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| Haskelevich, the Chabad rabbi at UPenn, described the events on his campus since Oct. 7 as disturbing and unnerving |
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— Motti Seligson (@mottiseligson) October 17, 2023
Thousands of rabbis gathered Sunday in Brooklyn for its famous annual Chabad event — including hundreds on the front lines at some of the wokest, rabidly antisemitic campuses in the nation.
Several rabbis who attended the photogenic event in Crown Heights and helm Jewish centers at liberal US colleges described to The Post how their campuses have been transformed into dangerous hotbeds of hate since the Hamas slaughter in Israel on Oct. 7.
“It’s been disturbing, unnerving — it’s been a shock to students to see that kind of immediate chutzpah, where the demonstrators came out even before the blood dried up, to shout with such audacity on the campus with no qualifications at all,’’ said Rabbi Levi Haskelevich, the Chabad rabbi at the University of Pennsylvania for the past 23 years, referring to protesters supporting the Palestinian cause.
“We have students who are into their PhDs who said from the moment of the attacks they could not find a safe place on campus,” he said.
In the five weeks since Israel was rocked by the surprise terror attack, some US campuses have been flooded with violent pro-Hamas rallies and horrifying assaults on Jewish students.
Prestigious institutions including New York and Columbia universities in the Big Apple have roundly received failing grades for their responses to the recent spate of antisemitism.
But as hate swirls around them, many Jewish American students have seemed to regain a sense of pride in their religion and background, the rabbis said.
Rabbi Shmuly Weiss, who has been Chabad rabbi at McGill University in Montreal since 2007, said that after receiving a donation of 100 Star of David necklaces, students who had never worn one quickly opted to put one on.
“It’s not just about Israel — they’re stepping up and saying, ‘You know what? I’m going to be a proud Jew.’ Students are scared, but they’re embracing this tense situation that we’re in. They’re very, very proud of their Judaism,’’ Weiss said.
Still, Chabad Rabbi Shlomo Elkan at Oberlin College in Ohio said some students there were so scared after Oct. 7 that they urged him to cancel the campus’s Chanukah menorah lighting ceremony.
The students feared the ceremony would be read as “too pro-Israel” from the school, he said.
To try to ease tensions, there have been conversations on campus involving both Jewish leaders and the student head of the Muslim Student Association, Elkan said.
“We had a meeting last week with [the] Students for Palestine [group] talking about these issues in an effort to bring the temperature down,’’ the rabbi said. “It was a small crowd, 20-something people, but that’s where change really starts.’’
Rabbi Meir Chaim Posner, who has been Chabad rabbi at Yale University for the past eight years, said he has noticed a rise in the “quiet insidious stuff” such as discrimination and singling Jewish students out on campus.
“Many, many students have close friends that suddenly don’t understand or don’t appreciate or don’t affirm what they’re going through in terms of their sense of mourning, in terms of their sense of pain,” Posner said, referring to the aftermath of Oct. 7.
“And then in the weeks after, they’ll find a close friend who is actively supporting Hamas,” the rabbi said.
Rabbi Schneur Zalman Oirechman, who has been Chabad rabbi for almost 25 years at Florida State University, said the biggest thing for students right now is safety.
“The Jewish students were afraid, and parents were calling in, and we had to call the governor’s office,’’ Oircehman said of fears after Oct. 7. “[The governor] sent a bunch of Florida state troopers to make sure there should be protection in case anything violent happened.’’
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