughfare. In a letter to Berkeley leaders this week, members of Congress criticized the demonstration and vowed to look into the university’s response to anti-Semitism.
The congressional letter noted incidents such as Dec. 1, 2023, graffiti targeting Jewish Berkeley professor Ron Hassner, saying that he is “lowkey a terrorist”. Hassner is organizing an office” sleep-in” to protest campus anti-Semitism, and one of his demands is that the university apologize to Bar Yoshafat for the riot in February.
Keyvanfar, the Berkeley senior leading Tikvah, said the lives of Jewish students at Berkeley have” shifted completely” since Oct. 7, and she herself is frequently filmed and stared at as she walks around campus. Someone said to her,” I hope you get tortured so that you can understand what the people in Gaza feel like.”
” After Oct. 7 it’s been this system of, you’re guilty until proven innocent if you’re Jewish”, Keyvanfar said. ” Unless you’re wearing a keffiyeh and protesting for Gaza, everyone will assume that you’re a part of the problem.” You ca n’t just say you condemn Israel at this point”.
