During a conversation with the previous Israeli prime minister, protests broke out.
After being kicked out of a school Israeli core during a pro-Palestinian rally in January, Israeli students at Yale University claim to still be searching for answers.
Student Netanel Crispe, who was present at the event, claimed that two Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life staff members at Yale told him and a few different Jewish individuals to keep after they filmed the pro-Palestinian activists.
The Slifka middle gave permission for a rally in support of Palestine inside their room and allowed SJP members to take part, which is” the main question that needs to be asked”? Chrispe recently spoke with The College Fix via social media in a new interview.
The pro-Palestinian demonstration took place on January 21 on the first surface of the Slifka Center for Jewish Life. Hillel, a Hebrew student firm, is located in the center.
However, a closed-door chat with Naftali Bennett, a former prime minister of Israel, was taking position on the second floor, Crispe told The Fix.
A team known as the Yalies4Palestine held a rally on campus due to Bennett’s chat, and some proceeded to the first floor of the Hebrew facility to maintain protesting, he said.
Members of Yalies4Palestine ( Yale’s SJP) sing “end the occupation” inside Yale’s Hillel. The opposition was sanctioned by Yale’s Hillel! photograph. twitter.com/i8LD4rzBp0
— Netanel Crispe ( @NetanelCrispe ) January 24, 2025
Crispe claimed to have observed the demonstration. He claimed to have followed attendees to the Slifka Center, noting that some of them wore keffiyehs, the classic headdresses worn in the Arab world.
When I asked a Hillel employee if the marchers were permitted to be there and if Slifka gave them permission, she responded that “anyone can be inside the constructing,” according to Crispe on X.
On X, he likewise uploaded videos of the opposition.
Crispe told The Fix around 30 individuals participated in the opposition, chanting comments such as “end the job” and” From New Haven to Gaza”. Some even sang” Stop the job, we shall never be moved”!
Breaking from @NetanelCrispe:
Yale’s Hillel hosted a multi-hour rally next day organized and attended by officials of Yalies4Palestine—Yale’s SJP chapter—which was responsible for next year’s camps.
Individuals who were filming the rally were expelled from The Hillel. photograph. twitter.com/WT48BwVDQt
— Eitan Fischberger ( @EFischberger ) January 22, 2025
Crispe claimed that two Israeli middle staff members finally disciplined several of the Hebrew students who attempted to picture the event, including himself, and ordered them to leave.
He identified them as Rachel Leiken, associate Jewish priest, and Aviva Green, director of Israeli undergraduate career. He told The Fix that both of them were telling pupils that shooting was prohibited and that anyone who was filming would get kicked out of the building.
Some Israeli students, according to Crispe, even had their devices taken and the videos taken down by staff members.
Finally, Shabbos Kestenbaum, a Hebrew student activist and new Harvard student, called for Leiken’s treatment in a post on X.
” Any specific in a leadership position, much less one working at Hillel, who escorts a pro-Israel Israeli student outside of a building, is not ideal to be working with pro-Israel Jewish individuals, unless of course, Hillel International approved of such habits”, Kestenbaum told The Fix in a new message. This is not just my view, but it was actually shared by many Yale pro-Israel students.
Additionally, he added that he thinks Lederen may include led them out of the building.
Leiken, when contacted by The Fix, sent , a speech via internet from the centre Executive Director Uri Cohen addressing the opposition.
Cohen described the inside opposition as” a small group of Jewish individuals who sang along to Mr. Bennett’s opinions and guidelines.” This expression never interfered with the Bennett explore or software in any way.
” … at Slifka, Jewish students had some different responses to Mr. Bennett’s visit”, Cohen wrote. ” The second floor was filled to the brim, while thousands more had wanted to attend but could not due to lack of place,” said one witness.
He wrote that” this event demonstrated a lot of what it appears to be to be a society that embraces Zionism and pluralism.” ” … Never in history have Jews agreed on anything, and that is certainly true today in Israel, in America, and at Yale”.
Slifka is, according to Cohen, committed to upholding” Israeli diversity” through various social justice initiatives and learning communities. He stated that they will never “turn their up on any of these pledges.”
However, Crispe claimed that the Jan. 21 opposition resulted in some Israeli pupils at Yale who are no longer comfortable in the Slifka Center. In an article about the affair, people who asked to remain anonymous reported with the Jewish News Syndicate about their feelings of betrayal and fear.
According to Crispe,” Sinceda and the income of people of SJP inside the building completely undermined that speech and made the room at Yale uncomfortable for Jewish students,” the sanctioning of this rally by Slifka and made that statement untrue.
The Fix twice tried to contact Yale’s media relations office via email in an effort to get an interview about the situation and the concerns of Jewish students, but it failed to do so.
MORE: Purdue newspaper removes the names of Palestinian protesters to protect students from Trump.
IMAGE: Netanel Crispe/Instagram
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