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Jewish Students at Cornell Are Hurting — But No One Seems to Care
From a young age, I learned to stand up for what I believe in with great pride. But I was also taught that actions have consequences, and that I would be responsible for what I did.
While I appreciate Cornell University’s strong commitment to freedom of expression, the administration must ask itself where the line is drawn between protected speech and unprotected speech; between what is permitted and what is not. While I cannot say with absolute certainty, my sneaking suspicion is that, if this type of rhetoric were directed at any other minority group, whether it be racial or ethnic, the response from the university would be astronomically different.
Students come to Cornell expecting to be protected from threats and harassment, and the administration has a responsibility to maintain a learning environment in which every student can feel comfortable going to class without fear of intimidation, and express their ideas without being attacked.
When we walk through a campus literally vandalized with spray painted profanity, and have our classes disrupted by loud chants for violence, many Jewish students feel as though Cornell is failing us in this regard.
The Community Belonging section of the Cornell Student Code of Conduct states that “students, faculty, and staff with different backgrounds, perspectives, abilities, and experiences can learn, innovate, and work in an environment of respect…”
Below that, it details that “to assemble and to protest peacefully and lawfully are essential to academic freedom and the continuing function of the University as an educational institution.”
Furthermore, the code of conduct clearly states that disorderly conduct, harassment, misconduct related to student organizations, property damage, and disruption of university activities are forbidden.
Accordingly, I have a few questions I feel compelled to ask.
When Jewish students trying to learn in the classroom are distracted by their peers shouting “From the River to the Sea” just out the window, does this count as harassment and a disruption of university activities?
Do the students shouting those hateful words know the meaning behind them, regardless of their individual intent? Are they aware that those words are a rallying cry for the complete destruction of the State of Israel, and the establishment of a Palestinian state in the entirety of the land that is modern-day Israel, at the expense of the one Jewish state on planet earth? This phrase is used by terrorist organizations and was cited as a component of the US House of Representatives’ censuring of Rashida Tlaib (D-MI). Allowing students to shout this phrase and disrupt classes does not cultivate “an environment of respect.”
When students march on campus and call for the “globalization of the intifada” and shout that “resistance is justified,” are they actually protesting peacefully or are they calling for violence against Jewish and Israeli students?
We must consider the context where many, including a Cornell professor, are characterizing the murders, violence, and rapes of October 7 as “resistance.” Is that the type of resistance being called for on our campus? If so, using this term publicly would certainly be enough to cause “significant emotional or psychological harm,” which falls under the Assault and Endangerment clause of the student code of conduct.
The first and second Intifadas were periods of violence that claimed the lives of thousands of Jewish people as a result of indiscriminate terrorist attacks including stabbings and suicide bombings. Will the new Intifada include the brutal raping of innocent civilians or the kidnapping of the elderly from their homes and holding them hostage in underground tunnels like we saw on October 7?
At these very same protests that claim that “resistance is justified,” students, in the same breath, have also been calling for a ceasefire. One would think that resistance and ceasefire would be mutually exclusive, given that resistance implies action, and ceasefire lack thereof. It appears that these calls for a ceasefire are actually calls for a one-sided ceasefire. Do they suggest that there be no defense against violent “resistance?” Because if they do, they might actually be antisemitic. Holding Israel to a double standard, in which she has no right to defend herself against her attacking enemies, meets the criteria for anti-Zionism becoming antisemitism.
A few weeks ago, students vandalized our campus in the middle of the night by spray painting slurs like “F*ck Israel” and “Zionism = Genocide.” This not only costs the university time and resources to clean up, but also signals to Jewish students that our peers don’t believe that we have a right to self determination, like every other religious and ethnic group in the world.
Not only is it factually inaccurate that Israel is acting with an intent to kill all the people of Gaza, but supporting the notion that a movement of the Jewish people wanting self determination in their ancestral homeland is genocide is ludicrous.
What constitutes misconduct? Is hosting die-ins in academic buildings during the school day and disrupting classes for Jewish and non-Jewish students alike permitted?
Is hanging posters from Willard Straight Hall that read “From Ithaca to Gaza Intifada Intifada” and “Anti-Zionism is not antisemitism” not striking fear in a portion of the student body?
When Jewish students continue to be intimidated and feel there is no room for them and their beliefs on campus, the chasm between anti-Zionism and antisemitism begins to shrink rapidly. Inherently, anti-Zionism and antisemitism needn’t be inextricably linked. However, when a student, using the pseudonym “Hamas Soldier” on our campus publishes threats to “shoot up” the kosher dining hall and “rape and throw off a cliff any Jewish females” in the wake of the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, anti-Zionism and antisemitism are, perhaps, more closely related than ever.
I am not sharing these heavy sentiments to inflame tensions further or to exacerbate anyone’s pain. The death of innocent civilians, whether Palestinian or Israeli, Muslim or Jewish, Christian or Druze, is horrible. It is tragic. It is irreparable.
But inciting hate and violence on our campus does not honor anyone’s life. Intimidating and isolating students in Ithaca does not advance any cause or solve a complex and multifaceted conflict in the Middle East. I am using this strong language to convey the distress of the Cornell Jewish community. We are hurting. We are in distress. We want answers to our questions.
The post Jewish Students at Cornell Are Hurting — But No One Seems to Care first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Jewish Professor Threatened by Students for Justice in Palestine at George Washington University
Illustrative: Pro-Hamas students rally at the encampment for Gaza set up at George Washington University, Washington, DC, April 25, 2035. Photo: Allison Bailey via Reuters Connect
The Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter at George Washington University on Monday issued an ominous warning to a professor who created a proposal to resettle residents of Gaza outside of the Palestinian enclave and remake it into a hub for tourism and economic dynamism, a policy rolled out by US President Donald Trump earlier this month.
“This notice is to inform you that you are hereby evicted from the premises of the George Washington University,” SJP wrote in a missive it taped to the office door of international affairs professor Joseph Pelzman, who first shared the resettlement plan with Trump’s presidential campaign in July 2024, according to an account of events he described to the podcast “America, Baby!” the following month.
“The reason for the eviction is: your active role in incepting the genocide and planned ethnic cleansing of Gaza,” SJP’s message continued. “Your disgusting plan for the complete destruction and foreign occupation of Gaza and the colonial ‘re-education’ of Palestinians.”
Denouncing Pelzman as the “architect of genocide,” SJP added, “Pelzman’s tenure is only one pernicious symptom of the bloodthirsty Zionism permeating our campus … The proprietors of this eviction notice demand your immediate removal.”
On Tuesday, Pelzman told The Algemeiner in a statement that the university’s police department and its president, Ellen Granberg, have been notified of the letter. He also shared background on his controversial proposal, which was outlined in a paper titled “An Economic Plan for Rebuilding Gaza,” a work published by the Center of Excellence for the Economic Study of the Middle East and North Africa (CEESMENA).
“The flyer, titled ‘Notice of Eviction,’ falsely accuses me of genocide, racism, and other inflammatory claims,” Pelzman said. “While it does not contain an explicit, direct threat, the language used is highly aggressive and appears to incite collective action against me.”
He added, “The SJP complaint refers to a paper that I recently published in an academic journal. Nothing in my formal economics paper suggests anything remotely resembling the SJP complaint. They accuse me of writing the Trump plan. The reality is that my paper was sent to the Trump people in July. It was not written for him, nor was it requested by him. Clearly, these people did not read the paper.”
Pelzman had said during an interview in August that his paper, which was later published in the Global World Journal and put online in October, “went to the Trump people because they were the ones who initially had an interest in it — not the Biden people. I was asked [by Trump’s team] to think outside the box on what do we do after [the Gaza war], as nobody was really talking about it.”
Responding to The Algemeiner‘s request for comment on SJP’s conduct, spokeswoman Julia Garbitt said the university is taking the situation “very seriously” and deplores “any acts that deface university property or threaten any members of our community.” Garbitt also noted that an investigation to identify the culprits, whom she said will be subject to “all applicable local laws and university polices,” is underway.
She continued, “We also want to stress that faculty members are entitled to academic freedom in their teaching and research, even when it is controversial. We also want to be clear that scholarly work produced by faculty does not reflect a university position. These commitments are the hallmark of an academic community that respects differing points of view.”
SJP’s threat to Pelzman, an accomplished academic who has focused heavily on the Middle East region, comes as the group serves probation for breaking a slew of school rules during the 2023-2024 academic year — a term which saw it heap abuse on school officials, visitors to campus representing former US President Joe Biden’s administration, and African Americans.
The university suspended the group over its behavior in Feb. 2024 but is now active again. Recently, SJP announced that it will hold a “teach-in” to commemorate the First Intifada, an outbreak of Palestinian terrorism which began in Dec. 1987 and, lasting for nearly six years, claimed the lives of scores of Israelis.
The group’s targeting of Pelzman came after Trump earlier this month proposed an amalgam of Pelzman’s concepts and his own, which notably involved the US occupying Gaza in perpetuity to oversee its reconstruction and recovery from the Israel-Hamas war prompted by Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel. As part of the proposal, Trump suggested relocating Gazans in countries such as Jordan and Egypt, which rejected the plan for being unworkable.
“The US will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too,” Trump said on Feb. 5 during a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site — level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings — level it out, create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area.”
Pelzman explained his own thinking on the topic in August, noting that the Biden administration was not interested in his counsel.
“You have to destroy the whole place, you have to start from scratch,” he said. “And then you have an economy which actually has three sectors. You have tourism potential, you have agriculture potential, and then you have — because a lot of them are smart — high tech … This is a triangular sector model, but its implementation requires the area to be completely vacated so that the destroyed concrete can be recycled — ensuring that nothing remains of the vertical construction extending deep underground.”
Trump recently somewhat retreated from the idea, saying he would not impose the plan but instead recommend it. Nonetheless, the controversial and seismic proposed policy change has set off a maelstrom of anti-Zionist sentiment at George Washington University.
In Monday’s letter to Pelzman, SJP implied that it is prepared to harm the professor over his role in advancing Trump’s plan for Gaza.
“If you choose to remain on the premises, and if GWU continues to harbor your malignant presence on this campus, every sector of this community will be mobilized against you,” the group said. “The students of GWU will hold you and this university accountable for your crimes.”
Speaking to The Algemeiner on Tuesday, George Washington University senior Sabrina Soffer said SJP’s note to Pelzman violates norms which protect the unfettered exchange of ideas in higher education and constitutes harassment.
“They are targeting Professor Pelzman for doing his job — producing creative scholarship in a field of academia that is littered with mines that explode with the slightest sense of movement or touch,” Soffer said. “SJP’s slandering him as a ‘bloodthirsty Zionist” and threatening to ‘mobilize’ against him amounts not only to a violation of our discrimination policy but also a brazen act of intimidation which discourages academic freedom and the discovery of new knowledge.”
She continued, “The university must enhance their disciplinary policies and hold SJP accountable for its actions by once again suspending its permission to operate on campus.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Jewish Professor Threatened by Students for Justice in Palestine at George Washington University first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Watch: Washington Post Columnist Karen Attiah Confronted Over Pro-Hamas Social Media Posts, Called a ‘Terrorist’
Karen Attiah of the Washington Post. Photo: YouTube screenshot
An event celebrating anti-Israel writer Peter Beinart’s new book, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning, went off the rails on Monday night after a woman confronted the moderator, Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah, for her social media posts made in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas terrorist group’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.
On Monday night, a packed room of attendees huddled inside the Politics & Prose bookstore in northwest Washington, DC to listen to the duo chat about Beinart’s book, which details his thoughts about the ongoing war in Gaza and its impact on the American Jewish community. During the question-and-answer session following the discussion, Nyah Molineaux, an employee of the DC Department of Health, repudiated Attiah for liking a social media post which minimized Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities in Israel.
“I want to ask you a question,” Molineaux said. “How do you correspond or reconcile your Christianity when on October the 7th you [liked a retweet] that said, ‘What do you think decolonization meant? Vibes? Papers? Essays? Losers.’ You liked that retweet!” Molineaux yelled.
On Oct. 7, 2023, immediately following the slaughter of 1,200 people in southern Israel and abduction of 251 hostages, Attiah incited outrage after sharing a series of posts seemingly justifying the terrorist attacks. She reposted a tweet that stated, “Settlers are not the victims here and never will be.” On Oct. 8, the journalist also posted tweets defending the utility of “armed struggle” against oppression.
I just got out of the Peter Beinart/Karen Attiah anti-Israel book event in DC. A woman confronted Attiah for retweeting a post supporting the Oct. 7 attacks. Attiah said she does not regret it and blamed racism for the backlash, though the woman screaming at her was also black pic.twitter.com/MjkeS0dv5v
— Corey Walker (@CoreyWriting) February 25, 2025
The scene quickly descended into chaos as Attiah tried and failed to interject.
“I can answer your question,” Attiah said.
“No, no, no. I will explain to you what happened, so we can be very clear,” Molineaux continued, before referencing the systematic sexual violence perpetrated against Israeli women and girls by Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists during their Oct. 7 rampage.
“Rape happened,” Molineaux said. “How do you reconcile that with rape? How the hell do you reconcile that with a woman being raped? She was Shani Louk. Her body was taken apart. Is rape OK with you?”
“OK, that’s enough,” Attiah retorted, trying to deescalate the scene.
“No, rape is OK with you, you damn jihadi. It is OK with you to rape a Jewish woman,” Molineaux added.
A visibly uncomfortable Attiah requested the employees of the bookstore mute Molineaux’s microphone. An employee from the bookstore intervened and requested that the irate Molineaux leave the venue.
While being escorted out, Molineaux called Attiah a “terrorist” and a “coward” and said she deserves “every goddamn thing that happens to you.”
“You’re a jihadi, and you’re a f—king terrorist. That’s who the f—k you are. The state of Israel will stand, and if you want to f—king play around and play like Bin Laden, you will be treated as such,” Molineaux added.
Following the explosive confrontation, Attiah clarified that she has “no apologies” for her anti-Israel commentary following the Oct. 7 massacre and suggested that her critics harbor anti-black racial bias.
Attiah said she hoped the incident would serve as “an example of how violent the social media discourse is” regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, “particularly if you are black.”
The Washington Post columnist did not mention that Molineaux was also black.
Beinart, the featured guest, silently grinned while sitting next to Attiah.
Earlier in the evening, Beinart, one of the most prominent critics of Israel in the West, suggested that the Jewish state might be committing a “genocide” in Gaza as revenge for the Oct. 7 slaughters. Although he clarified that he does not support the mass murder of Israelis that occurred, Beinart suggested that the Jewish state’s alleged record of anti-Palestinian oppression incited it.
The left-wing intellectual also asserted, without evidence, that the recognized death toll in Gaza is “far too low,” and that Israel has caused a famine in the war-torn enclave. He also unfavorably compared the Jewish state to apartheid South Africa, arguing that Israelis speak about Palestinians comparably to how Afrikaners spoke about black people.
On Tuesday, Beinart appeared to attack The Algemeiner on social media for covering the event and posting video from it, falsely accusing the publication without evidence of following the extremist movement of Kahanism.
At my book event last night, a Kahanite publication tried to create the impression that I justify Oct 7, even though I condemn it at length in my book. What they left out of their video is me condemning Oct 7 in that very exchange, as I have literally thousands of times.
— Peter Beinart (@PeterBeinart) February 25, 2025
As for Attiah, over the past 16 months she has launched an unrelenting barrage of criticism opposing Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. Attiah criticized 2024 Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris for adopting what she described as a pro-Israel stance during her campaign. The journalist also accused Israel of implementing “permanent occupation and apartheid” against the Palestinians and stated that it is “justified, moral, and necessary to be outraged at Israel’s behavior.”
Although Molineaux told The Algemeiner she is not Jewish, she said she felt inspired to defend Israel because she has Jewish first cousins. Molineaux also defended calling Attiah a “jihadist,” arguing that the Washington Post columnist has displayed hypocrisy by sympathizing with Hamas while simultaneously condemning extremist movements within Africa.
“As a Black woman it is abhorrent to me she is saying she is against Boko Haram in Nigeria but for Hamas in Israel. A jihadist is a jihadist,” Molineaux said.
The post Watch: Washington Post Columnist Karen Attiah Confronted Over Pro-Hamas Social Media Posts, Called a ‘Terrorist’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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World’s Oldest Known Holocaust Survivor Rose Girone Dies at Age 113 in New York
Rose Girone. Photo: Screenshot
Rose Girone, the world’s oldest known Holocaust survivor, died at the age of 113 years old on Monday in New York.
Israel’s Government Press Office (GPO) announced the news on social media. The New Yorker celebrated her 113th birthday on Jan. 13. She reportedly died of old age, according to her daughter.
“Girone was always particularly outspoken about her experiences before and during the war,” Israel’s GPO said. “Today, and every day, we honor her memory and the memory of millions of other victims and survivors of the Holocaust. Never again.”
Girone was born in Poland in 1912, and then moved to Hamburg, Germany. In 1939, Girone’s husband was arrested by the Nazis and sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp. However, Girone, who was eight months pregnant at the time, managed to obtain visas to China for herself and her husband, and they escaped to Shanghai. She began knitting for a living during her time in Shanghai and when she eventually moved to New York, she opened her own knitting shop in Forrest Hills in Queens that was called Rose’s Knitting Studio. Girone sold knitting supplies and also taught knitting classes. She successfully ran the shop for 40 years, until selling it in 1980.
Girone lived in the Belair Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in North Bellmore since she was 109, according to the Long Island Herald. She was the oldest person living in New York, the fifth oldest in the US, and the 28th oldest in the world, the local publication noted.
Girone provided a testimony about her experience during World War II to The USC Shoah Foundation in 1996 and the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of Nassau County in 2022.
The post World’s Oldest Known Holocaust Survivor Rose Girone Dies at Age 113 in New York first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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