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‘Mentally Unsafe’: Jewish Tulane University Students Issue Open Letter Recounting Harassment by Far-Left Group
Tulane University students Yasmeen Ohebsion and Bali Lavine participating in a demonstration to raise awareness of the plight of Israelis still held captive in Gaza by Hamas after being taken hostage during the terrorist group’s massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7. Photo: Movement to Address Antisemitism at Tulane University
Nearly 100 Jewish students at Tulane University in New Orleans have issued an open letter calling on administrators to levy disciplinary sanctions against the group Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) following numerous alleged provocations, including starting fights, antisemitic bullying of those who support Zionism and Israel, and harassing a professor.
“This organization does not support democratic societies; it vehemently opposes them,” said the letter, which was first published last month. “We understand that Tulane’s administration is trying to walk a fine line of not regulating free speech while still protecting students, and we respect that. But Tulane SDS has crossed the line again and again.”
The letter continued: “The chapter at Tulane is made up of agitators looking to cause conflict and draw as much attention as possible, with many of its members not even being Tulane students. These students use the SDS organization as a cover for their hate-filled vitriol. Tulane SDS has repeatedly hailed Hamas terrorist as ‘martyrs,’ called for Zionist Jewish students to be forcibly removed from campus, and publicly doxxed and released the information of Jewish students on Instagram.”
The Jewish students, three of whom spoke with The Algemeiner on Tuesday, are most upset about what they described as SDS’s repeated utterances of antisemitic hate speech and denigration of Israeli hostages held captive in Gaza by the terrorist group Hamas. Since Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, they said, SDS has operated as a “proxy group” for Students for Justice in Palestine, which is not recognized by the university, cheering Hamas and acts of terrorism and including in their activities an older adult non-student who was recently arrested on campus.
Numerous complaints to the university have gone unheeded despite the extremes to which SDS has gone to shame Jewish students about their identity and support for Israel, students told The Algemeiner. They added that professors have been affected as well, explaining that a prominent Jewish professor, Walter Isaacson, has been accused of improper conduct for removing an SDS heckler from an event in which they screamed anti-Zionist slogans. The student alleged that the acclaimed historian brutalized them, charges which cannot be substantiated based on footage of the incident that was shared online.
Yasmeen Ohebsion, a senior who earlier this year shared with the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce harrowing testimony about antisemitism at Tulane University, told The Algemeiner that school officials must stop their “lip service” regarding antisemitism and take concrete steps to punish students who violate the school’s anti-discrimination policies and harm Jewish students.
“On a larger scale, there’s no effort being made on the university’s part at all to address any of these issues. The university has and likely will continue to resort to useless lip service to students who have complained again, and again, and again, about feeling physically and psychologically unsafe on campus due to the threat of SDS and of antisemitism as a whole,” Ohebsion said. “And it’s really frustrating that nothing concrete is done when, for example, Jewish medical statements talk about not being able to function in class because their lab partners won’t talk to them because they identify as Zionists or when there’s a swastika carved in the medical school and various other incidents that are never even responded to by the DEI [equity, diversity, and inclusion] office.”
Ohebsion added, “At this point, I feel physically and mentally unsafe on this campus,” and expressed concerned about future Jewish students who will have to endure similar indignities long after she graduates in May.
Sophomore Nathan Miller, author of the open letter, said that SDS’s glorification of terrorists disqualifies them from university recognition.
“All these students are showing their susceptibility to Iranian propaganda, honestly, which supports terrorist groups,” Miller told The Algemeiner.
The Iranian regime is the chief international sponsor of Hamas, providing the Palestinian terrorist group with arms, funding, and training.
“In a larger sense,” Miller continued, “SDS has broken several rules governing student organizations, and it’s only a matter of time before the school steps in. Disrupting the educational process, fostering hate speech, operating with non-Tulane students — all of it merits a revocation of their recognized status.”
Miller added that SDS has invited an individual who is 30-40 years of age to their events. This person, known around campus as “Tony,” promotes antisemitic tropes on their Instagram page and shares content created by Hamas.
Antisemitism at Tulane University has affected Jewish students both psychologically and intellectually, causing many to question their place in a progressive political movement that in their view has become explicitly anti-Zionist. In October, a Jewish student’s nose was broken during a vicious assault by pro-Hamas demonstrators, and throughout campus openly supporting Israel risks being alienated from and mistreated by one’s peers. While Tulane has committed to creating a task force on antisemitism and holding educational programs about antisemitism during pre-orientation for incoming students, their actions so far, according to the students, are lacking in rigor and the task force has never convened for a meeting despite being formed months ago.
“As students of this university, we deserve an update if not an answer about the task force,” junior Bali Levine told The Algemeiner. “Jewish students need to know when we will be able to feel safe on this campus. We deserve answers, and it’s on Tulane to keep it’s promise to us. Maybe they’re afraid about upsetting students on both sides, but in trying to play the middle man, they’re hurting all students. We’re waiting for them to make a move, to make a change, which is the bare minimum.”
Ohebsion added, “In my mind, it’s so simple. If you make a commitment, follow it through. There’s no effort to even do what they say they will do when all we want is for them simply to enforce the rules. We want to be included in DEI. We are not reinventing the wheel.”
Tulane did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post ‘Mentally Unsafe’: Jewish Tulane University Students Issue Open Letter Recounting Harassment by Far-Left Group first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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New York City Jews Targeted for Most Hate Crimes in March, NYPD Stats Show
Orthodox Jewish man waiting for the train in the New York City subway. Photo: Hans Lucas via Reuters Connect.
Jews in New York City were victims of more hate crimes in March than any other group even as crime across the Five Boroughs fell to “historic” lows, according to statistics issued by the New York City Police Department (NYPD) on Thursday.
39 hate crimes targeted Jews last month, the Algemeiner reviewed data shows, outstripping the combined total of all other groups combined — 28 — and constituting 58 percent of all hate crimes reported to authorities. So far, there have born 85 antisemitic hate crimes in New York City through the first three months of 2025, with the month of February seeing a 100 percent increase in them over the previous year and March seeing no improvement at all.
The data continues a trend that has persisted for several years and concurred with a rise in antisemitic incidents across the US.
Jews represented a disproportionate share of hate crimes perpetrated in New York City in 2024 as well. Of the 641 total hate crimes tallied by the NYPD that year, Jews were victims of 345, which, in addition to being a 7 percent increase over the previous year, amounted to 54 percent of all hate crimes in the city.
As The Algemeiner has previously reported, antisemitic hate crimes have posed a major threat to the quality of life of New York City’s Orthodox Jewish community, which was the target in many of the incidents. In just eight days between the end of October and the beginning of November, three Hasidim, including children, were brutally assaulted in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. In one instance, an Orthodox man was accosted by two assailants, one masked, who “chased and beat him” after he refused to surrender his cellphone in compliance with what appeared to have been an attempted robbery.
In another incident, an African American male smacked a 13-year-old Jewish boy who was commuting to school on his bike in the heavily Jewish neighborhood. Less than a week earlier, an assailant slashed a visibly Jewish man in the face as he was walking in Brooklyn. Days after the week-long antisemitic hate crime spree, three men attempted to rob a Hasidic man after stalking him through the Crown Heights neighborhood.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post New York City Jews Targeted for Most Hate Crimes in March, NYPD Stats Show first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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NYC ‘Dyke March’ Bans Zionists From Participating in Annual Demonstration
(Source: Reuters)
NYC Dyke March, a public demonstration held by members of the lesbian community in New York City, has banned self-proclaimed “Zionists” from its annual event, citing a desire to stand against the so-called “genocide” occuring in Gaza.
The group revealed in a statement that their decision to ban Israel supporters from their ranks came after multiple members dropped out of the organization due to differences in “political beliefs and values.” After engaging in discussions with frustrated members, the NYC Dyke March committee agreed to adopt “an explicitly anti-Zionist position.” The organization claims that it will “strengthen our commitment” to fighting against Israel and advocating on behalf of Palestinians.
Last year, the NYC Dyke March previously came under scrutiny after organizers settled on “genocide” as the theme of its 2024 event. In a statement, decrying “ethnic cleansing, violence, and dehumanization,” the organization compared the ongoing war in Gaza, to the mass slaughters occurring in Ethiopia, Myanmar, and Sudan.
The organization plans on recycling the same theme for this year’s march, titling it “Dykes Against Genocide.” The group released a statement clarifying that Jews are allowed to attend and condemned the Oct. 7 slaughters as a “senseless loss of life.” After an apparent uproar from its members, the organization deleted the post and wrote that the group “unapologetically stands in support of Palestinian liberation.” In addition, the group affirmed that “anti-Zionism is not antisemitism and any language we put out which is not clearly opposed to a Zionist, imperialist agenda is harmful to us all.”
In the 17 months following the Hamas-led massacre of roughly 1200 people throughout Israel, the NYC Dyke March has produced numerous statements lambasting Israel and declaring “solidarity” with Palestinians amid their so-called “ongoing genocide.” The organization also accused Israel of engaging in supposed “pinkwashing” and “manipulative use of Jewish and queer identities,” with the aim of justifying its war efforts in Gaza.
Israel offers an expansive set of rights for members of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transngender (LGBT) community, including recognition of same-sex marriages. Every year in June, Tel Aviv holds one of the largest LGBT Pride celebrations in the world. Meanwhile, members of the LGBT community are routinely imprisoned or murdered in other parts of the Middle East, including the Palestinian territories.
The NYC Dyke March’s announcement was met with widespread condemnation.
“You cannot exclude the majority of Jews and call yourself inclusive,” said the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in a post on X/Twitter, adding that the group “essentially equates Zionism with racism” in their announcement.
The post NYC ‘Dyke March’ Bans Zionists From Participating in Annual Demonstration first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Trump Administration Planning $510 Million Cut to Brown University Budget, Report Says
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks with journalists onboard Air Force One en route to Miami, Florida, U.S., April 3, 2025. REUTERS/Kent Nishimura
The Trump administration reportedly plans to terminate $510 million worth of federal contracts and grants awarded to Brown University, according to media reports.
Brown University’s failure to mount a satisfactory response to the campus antisemitism crisis, as well as its embrace of the diversity, equity, and, inclusion (DEI) movement — perceived by many across the political spectrum as an assault on merit-based upward mobility and causing incidents of anti-White and anti-Asian discrimination — prompted the alleged pending action by the federal government, according to the right-leaning outlet The Daily Caller.
The announcement comes as Brown scrambles to cover a $46 million budget shortfall and other universities across the country have faced similar funding cuts.
Brown University officials, however, denied that the university had received any directives from the Trump Administration.
“We have no information to substantiate these rumors,” Brown University provost Francis Doyle issued a statement. “We are closely monitoring notifications related to grants, but have nothing more we can share as of now.”
Meanwhile, Brown’s Jewish community rushed to the university’s defense, issuing a joint statement with the Brown Corporation which said that the campus is “peaceful and supportive campus for its Jewish community.”
The letter, signed by members of the local Hillel International chapter and Chabad on College Hill, continued: “Brown University is a place where Jewish life not only exists but thrives. While there is more work to be done, Brown, through the dedicated efforts of its administration, leadership, and resilient spirit of its Jewish community, continues to uphold the principles of inclusion, tolerance, and intellectual freedom that have been central to its identity since 1764.”
Brown Divest Coalition — an anti-Zionist group which recently saw its campaign for the university to adopt the boycott, divest, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel defeated by the Brown Corporation — weighed in too, denouncing the reported cut as “a means of suppressing all forms of popular dissent to the renewed violence of the US war machine abroad.” US Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) also criticized the move, accusing the administration “of a broader pattern of behavior…that will negatively impact communities across the country and lead to layoffs, restrict research, and more.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, the Trump administration is following through on its threats to inflict potentially catastrophic financial injuries on colleges and universities deemed as soft on antisemitism or excessively “woke.” The past six weeks has seen the policy imposed on elite universities including Harvard and Columbia, rattling a higher education establishment that has for better and worse operated for decades with little interference from the federal government even as it polarized the public and contributed to a growing sense that elites are contemptuous of Americans who live outside of their cultural enclaves.
In March, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon announced the cancellation of $400 million in federal contracts and grants for Columbia University, a measure that secured the school’s acceding to a slew of demands the administration put forth as preconditions for restoring the money. Later, the Trump administration disclosed its reviewing $9 billion worth of federal grants and contracts awarded to Harvard University, jeopardizing a substantial source of the school’s income over its alleged failure to quell antisemitic and pro-Hamas activity on campus following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel. Princeton University saw $210 million of its federal grants and funding suspended too, prompting its president, Christopher Eisgruber to say the institution is “committed to fighting antisemitism and all forms of discrimination.”
Additionally, 60 universities are being investigated by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights over their handling of campus antisemitism, a project that will serve as an early test of the administration’s ability to perform the essential functions of the agency after downsizing its workforce to increase its efficiency.
One of those universities, Northwestern University, on Monday touted its progress in addressing campus antisemitism, noting that it has adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, a reference tool which aids officials in determining what constitutes antisemitism, and begun holding “mandatory antisemitism training” sessions which “all students, faculty, and staff” must attend.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Trump Administration Planning $510 Million Cut to Brown University Budget, Report Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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