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Sarah Lawrence College: When Students Come Back to Campus and Find Hate on the Wall
A vandalized wall at Sarah Lawrence College, which also contained other expletives. Photo: provided by the author.
I walked onto the Sarah Lawrence campus after Thanksgiving break and I saw it immediately — an entire wall covered in spray paint: “ZIONISM IS RACISM + GENOCIDE,” “F** NORMALIZATION,” and at the bottom, in red, “FREE PALESTINE.”
It was not a poster that could be removed, nor a handheld sign carried by students for an hour and then forgotten. It was painted directly onto the physical heart of the college, on a building that every student must pass on the way to classes, dorms, the dining hall, and the library.
I stopped walking — not out of shock, which is hard to muster after the last 14 months, but out of something closer to recognition. This is what Jewish students have been telling me for years: the hostility is no longer atmospheric or abstract. It is literal. It is on the wall.
There are many ways to debate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On a truly open campus, students would do exactly that: argue, challenge, learn, read history, confront complexity. They would take intellectual risks, not moral shortcuts. But graffiti like this is not an argument. It is an accusation — an act of ideological reductionism that targets not ideas, but people.
For Jewish students, especially those who identify as Zionist, this lands one way: You are unwelcome here. You are immoral. You are dangerous.
This is the part administrators pretend not to understand: Zionism is not an exotic ideology. For most Jewish students, it is the simple belief that the Jewish people — like any other people — have a right to self-determination and safety. It is an affirmation of peoplehood, identity, and continuity.
Even students who criticize Israeli governments, who oppose settlements, who long for a two-state solution, still recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish homeland. To equate that belief with racism and genocide is to cast those students — by virtue of something core to their identity — outside the bounds of moral community.
When that message is spray-painted on a central wall, its effect is not symbolic. Every student sees it — and not just Jewish students. Its message — that Israel commits genocide and is inherently evil — is etched into the mind of every student who sees it. And many will just accept it as fact. In 20 years, these students will be the ones running American governments and corporations.
For years, Sarah Lawrence has struggled with the dynamics this moment exposes. I have written repeatedly about the school’s culture of ideological sorting and quiet intimidation — an environment where the loudest voices enforce the narrowest moral boundaries.
Students report that they self-censor. They tell me they avoid certain courses. They confide that dissent is treated as betrayal. They describe a campus where activism substitutes for analysis, and where social risk-taking is punished far more swiftly than academic laziness.
Jewish students hesitate before raising their hand in class. They scan the room before mentioning Israel. They avoid posting anything online about their identity. They watch friendships quietly erode. They walk campus angry and also in fear (and after all the violent attacks on Jewish students, those fears are justified).
One student told me she now takes a longer route to her dorm each evening — not because she fears debate, but because she is tired of being told, in giant letters, that her very existence is genocidal. Another confided that she now speaks in one course only when she’s certain no one will turn her comments into accusations. These are not abstractions. They are the lived experiences of 18-, 19-, and 20-year-olds trying to learn on a campus that tells them they are a moral problem.
University leaders, by contrast, often default to vague bromides about free discussion and open dialogue.
In theory, those are admirable commitments. But in practice, they evade the real issue: the climate created when a minority community’s identity is treated as inherently illegitimate. Administrators know perfectly well how group-based invective affects other communities. They know how words can undermine belonging. They would never allow a wall to remain covered in sweeping condemnations of any other minority group.
Only when the target is Jews do they behave as if the harm is ambiguous, as if the insult might still count as “conversation.”
Nor is Sarah Lawrence alone. Across the country, campuses have seen similar eruptions of anti-Zionist hostility. The pattern is national: the word “Zionist” has become a socially permissible euphemism for “Jew,” giving cover to old prejudices dressed in the language of justice.
Universities cannot resolve the geopolitics of the Middle East. But they can absolutely control how they respond to explicit acts that undermine trust, safety, and dignity. They can distinguish between critique and dehumanization. They can insist that campus discourse meet the minimal standards of civility. They can refuse to let slogans replace scholarship. And they can recognize that Jewish students deserve the same institutional protections as any other minority community.
This requires courage — moral, civic, and institutional. It requires telling activists on all sides that a university’s purpose is not to reenact global conflicts, but to learn about them with rigor and respect. It requires resisting the drift toward ideological litmus tests. It requires defending the idea that disagreement should not mean denigration.
At Sarah Lawrence, where the ideals of openness and inquiry are already fragile, it becomes a warning. Either the college recommits itself to pluralism, open inquiry, and mutual respect, or it allows a new orthodoxy — one rooted in fear, exclusion, and performative moralism — to become permanent.
Jewish students will remember which path their institution chooses. And so should everyone else.
Samuel J. Abrams is a professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence College and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
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Israel to Reopen Jordan Border Crossing for Passage of Aid, Goods After Terror Attack
Israeli police officers stand next to their cars at the scene of a fatal shooting at the Allenby Crossing between the West Bank and Jordan, Sept. 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Oren Ben Hakoon
Israel is set to reopen the Allenby Crossing with Jordan to the passage of goods and aid on Wednesday, an Israeli security official said on Tuesday.
The border crossing has been closed to aid and goods since September, when a driver bringing humanitarian aid to Gaza opened fire and killed two Israeli military personnel before being killed by security forces.
The security official said the crossing would have tightened screening for Jordanian drivers and truck cargo, and that a dedicated security force had been assigned to the crossing.
The Allenby Bridge is a key route for trade between Jordan and Israel and the only gateway for more than 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank to reach Jordan.
The crossing reopened to passenger traffic shortly after the attack, but had remained closed to aid trucks. The UN says the crossing is a major route for bringing food, tents, and other goods into Gaza.
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US Imposes Sanctions on Network It Accuses of Fueling War in Sudan
A bronze seal for the Department of the Treasury is shown at the US Treasury building in Washington, US, Jan. 20, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
The US on Tuesday imposed sanctions on actors it accused of fueling the war in Sudan, taking aim at what it said was a transnational network that recruits former Colombian military personnel and trains soldiers, including children, to fight for the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
The US Treasury Department in a statement seen by Reuters said that it imposed sanctions on four individuals and four entities that were part of the network, which it said was largely comprised of Colombian nationals and companies.
The Treasury said that since at least 2024, hundreds of former Colombian military personnel have traveled to Sudan to fight alongside the RSF, which the US has accused of committing genocide.
The Colombians have provided the RSF with tactical and training expertise and served as infantry and artillerymen, drone pilots and instructors, among other roles, with some training children to fight for the paramilitary group, according to Treasury, which added that Colombian fighters have participated in battles across Sudan, including in the capital Khartoum and al-Fashir.
“The RSF has shown again and again that it is willing to target civilians — including infants and young children. Its brutality has deepened the conflict and destabilized the region, creating the conditions for terrorist groups to grow,” Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, John Hurley, said in the statement.
Among those targeted was Alvaro Andres Quijano Becerra, who the Treasury said was a dual Colombian-Italian national and a retired Colombian military officer based in the United Arab Emirates. It accused him of playing a central role in recruiting and deploying former Colombian military personnel to Sudan.
The UAE has been widely accused of arming the RSF, an accusation it has denied.
“The United States again calls on external actors to cease providing financial and military support to the belligerents,” Treasury said in the statement.
The conflict between the Sudanese army and the RSF erupted in April 2023 out of a power struggle and has triggered famine, ethnic killings, and mass displacement. In November, US President Donald Trump said he would intervene to stop the conflict.
The United States, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia – known as the Quad – earlier in November proposed a plan for a three-month truce followed by peace talks. The RSF responded by saying it had accepted the plan, but soon after attacked army territory with a barrage of drone strikes.
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When Is a Wedding Too Extravagant?
A wedding ceremony, illustrative. Photo: Jason Hutchens via Wikimedia Commons.
It has been part of my life as a rabbi to attend weddings — more often than not, to “perform.” I reckon that I have attended approximately 100 weddings of various sizes, styles, numbers, and traditions. Some I have enjoyed, but I am finding it increasingly hard to feel comfortable about many of the religious weddings I have attended.
They are getting more and more protracted. People are forced to wait for hours. A wedding I once attended was so overcrowded by jostling relatives under the Chupah, that the father of the bride couldn’t get close enough to give his son in law a sip of the cup of wine.
One band plays for the reception, another for the Chupah, a third for Hasidic or Israeli dances, a fourth for ballroom dancing, and a fifth for a disco. One singer is for Ashkenazi cantorial style, one for Hasidic pop, one for Sephardi tunes, and another for Carlebach. As for food, a loaded reception is offered as people arrive, and sushi is a must. There are multiple servings and meals, and if there’s a Hasidic Mitzvah dance at the end, you’ll get a complete breakfast too.
It is fashionable in the Diaspora to fly in rabbis from Israel. An oligarch recently hired an airliner to ferry over musicians, artistes, and security alone. Consider the millions being spent each year on religious weddings. And then consider how much charitable and educational work could be accomplished instead of a one-night bash that disappears into photo albums a few hours after it is over, to be glanced at perhaps once a year thereafter. The cost and the waste is mind blowing.
Successful businessmen have to invite business contacts, flaunt their success to attract new capital, and invite gaggles of rabbis to prove their religious status and legitimacy. It is not just spoiled daughters who clamor for excess; it’s magnates, too.
Over the past 50 years of rising Jewish affluence, as well as continuing Jewish poverty, many religious leaders of all denominations have tried hard to limit excessive expenditures on weddings, to absolutely no avail. Desperate parents have offered apartments and cars instead of huge weddings. Occasionally, you hear of a couple who elope to Israel or just take a rabbi and two witnesses into Central Park, but the pressures are great — and in most Jewish circles, it is simply not an option.
Recently, I entertained a relatively humble Rosh Yeshiva from Israel with 10 children who has personal debts of $500,000 because of marrying off his five daughters. It was not just the cost of the wedding itself or all the celebrations. It was the need to buy an apartment for each that left him staggering under such a heavy load of debt. And at the same time, he must help and support his five sons who are also married but are studying full time. This is not atypical. A rented apartment is unacceptable nowadays. And the chances of someone with no serious secular education getting a good job are massively reduced in Israeli society, indeed in any society nowadays.
Judaism is expanding because of its families blessed with many children. And it is true that social welfare (incidentally a product of the secular culture they despise) enables this mindset. But eventually, at some point, social welfare will have to be cut back as fewer enter the workplace to fund all this with their taxes.
For our own good as a people, we must call a halt to throwing so much money away on pure self-indulgence. If we care for our future, we must give as much attention to supporting Jewish education as we do to celebrating occasions. And the place to start is weddings. Make your calculations. Then set budgets, be realistic, and divide the sum evenly between your needs and those of others.
It is a huge mitzvah to rejoice at weddings and to help couples get married. Every day in our prayers, we are reminded how important Hachnasat Kala is. But that doesn’t mean we should go overboard. There should be limits.
The author is a rabbi and writer based in New York.