Last week, the New School’s student senate approved a resolution to sever ties with its chapter of Hillel and stop funding the group.
In a 38-page report, the senate declared that Hillel has “extensive ties to violations of international law” as a result of its Israel-based events, Birthright trips, and connections to the Israeli army.
“To continue to fund Hillel at the New School would mean that your student fees would be used to support violations of international law,” reads a statement from the 22-member senate. “Our shared values require us to enforce our policies until Hillel agrees to affirm and abide by international law.”
The school has rejected the vote.
“The New School’s University Student Senate does not have the authority to determine the recognition, funding eligibility, or official status of registered student organizations,” a New School spokesperson said in a statement. “Our Hillel chapter remains, as it always has been, in good standing, eligible for funding, and supporting Jewish life at The New School.”
The Hillel chapter has denounced it as “painful” and local pro-Israel lawmakers have denounced it as antisemitic.
“A student organization at an American university designed to support and include a group of students has nothing to do with the Israeli government’s policy decisions,” tweeted Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY). “This is hateful and vile antisemitism, plain and simple.”
Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) called it an “ominous sign of the times we live in.”
“The discrimination against Jewish individuals and institutions is becoming increasingly normalized,” said Torres. “Even more alarming than the discrimination itself is the lack of outrage it provokes—and the disturbing degree of social acceptability it appears to have acquired in the aftermath of October 7th.”
City Council Member Eric Dinowitz called the vote “despicable.”
“This is a direct attack on Jewish life on campus,” he tweeted. “The New School must not allow the student senate to be weaponized to target their Jewish population.”
None of these criticisms actually address the contents of the report, which points out that the Hillel chapter which has provided “direct personal service” to multiple IDF units. This includes the Golani brigade, which murdered 15 paramedics and emergency responders in 2025, before burying them in a mass grave with their ambulances.
“Soldiers fired on the unarmed workers for over three minutes despite workers’ attempts to identify themselves,” explains the report. “Prior to deployment, Israeli television broadcast the Sayeret Golani commander telling soldiers: ‘Everyone you encounter in Gaza is an enemy. Identify a figure– eliminate it.'”
Across social media, Palestine advocates criticized the New School for rejecting the report.
“Just like Columbia, The New School’s administration would rather gaslight and punish their own students than listen to them,” wrote Mahmoud Khalil. “Everything in service of Israel. Democracy for thee, apparently.”
“Hillel at TheNewSchool was found to have taken money from mandatory student fees and used it to support specific units in the IDF known for notorious war crimes,” pointed out Drop Site News reporter Ryan Grim. “I think doing that should itself be a crime, but the audacity to think there is some natural right you have to take other people’s student fee funds and spend them on war crimes is mind blowing. Hillel can’t raise its own funds to support units carrying out war crimes?”
Occidental College
Last week, nearly 100 students at Occidental College set up a student encampment to students set up an encampment on Friday morning to demanding that the school divest from weapons manufacturing and companies connected to the Gaza genocide.
The move came in response to the school’s Board of Trustees refusing to consider a resolution calling for divestment. As a result of the encampment, the board canceled its on-campus meeting and met online instead.
Despite gaining almost no attention from the mainstream media, it’s believed to be the longest lasting encampment since the campus protests of 2024.
A number of the protesting students put out a statements about the action.
“We decided to launch this encampment because we it is our responsibility to be part of a broad anti-zionist, anti-genocide movement calling on our Universities to divest from death. I am a Jewish student, and while I cannot be at the encampment due to Occidental College’s repression of protest, I will keep on raising my voice for a world free from genocide,” said Even Zeltzer.
“We are creating a People’s University in solidarity with all oppressed people’s from Tongvaar to Palestine. In the encampment we plan to study anti-war and anti-genocide movements, we will connect with community partners, and practice the values that Occidental states so often but neglects in action. We will continue to call for free speech, for divestment from genocide, and to stand with the students of Lebanon, Iran, and Palestine,” said Jacqueline Hu.
“Four days after the encampments reemergence and once the board of trustees abandoned their meeting on campus, students voluntarily chose to decamp,” reported Knock LA. “This decision was made in good faith, as students celebrated the victory of recentering the communal conversation on Palestine and divestment. The relaunching of the encampment achieved one goal for the students at Oxy, which was to send a strong and clear message to the Board of Trustees: students will not stop executing direct actions to continue pressuring the institution of Occidental to divest from genocide.”
A spokesperson for the school told the Jewish News Syndicate that the students had violated the college’s code of conduct by engaging in the protest and that a “conduct process has begun for several students and for a student group” over the encampment.
Further Reading
- Sun Dial: I Passed Out a Flyer. The Trustees Tried to Shut Me Up.
- New York Magazine: Mahmoud Khalil: A Year After My ICE Arrest, I Watch My Back
- Chalkbeat: Mamdani to veto school protest ‘buffer zone’ bill
- New School Free Press: New School professor allegedly struck a student; Students for Justice in Palestine remains suspended for posting about the incident
- The News & Observer: Duke restores status to pro-Palestinian group after controversial cartoon post
- The Daily Northwestern: Northwestern removed a Jewish Voice for Peace banner criticizing Israel. JVP is trying to reinstall it
- Chicago Tribune: Israel boycott question won’t appear on Oak Park Township ballots after packed meeting, passionate comments
Further reading: Omer Bartov appears to be the man of the hour – not only are his credentials relevant** but he is Israeli and served in the IDF. If you can’t read “Israel: What Went Wrong” this interview shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes – emphasis mine:
My view is that Zionism is a political ideology formed in the late 19th century in response to the rise of ethnic nationalisms in East Central Europe that became increasingly exclusive, militant, and anti-Semitic….Jews living in those parts of the world found themselves facing the “Jewish Question.” One solution they developed was their own ethno-nationalism, which they called Zionism. Since they were told they did not belong in the lands where they lived, they chose the ancestral homeland of the Jews—the Land of Israel—to exercise self-determination…Once Jews started settling in Palestine, they discovered the land was already settled by Arab Palestinians. This created a conflictual situation perceived by the local population as settler colonialism. Zionism wanted to create a Jewish majority state so Jews would no longer be a minority, but they remained a minority in Palestine for a long time. Ultimately, considering most European Jews were murdered by the Nazis, the movement established a majority by ethnically cleansing the Palestinian population from what became the State of Israel….Israel chose not to become a “normal” country; it adopted Zionism as its State ideology. The State could exist as a normal democratic state that respects the rights of all citizens, but it hasn’t done so. Zionism has become increasingly militant, expansionist, and racist—to the point of now justifying ethnic cleansing and, for some, even genocide….Judaism in Israel became a religion that justifies brutalizing others and Jewish supremacy….Zionism is now used as a code for ethno-nationalism, exclusion, and the exclusive right of Jews to the country….
**
Omer Bartov | History | Brown University
Dean’s Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies
The Minority Rights Declaration Israel was forced to accept was a contract of adhesion. If the Yishuv wanted their independent state, they had to accept those terms, or remain under international mandate.
Wendy Sherman, Dan Goldman, Mahmoud Khalil, and Even Zeltzer share a perceived or biological Judean or Palestinian ancestry. Hillel, the Jewish Federations, and B’nai B’rith all accept Federal block grant funding. So it is illegal for them to discriminate against those persons on the basis of their Anti-Zionist beliefs. They don’t have to accept federal grants. In the United States, everyone is free to “convert” back and forth between Anti-Zionism, Zionism, or reject them both.
In the twin cases Shaare Tefila Congregation v. Cobb and Saint Francis College v. Al-Khazraji (1987) the Supreme Court established that 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981 and 1982 protect Jewish and Arab individuals from discrimination. The Court ruled that ethnic, ancestral, or religious groups can sue for discrimination based on their perceived “races” that Congress employed back in 1866. At that time, Congress obviously intended to protect the stereotypical Jewish and Arab Anti-Zionist majorities that existed at the time. The Court did not establish an unconstitutional “Zionist religious test” or preference.
Jonathan D. Sarna is the Joseph H. and Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History in the department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies and director of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies at Brandeis University. He authored Converts to Zionism in the American Reform Movement. It records the historical fact that Zionism and Anti-Zionism were (and still are) merely opposing Jewish religious beliefs. Both viewpoints still exist in the USA and Israel, and are not determined by nationality.
The New School is subject to Title VI and VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as a private university that receives federal financial assistance. The New School is required to comply with Title VI and Title VII regulations, which prohibit most forms of discrimination on the basis of religion, race, color, shared ancestry, or national origin.
Let’s be perfectly clear: Individuals can bring legal actions against the IRS based on freedom of religion using the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) of 1993, which allows claims when government action substantially burdens religious exercise.
Dan Goldman and Ritchie Torres need to go.
They ought to read Omer Bartov’s book before giving misguided lectures on morality.
Filed under Trump is publicly screwed: Saudi Arabia, a key Gulf ally, suspended the U.S. military’s ability to use its bases and airspace to carry out the operations, sources say. — NBC
I’m going to go way out on a limb and say Zionists will need a lot more than allegations of antisemitism and embezzled student fees to finance their hairbrained Greater Israel scheme after this fiasco. YMMV.