UC Berkeley Jewish Community Members March on Campus Amid Rising Tensions

Approximately 180 Jewish community members and students at UC Berkeley gathered on campus Monday to protest what they said were university failures to adhere to its campus access policies as well as the handling of recent claims of discrimination and harassment on campus.

The mostly mellow march follows months of high tensions between students following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel and Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza. It also comes on top of “dozens” of claims of discrimination from people identifying as Jewish or Muslim in the campus community made since Oct. 7, according to campus officials.

“Jewish students have had to avoid harassment, have had to walk in a creek, avoid classes out of fear of going through [Sather] Gate,” said Noah Cohen, a third-year law student at UC Berkeley who helped lead the march on Monday. He and other students are seeking for the university to enforce policies around blocking the gate, a landmark on the university’s south side that spans Strawberry Creek and connects Sproul Plaza to the rest of campus.

For nearly four weeks, members of Graduate Students for Justice in Palestine have placed caution tape and erected a sign at the gate calling attention to the more than 29,000 Palestinians who have been killed by Israeli air strikes and other violence since Oct. 7, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

The sign covers the central opening of the gate, but two side walkways remain open. University officials confirmed to KQED that the group never fully blocked the thoroughfare.

“In no way are we against free speech or protests, but we are against the university permitting violating those policies when it comes at the expense of Jewish students,” Cohen said, arguing that the group violated policies against blocking the gate and playing loud noise.

The demonstration did previously violate university protest rules against affixing a sign directly to the gate and amplifying sound, according to UC Berkeley spokesman Dan Mogulof. But by Monday, the sign was no longer affixed to the gate, and the noise issue had been resolved, he said.

At the same time, the university also maintains a policy to prioritize avoiding conflict in the course of nonviolent civil disobedience rather than emphasizing enforcement of campus rules, which arose following student protests in 2008.

“That is the policy and practice that we follow with every group that engages with nonviolent protest,” Mogulof said. “We have been making efforts to end those aspects of the nonviolent protest at Sather Gate that violate those restrictions.”

On Monday, Ethan Katz, director of the UC-Berkeley Center for Jewish Studies, addressed the crowd after a bagel brunch in front of Zellerbach Playhouse before protesters started the silent march at noon.

“UC-Berkeley Jewish students and our allies insist that this campus be a safe and harassment-free environment for all of us,” Hannah Schlachter, a student at the Haas School of Business who organized the march, said in an email after the event ended.

Over at Sather Gate, pro-Palestinian students held a banner that read, “Today is the first day of Ramadan. Israel and the U.S. are starving 2.2. million. Gazans have nothing to break their fast with.”

Banan Abdelrahman, a graduate student at UC Berkeley, was holding the sign with fellow supporters on Monday. She said the group’s goal is to draw attention to ongoing violence against Palestinians and to put pressure on campus officials to divest from companies like BlackRock, which invests in weapons producers like Lockheed Martin and Boeing.

“Both sides of the gate are freely open. A full blockade is what’s in Gaza, where you don’t let anything in. This is not a blockade,” Abdelrahman told KQED. “We make sure the sides are open to make sure our community is able to pass through and walk freely and is ADA compliant.”

Things escalated on Feb. 26 when a group of pro-Palestinian students protested a talk by Israeli attorney and former Israeli Defense Forces member Ran Bar-Yoshafat. Students opposing the speaking event criticized Bar-Yoshafat for promoting violence against Palestinians and for spreading “propaganda,” the student newspaper The Daily Californian reported.

But the event was shut down before Bar-Yoshafat spoke. Nearly 200 protesters crowded the entrances of Zellerbach Playhouse, where the talk was set to take place after being moved at the last minute from Wheeler Hall. The university sent out a WarnMe notification to the entire campus community about the protest activity. It has subsequently opened up a criminal investigation into the protest.

“This university has a long history of commitment to and support for nonviolent political protest that respects the First Amendment rights of others,” UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ wrote to the campus community on March 4. “That is not what occurred on Feb. 26. It was not peaceful civil disobedience. We condemn it in the strongest possible terms.”

The message didn’t appease some students, regardless of whether they were protesting or supporting the event on Feb. 26.

“Repeatedly, she said she was concerned and dismayed, but nothing has happened,” Cohen said.

Mogulof said the campus administration is “aware and is concerned about rising tensions on campus.”

Pro-Palestinian student groups were invited to speak with Chancellor Christ on Monday. Students declined the opportunity because they said they are seeking a commitment around divestment, which the Chancellor has yet to signal any openness to. In 2018, all 10 UC chancellors signed on to a letter opposing an academic boycott of Israel.

“Unless she is willing to take tangible steps toward divestment, there is nothing we can tell her that she hasn’t heard before,” Abdelrahman said.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Education has opened up a separate inquiry into possible discrimination based on ancestry on UC Berkeley’s campus.

“We recognize and are responding to the unavoidable challenges that arise when groups with strongly held and conflicting views exercise their First Amendment rights,” Mogulof said, “rights that we are compelled to uphold.”

KQED’s Sara Hossaini contributed to this story.