Jewish students feel unsafe and unwelcome at UvA
Due to strong anti-Israel sentiment and an implicit call for violence during the recent occupation, Jewish students do not feel safe at UvA. “If you don’t subscribe to a pro-Palestinian ideology at UvA, you’re going to get hit hard.”
Exams are coming up, so the library is overflowing with unsuspecting students on Tuesday afternoon. Among them are Jewish-Israeli student Tamar Efrati (25) and her friends, who are busy working on their bachelor’s thesis for PPLE. Until they hear noise coming from down the hall at REC-ABCD. Excellent time for a break, they think. Let’s see what’s going on, maybe get a coffee.
In the loft, a chaotic scene soon unfolds. People in colored balaclavas parade through the hall; a cheering crowd shouts inflammatory slogans; UvA Board member Jan Lintsen is being yelled at, and a life-size flag hangs from the balustrade reading: “Cut ties with Israeli colonizers. Free Palestine.” It is a frightening sight right in the middle of a university hall, several students tell Folia.
Intifada
The arrival of Efrati, who makes no bones about the fact that she is Jewish-Israeli in working groups and wears her Maĝeen Davied - her Star of David - as a necklace around her neck every day, does not go unnoticed among a number of those present in the hall. “Someone wearing a balaclava suddenly made fun of me for being a ‘dirty Zionist,’" she recounts. “No one intervened or called this person to order.”
When she later hears the word “intifada” - Arabic for “uprising” - she and her (Jewish) friends know very well: time to leave the premises. Efrati: “It felt very unsafe to walk around there. You can’t engage in conversation, so you just get up and leave. Everyone in my group of friends left.”
She is shocked. A day after the occupation, she sends an e-mail to both the diversity officer of the Faculty of Law and the UvA’s central diversity officer, Machiel Keestra. She articulates her feelings and explains that “Intifada” in the collective memory of Israelis refers to a series of terrorist attacks in which people lost their families and friends. “So when Israelis hear that, they feel unsafe,” Efrati clarifies. “I think a lot of students are not aware of that.”
She asks to speak with the diversity officers - a position created to promote inclusion and diversity - and the organizers of the occupation: Amsterdam Autonomous Coalition and UvARebellion. No response has yet been received, much to Efrati’s displeasure. “It’s a loaded topic, and that’s exactly why we should enter the conversation. That is what we are at the university for: to exchange ideas.”
“Brainwashed by Israel”
This is not the first time Efrati has felt unheard or downright unwelcome at the UvA. When she asked a critical question about the geopolitical situation in the Middle East during a lecture at the Amsterdam Center for Middle Eastern Studies (ACMES), the lecturer told her, “You’ve been brainwashed by the Israeli government.” Efrati says: “It wasn’t like I was there with a group disrupting the class. Everyone around me was anti-Israel or didn’t know much about it. Apparently, you’re not allowed to engage in critical debate in a respectful way anymore.”
She says that she also once experienced that a professor in the Political Responsibility course was promoting the global BDS movement. This movement, according to NOS, advocates economic pressure on Israel to end the “occupation of Palestinian territories.” A majority of the German parliament labels the movement anti-Semitic. Efrati did not dare argue with him. “The teacher gives you your grade. So you think to yourself: I’ll keep my mouth shut.”
UvA’s indifferent attitude
An UvA law student of Jewish descent - who wishes to remain anonymous because of possible repercussions - was also greatly shocked by the anti-Israel sentiment during the occupation. He has sent a letter, a copy of which is in Folia’s possession, to the UvA, stating that he does not feel safe here.
For example, he would prefer to wear a kippah while studying but does not dare to wear it on Roeterseiland. “If you do not follow a pro-Palestinian ideology, you will get a hard time at the UvA,” he writes in the letter. “I don’t even want to know what would have happened if I still wore my kippah and walked past this crowd of protesters.”
He denounces the UvA’s indifferent attitude after the occupation. “A call for an Intifada, including the boycott posters, is a political and violent action aimed at stirring up conflict and promoting violence,” he explains in the letter. “But so far nothing has come out from the UvA, no statement of disapproval, nothing at all.”
“Everyone should feel safe, and the university should be a nice place, regardless of origin, sexual orientation, political affiliation, or gender,” he writes. But the UvA seems to turn a blind eye when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to the law student.
The University of Amsterdam does not support calls for a boycott of Israel or Israeli institutions. International cooperation between universities, but also of individual scholars, is a foundation within academia and part of academic freedom. Such ties are generally broken only in the case of international sanctions, as recently in the case of Russia.
Open debate
Of course, a university is a place of many opinions, space for debate, space to be confronted with other opinions and also space to demonstrate. In doing so, however, no boundaries should be crossed.
Tightened security
In response to this article, a spokesperson for the UvA announced that immediately after the demonstration, the university received several e-mails from concerned and shocked Jewish employees and organizations. These were responded to personally, but not publicly, according to the spokesperson.
“We too were shocked by the banners calling for a boycott and the proclamations calling for an intifada,” said the spokesperson. “We completely understand and deeply regret that Jewish students did not feel safe due to an implicit call for violence (Intifada revolution, Free Palestine, from the river to the sea). The university should be a place where no one - as these interviews show - is afraid to dress as they wish, or dare not come out for their religion or identity.”
The UvA has now instructed security “to be extra alert for expressions whether verbal or, for example, on banners, that are offensive or make students or staff feel unsafe.”
The name of the anonymous law student in this article is known to the editors.
