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‘Everyone in Danger’: Concordia University Refuses to Investigate, Punish Antisemitic Assault and Harassment, Students Say
Illustrative: Hundreds of anti-Israel protesters, primarily university students, rally at Toronto’s Nathan Phillips Square on Oct. 28, 2023. Photo by Sayed Najafizada/NurPhoto
Jewish students at Concordia University in Montreal must fend for themselves when their anti-Zionist classmates resort to assault and harassment on campus, according to students who spoke with The Algemeiner.
No single incident, they said, evinced their alleged abandonment by school officials more than one on March 12 in which Jewish students were trapped in the school’s Hillel office while members of the anti-Zionist club Supporting Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR), concealing their faces with keffiyehs and surgical masks, banged on its windows and doors and stomped on the floor of the room above it.
“It’s usually just a safe place for Jewish people to come and hang out,” Chana Leah Natanblut, president of Chabad Concordia, said of the Hillel office. “We were all doing our work and chilling, and all of a sudden we started hearing chanting, like screaming and stuff. We thought maybe it had something with the student strike going on, but then we started hearing people scream terrorists and banging on the ceiling. The Supporting Palestinian Human Rights club is directly above us.”
Seeking the source of the din exploding around them, Natanblut and her friends walked to the window, where they saw a crush of SPHR activists, some standing on the fire escape outside of it, others standing in the parking lot below.
“B—ch!” “Dog!” “Zionism is terrorism!” they screamed, while the person on the fire escape whacked away at the window. The rioters came from “all sides,” Natanblut explained, sprinting through the hallways to hammer the walls outside the club and setting off what felt like seismic shocks that shook the room. Amid the clatter, Natanblut noticed that a shopping bag hooked on a wall mount behind the door was swinging like a pendulum, as if to count down the time they had left before the worst occurred.
“We immediately locked the window and made sure that the door to the room was locked,” Natanblut continued. “We really felt trapped, and I couldn’t even leave to use the bathroom. I was wondering how would I get out and if I would be attacked if I did. So, I started to videotape what was going on, and I called my friend, the person in charged of advocacy for Hillel, telling him to come right away. Then I called security.”
Security arrived promptly, Natanblut said, and reprimanded the SPHR rioters. However, to Natanblut’s astonishment, they refused to discipline those involved in the disturbance on the grounds that Jewish students had contributed to instigating the incident.
According to Natanblut, the SPHR students told the officers that they behaved as they did because the Jewish students had filmed them. To no avail, Natanblut and her friends explained that they only began recording after the banging and screaming started and that they had all been minding their own business. Declining to privilege one account of what happened over the other, security took their statements and left, refusing to answer questions about next steps, including whether the rioters would be allowed back in the building.
“We only filmed because they were harassing us, for evidence, and we didn’t feel safe,” Natanblut said. “Security obviously told them to disperse and that they couldn’t act that way, but they didn’t say what would happen and it felt almost as if they had taken their side. Who’s to say they won’t do it again? What kind of message does it send to do nothing about it?”
Similar occurrences are the new normal for Jewish students attending Concordia University, Anastasia Zorchinsky, founder and president of The StartUp Nation, a pro-Israel club, told The Algemeiner. On Nov. 8, for example, just over a month after Hamas’ massacre across southern Israel, anti-Zionist protesters approached Jewish students and punched several in the face. No one was punished for these offenses, she explained, and the university has had the habit of refusing to denounce antisemitism as a stand-alone problem, always being sure to mention Islamophobia as well to insinuate that Jewish students are engaging in hateful behavior themselves. With several large anti-Zionist events coming up later this month and in April, she fears Jewish students will be targeted again and denied justice.
“The university must enforce its policies, which it’s not doing,” Zorchinsky said. “There’s a clear double standard when it comes to violence against Jewish students, and there must be investigations of these students and expulsions of any found to have committed antisemitic violence. We don’t need pro-Hamas students on our campus behaving this way. We don’t need students who support terrorism on campus. They’re a danger to everyone. Not just us.”
Concordia University did not respond to The Algemeiner‘s request for comment for this story.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post ‘Everyone in Danger’: Concordia University Refuses to Investigate, Punish Antisemitic Assault and Harassment, Students Say first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel to Send Delegation to Qatar for Gaza Ceasefire Talks
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a news conference in Jerusalem, Sept. 2, 2024. Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg/Pool via REUTERS
Israel has decided to send a delegation to Qatar for talks on a possible Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal, an Israeli official said, reviving hopes of a breakthrough in negotiations to end the almost 21-month war.
Palestinian group Hamas said on Friday it had responded to a US-backed Gaza ceasefire proposal in a “positive spirit,” a few days after US President Donald Trump said Israel had agreed “to the necessary conditions to finalize” a 60-day truce.
The Israeli negotiation delegation will fly to Qatar on Sunday, the Israeli official, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter, told Reuters.
But in a sign of the potential challenges still facing the two sides, a Palestinian official from a militant group allied with Hamas said concerns remained over humanitarian aid, passage through the Rafah crossing in southern Israel to Egypt and clarity over a timetable for Israeli troop withdrawals.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is due to meet Trump in Washington on Monday, has yet to comment on Trump’s announcement, and in their public statements Hamas and Israel remain far apart.
Netanyahu has repeatedly said Hamas must be disarmed, a position the terrorist group, which is thought to be holding 20 living hostages, has so far refused to discuss.
Israeli media said on Friday that Israel had received and was reviewing Hamas’ response to the ceasefire proposal.
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Tucker Carlson Says to Air Interview with President of Iran
Tucker Carlson speaks on July 18, 2024 during the final day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Photo: Jasper Colt-USA TODAY via Reuters Connect
US conservative talk show host Tucker Carlson said in an online post on Saturday that he had conducted an interview with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, which would air in the next day or two.
Carlson said the interview was conducted remotely through a translator, and would be published as soon as it was edited, which “should be in a day or two.”
Carlson said he had stuck to simple questions in the interview, such as, “What is your goal? Do you seek war with the United States? Do you seek war with Israel?”
“There are all kinds of questions that I didn’t ask the president of Iran, particularly questions to which I knew I could get an not get an honest answer, such as, ‘was your nuclear program totally disabled by the bombing campaign by the US government a week and a half ago?’” he said.
Carlson also said he had made a third request in the past several months to interview Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who will be visiting Washington next week for talks with US President Donald Trump.
Trump said on Friday he would discuss Iran with Netanyahu at the White House on Monday.
Trump said he believed Tehran’s nuclear program had been set back permanently by recent US strikes that followed Israel’s attacks on the country last month, although Iran could restart it at a different location.
Trump also said Iran had not agreed to inspections of its nuclear program or to give up enriching uranium. He said he would not allow Tehran to resume its nuclear program, adding that Iran did want to meet with him.
Pezeshkian said last month Iran does not intend to develop nuclear weapons but will pursue its right to nuclear energy and research.
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Hostage Families Reject Partial Gaza Seal, Demand Release of All Hostages
Demonstrators hold signs and pictures of hostages, as relatives and supporters of Israeli hostages kidnapped during the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas protest demanding the release of all hostages in Tel Aviv, Israel, Feb. 13, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Itai Ron
i24 News – As Israeli leaders weigh the contours of a possible partial ceasefire deal with Hamas, the families of the 50 hostages still held in Gaza issued an impassioned public statement this weekend, condemning any agreement that would return only some of the abductees.
In a powerful message released Saturday, the Families Forum for the Return of Hostages denounced what they call the “beating system” and “cruel selection process,” which, they say, has left families trapped in unbearable uncertainty for 638 days—not knowing whether to hope for reunion or prepare for mourning.
The group warned that a phased or selective deal—rumored to be under discussion—would deepen their suffering and perpetuate injustice. Among the 50 hostages, 22 are believed to be alive, and 28 are presumed dead.
“Every family deserves answers and closure,” the Forum said. “Whether it is a return to embrace or a grave to mourn over—each is sacred.”
They accused the Israeli government of allowing political considerations to prevent a full agreement that could have brought all hostages—living and fallen—home long ago. “It is forbidden to conform to the dictates of Schindler-style lists,” the statement read, invoking a painful historical parallel.
“All of the abductees could have returned for rehabilitation or burial months ago, had the government chosen to act with courage.”
The call for a comprehensive deal comes just as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepares for high-stakes talks in Washington and as indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas are expected to resume in Doha within the next 24 hours, according to regional media reports.
Hamas, for its part, issued a statement Friday confirming its readiness to begin immediate negotiations on the implementation of a ceasefire and hostage release framework.
The Forum emphasized that every day in captivity poses a mortal risk to the living hostages, and for the deceased, a danger of being lost forever. “The horror of selection does not spare any of us,” the statement said. “Enough with the separation and categories that deepen the pain of the families.”
In a planned public address near Begin Gate in Tel Aviv, families are gathering Saturday evening to demand that the Israeli government accept a full-release deal—what they describe as the only “moral and Zionist” path forward.
“We will return. We will avenge,” the Forum concluded. “This is the time to complete the mission.”
As of now, the Israeli government has not formally responded to Hamas’s latest statement.
The post Hostage Families Reject Partial Gaza Seal, Demand Release of All Hostages first appeared on Algemeiner.com.