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Cancel or condemn? Jewish groups decrying UPenn’s ‘Palestine Writes’ festival are split on ideal response.
(JTA) – A number of Jewish organizations have condemned an upcoming conference on Palestinian culture, taking place at the University of Pennsylvania, that includes speakers accused of antisemitism. But the groups decrying the conference disagree about what the school should do about it.
The biggest name speaking at the “Palestine Writes” festival taking place next weekend, from Friday, Sept. 22 to the afternoon of Sunday, Sept. 24, is that of Roger Waters, the former Pink Floyd frontman who uses Holocaust imagery to bash Israel during his concerts. Other speakers at the conference, the Jewish organizations say, have used language that condones or encourages Israel’s destruction.
Jewish organizational responses have ranged from a call on the university to condemn the conference — which it did last week, albeit in terms that critics called inadequate — to a demand that the university shut the conference down or face legal consequences.
The disparate response point to a divide within the pro-Israel ecosystem over how universities should handle anti-Israel and arguably antisemitic speech on campus. While both sides of the discussion abhor such statements, one cohort of activists believes that federal law requires the university to quash the offensive speech, while the other says the dictates of academic freedom demand that even repugnant speech be allowed, though they say it should be condemned.
Miriam Elman, executive director of the Academic Engagement Network, which works to counter antisemitic and anti-Israel activity on campus, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that her group would not demand the conference be canceled “unless there is a case of imminent threat, or bodily harm.” She added, “Our system of academic freedom and campus free expression is that: Offensive speech? Meet it with better speech.”
That approach contrasts with the demand issued by the Zionist Organization of America, which has urged its activists to tell the university to cancel the conference. If the university fails to do so, a recent ZOA action alert said, the right-wing pro-Israel group “may have a moral obligation to file a complaint under Title VI if this conference takes place.” Title VI refers to a section of the Civil Rights Act that bars discrimination in any institution that receives federal funds. Although the University of Pennsylvania is a private university, it receives federal research grants.
Palestine Writes has organized the annual festival since 2020, saying on its website that its founding was “born from the pervasive exclusion from or tokenization of Palestinian voices in mainstream literary institutions.”
Susan Abulhawa, the executive director of “Palestine Writes,” said in an email that most of the festival was about Palestinians, and not Israel, but that naturally there would be expressions of criticism of the country.
“We have a glorious and rich heritage that is either being erased or appropriated by a 20th-century colonial enterprise that has worked overtime to denigrate us where they cannot fully erase us,” she told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “It’s disappointing, though unsurprising, that the university could not muster the courage to defend an indigenous people’s moral and necessary struggle against Israeli colonial fascism.”
A festival spokesperson clarified that the event ends several hours before the beginning of the Jewish High Holiday of Yom Kippur, which starts on the evening of Sept. 24. The conference ends at 1 p.m.
Josh Gottheimer, a Jewish New Jersey Democratic congressman and Penn graduate, said in a letter to the university leadership that the university should at least disinvite Waters as well as Marc Lamont Hill, a Temple University professor and commentator fired from CNN in 2018 for calling for a free Palestine ”from the river to the sea” — a phrase many interpret as calling for the elimination of Israel. Hill said at the time that he was unaware of the phrase’s origins and that he was calling for a single binational Israeli-Palestinian state.
Abraham Foxman, the ADL’s former national director, told JTA that the event should trigger an inquiry by the Biden administration as part of its new plan to combat antisemitism. He also said Jewish alumni should organize to stop donating to the university. “The time has come for alumni to be more active,” he said, not just at Penn but on other campuses that have accommodated vehement critics of Israel.
After complaints from Jewish groups, the university made a statement acknowledging that the conference includes “several speakers who have a documented and troubling history of engaging in antisemitism by speaking and acting in ways that denigrate Jewish people. We unequivocally — and emphatically — condemn antisemitism as antithetical to our institutional values.”
Elman’s group and the Anti-Defamation League each told JTA that they hoped the university’s condemnation would be more robust.
For Jewish and pro-Israel groups criticizing the conference, the most objectionable speaker is Waters, who is scheduled to speak on a Friday evening panel about the costs incurred by those who speak out on behalf of Palestinians. Rogers has used Holocaust imagery to criticize Israel, a practice watchdogs have called antisemitic because it trivializes the Holocaust and implies that Jews are now perpetrating its horrors on another people.
A number of other speakers have also been singled out by pro-Israel groups for their praise for members of designated terrorist groups or because they have used incendiary language to implicate all Israelis, not just their government’s policies.
The university’s statement, which was signed by Penn President Elizabeth Magill and two other senior officials, noted that the festival is not organized by the university, although a number of university-affiliated entities — such as the Wolf Humanities Center — are cosponsors.
“As a university, we also fiercely support the free exchange of ideas as central to our educational mission,” the statement said. “This includes the expression of views that are controversial and even those that are incompatible with our institutional values.”
Some critics said that Penn’s leadership had a duty to condemn university-affiliated cosponsors of the conference.
“Universities can definitely express disappointment, chagrin, dismay in faculty choices,” Elman said. “They can say ‘this is terrible judgment.’”
Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, said in an email to JTA, “Supporting academic freedom and the free exchange of ideas on campus, which ADL joins Penn in supporting, does not abdicate Penn leadership from taking a position.”
According to Jewish Insider, the ADL, along with the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, led a weeks-long effort to get the university to make a statement. The ADL recently released an analysis showing a sharp uptick in what it called “anti-Israel events” on college campuses.
“If Penn truly wants to show real support for the Jewish community, it must stop equivocating and start speaking out and taking action to stand with the Jewish community in an unequivocal, unambiguous manner,” Greenblatt said. The Jewish federation did not return a request for comment.
Elman and ZOA both noted a difference in the treatment the university has accorded the festival and a Jewish law professor, Amy Wax, who has made incendiary comments about Black and Asian students on the campus. Wax is embroiled in disciplinary hearings, which has spurred criticism of Penn by free speech advocates.
The university’s caution with “Palestine Speaks” may stem in part from a reluctance to wade into another battle over academic freedom. The controversy comes as Wax has invited a white supremacist, Jared Taylor, to campus for a second time. His presence at a 2021 event at Penn stirred protests. The Philadelphia Inquirer quoted students who believe Wax invited Taylor in order to portray the university as an institution that represses free expression.
Michal Cotler-Wunsch, who this week was named as Israel’s envoy to combat antisemitism, told JTA that the university’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion demanded a tougher response.
“Held in a DEI campus reality proclaiming commitment to provide and ensure equal access, safety and security to all students and faculty members, [the conference] must be measured with the same yardstick as any other group, recognizing that double standards in the application of any principle or rule undermines it,” she said.
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Antisemitism at European Universities Has Created ‘Climate of Fear,’ New Report Finds
Krakow, Poland, October 5: Pro-Palestinian activists in front of the Institute of Sociology at Jagiellonian University in Kraków. Photo: Artur Widak via Reuters Connect
Antisemitism on European university campuses rivals what has ensued in the US since the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, fostering a “climate of fear” for Jewish students, according to a new report by two Jewish groups and a German watchdog.
B’nai B’rith International, the European Union of Jewish Students, and democ, a Berlin-based organization of academics and media professionals, on Tuesday published a comprehensive report titled “A Climate of Fear and Exclusion: Antisemitism at European Universities.”
“When Jewish students fear being violently harassed on campus, when in the most prestigious universities Jewish students might find swastikas or death threats on their personal property, when they are not allowed access to spaces and events due to their presumed Zionism — the free speech argument is a canard,” B’nai B’rith director of European Union affairs Alina Bricman said in a statement. “The lack of action on the part of academic institutions is shameful.”
The document recounts a slew of incidents that took place at the most prestigious higher education institutions across the continent, including Cambridge University, the University of Amsterdam, and Delft University of Technology. Some were perpetrated by extreme anti-Zionist groups tied to terrorist organizations while others struck as random acts of hatred, terrorizing in themselves for intimidating Jewish members of the campus community.
At the University of Strasbourg, someone assaulted a group of Jewish students while shouting “Zionist fascists”; the University of Vienna hosted an “Intifada Camp,” a pro-Hamas encampment; at the Free University of Brussels campus in Solbosch, a pro-Hamas group illegally occupied an administrative building and renamed it after a terrorist. Throughout Europe, anti-Zionists damaged property to the tune of hundreds of thousands of Euros, desecrated Jewish religious symbols, graffitied Jewish students’ dormitories with swastikas, and carried out gang assaults on Jewish student leaders.
In many cases, university leaders acceded to the demands of these pro-Hamas activists and terminated partnerships with Israeli institutions, as happened in Belgium.
“By renouncing limited partnerships with Israel, the authorities not only gave in to political pressure but also endangered freedom of expression and the diversity of ideas on their campuses,” the report’s authors wrote. “This attitude, far from protecting academic values, allowed ideologies to take precedence over fundamental principles of research and academic freedom.”
It continued, “These events are not isolated acts. They reflect a climate of siege-like hostility towards Israel that now permeates Belgium, from the media to universities, from the north to the south, from the right to the left. The Palestinian cause has gradually become the core of a genuine ‘civil religion’ or ‘secular religion.’”
The situation calls for a prompt defense of the university’s values, as well as the universal principles Europe claims to hold.
“The documentation gathered in this report makes it clear that we are dealing with highly coordinated, transnational networks that operate as part of a global movement,” said Grischa Stanjek, co-executive director of democ. “They strategically disguise an antisemitic agenda in the language of human rights to gain legitimacy. University leaders are making a grave mistake if they treat these events as local flare-ups instead of what they are: calculated manifestations of a global, anti-democratic campaign.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Synagogue in Chile Vandalized With Antisemitic Graffiti, Prompting Outrage, Investigation
The gate of Santiago’s Bikur Cholim Synagogue defaced with red paint and antisemitic graffiti, including a poster targeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Photo: Screenshot
Chile’s authorities launched an investigation after a synagogue in Santiago was defaced with antisemitic graffiti and slogans, an act that has sparked outrage in the local Jewish community.
On Friday night, the gate of Santiago’s Bikur Cholim Synagogue was vandalized with red paint and a poster depicting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a bullet hole in his forehead.
An unknown individual spray-painted antisemitic slogans, including “If you keep silent, you’re part of genocide,” an apparent reference to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
Israeli Ambassador to Chile Peleg Lewi condemned the outrage, noting that antisemitic incidents are rare in the country.
Vandalizacion y ataques a Sinagogas anoche en Santiago !
Estoy seguro que @GobiernodeChile luchará contra el antisemistismo en Chile! pic.twitter.com/feWR09cny1— פלג לוי – Peleg Lewi (@peleg_lewi) August 23, 2025
Since the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Lewi explained, Chile has seen only a few minor antisemitic incidents — a stark contrast to other countries around the world, which have experienced a surge in anti-Jewish hate crimes.
He also stressed the importance of maintaining calm and warned against bringing the Middle East conflict into Chile.
Local authorities have launched an investigation into the vandalism, but no arrests have been made so far.
The Jewish Community of Chile denounced the incident, stressing that such antisemitic acts cannot be accepted or tolerated.
“Acts of hatred cannot be downplayed, normalized, or justified by political or ideological slogans; they must be forcefully and universally condemned,” the group said in a post on X.
“Chile is a country that values freedom of worship, and that means we must respect, care for, and protect one another, regardless of our beliefs,” the statement read. “Vandalism of a holy site is not just an attack on a community but on the coexistence and peace of the entire country.”
Condenamos rotundamente el ataque a una sinagoga de Santiago. Lamentablemente no es la primera vez que ocurre.
Los actos de odio no pueden ser relativizados, normalizados o justificados bajo consignas políticas o ideológicas: deben ser condenados con fuerza y de manera… pic.twitter.com/CTAHqDs6yh
— Comunidad Judía de Chile (@comjudiachile) August 24, 2025
Alberto van Klaveren, Chile’s Foreign Minister, also condemned the vandalism of the Bikur Cholim Synagogue.
“No expression of hatred or violence can be normalized; there is no argument that justifies intimidation or discrimination,” Klaveren said in a post on X. “The only way to express dissent in a democracy is through open and respectful dialogue.”
On Sunday, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) warned that the incident in Chile was the latest reminder that antisemitism remains a global threat.
“No synagogue should ever be vandalized,” the statement read.
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Trump Admin Reviewing Visas of ‘Terrorist Sympathizers’ Set to Appear at Palestinian Conference in Detroit
Marco Rubio speaks after he is sworn in as Secretary of State by US Vice President JD Vance at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, DC, Jan. 21, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
The Trump administration is reviewing and may block the visa applications of speakers scheduled to appear at the People’s Conference for Palestine in Detroit, Michigan later this week over links to terrorism, The Algemeiner has learned.
A spokesperson for the US State Department told The Algemeiner that officials have “noted” the gathering, set to take place from Aug. 29-31, and will closely monitor visa applications for invited international speakers, citing a preponderance of “terrorist sympathizers” on the program’s lineup.
“Given the public invite lists seems to include a number of terrorist sympathizers, we are going through and ensuring all international speakers slated to attend the conference are being placed on a ‘look out’ status for visa applications, so we are alerted if a request is submitted and can ensure they are appropriately processed,” the spokesperson said.
“In every case, we will take the time necessary to ensure an applicant does not pose a risk to the safety and security of the United States and that he or she has credibly established his or her eligibility for the visa sought, including that the applicant intends to engage in activities consistent with the terms of admission,” the spokesperson added.
The conference will feature dozens of radical anti-Zionist activists, academics, artists, and political organizers, including US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI).
Tlaib’s appearance at last year’s iteration of the People’s Conference for Palestine sparked intense backlash, with critics pointing out the event’s connections to Wisam Rafeedie and Salah Salah, members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), an internationally designated terrorist organization.
The conference is convened by a coalition that includes the Palestinian Youth Movement, Al-Awda: The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, and the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, among others. Several of these groups have maintained ties with PFLP, openly supported boycott efforts against Israel, and called for an arms embargo in the wake of Israel’s military campaign against Hamas. The programming highlights sessions on “Documenting Genocide” and “Breaking the Siege,” rhetoric that critics argue mischaracterizes Israel’s actions as it seeks to defend itself against terrorist attacks following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.
The Detroit gathering is expected to attract thousands of attendees, with dozens of speakers and activists scheduled to participate. Among the roster are well-known anti-Israel figures such as Linda Sarsour, Miko Peled, and Chris Smalls. Sarsour has erroneously compared Zionism to “white supremacy in America” and accused Israel of perpetuating “Jewish supremacy.”
Arabs comprise about 21 percent of Israel’s population and include full rights of citizenship, including the ability to serve in parliament and on the Supreme Court as well as the ability to protest openly against the government.
The planned presence of several foreign terror sympathizers has sparked outrage among observers.
Abed Abubaker, a self-described “reporter” from Gaza, is expected to make a physical appearance at the Detroit conference. Abubaker has repeatedly praised the Hamas terrorist group as “resistance fighters” on social media and won a “journalist of the year” award from Iran’s state-controlled media outlet PressTV. In a January 2025 post, he showered praise on long-time Hamas leader and Oct. 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar, saying that the terrorist’s “love of resistance and land is seen very clearly.” In a March 2025 post, Abubaker posted that international supporters of the Palestinian cause should “attack your governments.” He also defended Hamas’s murdering of dissidents, saying that the victims were “collaborating” with Israel.
Some of the speakers have been convicted and imprisoned in Israel for terrorist activity.
Omar Assaf, a former member of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), and Lama Ghosheh, a Palestinian journalist from East Jerusalem, are scheduled to speak at the conference. Assaf spent eight years in jail for his role in the DFLP, which was previously a US-designated terrorist group, and Ghosheh received a three-year sentence from an Israeli court in 2023 for inciting violence and praising terrorism in the West Bank and Gaza.
Mosab Abu Toha, a Gaza-born writer, is also set to appear at the conference. Abu Toha’s social media posts reveal he has denigrated the Israeli hostages held in Gaza, denied the murder of the Bibas children, and spread fake news and antisemitic remarks. In other posts, he referred to Israeli soldiers as “killers” and criticized international media for “humaniz[ing]” them.
Perhaps most striking, Hussam Shaheen was slated to speak at the conference. He spent 27 years in prison for attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder but was released earlier this year as part of a temporary Israel-Hamas ceasefire that saw Palestinian prisoners released in exchange for Israeli hostages. However, Shaheen’s name no longer appears on the list of speakers on the conference’s website.
US-based speakers also have extremist associations. Hatem Bazian, for example, co-founded Students for Justice in Palestine, a group that has become notorious for intimidating Jews on university campuses, as well as American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), a nonprofit he now chairs which has sponsored a series of anti-Israel protests following Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attacks. Bazian works as a senior lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley. On Tuesday, The Algemeiner reported on recent comments by Bazian in which he accused Jews of exploiting antisemitism to make money and claimed that Israel wants to conquer most of the Middle East, including Mecca and Medina, the holiest sites in Islam.
The event will also host Mahmoud Khalil, one of the leaders of the anti-Israel encampment movement at Columbia University. Khalil rose to national prominence after US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained him in March for what the Department of Homeland Security alleged to be leading “activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.” Khalil, who became a permanent US resident last year, was released from detention in June when a federal judge ordered his release. The activist also drew scrutiny last month after he refused to condemn Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities during a CNN interview.
Since returning to the White House earlier this year, the Trump administration has launched an overhaul of the US visa system, part of what officials describe as an effort to root out individuals sympathetic to terrorism or those espousing antisemitic views. The sweeping measures include expanded social media vetting for new applicants, continuous monitoring of the 55 million current visa holders, and the revocation of thousands of student visas.
Panels at this week’s conference in Detroit will touch on subjects such as US military aid, legal accountability, and grassroots organizing, all presented through an anti-Israel lens, according to the event website.