The College Fix

Protest took place during talk by former Israeli prime minister

Jewish students at Yale University are still seeking answers after they say they were kicked out of a campus Jewish center during a pro-Palestinian protest in January.

Student Netanel Crispe, who was at the event, said two staff members of the Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale told him and a few other Jewish students to leave after they filmed the pro-Palestinian protesters.

“The principal question that has to be asked is why did the Slifka center give permission for a protest in support of Palestine inside their space and allow members of SJP to participate?” Crispe told The College Fix in a recent interview via social media.

The pro-Palestinian protest took place Jan. 21 on the first floor inside of the Slifka Center for Jewish Life. The center includes the Jewish student organization Hillel.

Meanwhile, a closed-door talk with Naftali Bennett, a former prime minister of Israel, was taking place on the second floor, Crispe told The Fix.

A group known as the Yalies4Palestine held a protest on campus prior to Bennett’s talk, and some proceeded to the first floor of the Jewish center to continue protesting, he said.

Members of Yalies4Palestine (Yale’s SJP) sing “end the occupation” inside Yale’s Hillel. The protest was sanctioned by Yale’s Hillel! pic.twitter.com/i8LD4rzBp0

— Netanel Crispe (@NetanelCrispe) January 24, 2025

Crispe said he attended the protest to observe. He said he followed participants to the Slifka Center, making note that some of them wore keffiyehs, the traditional headdress worn in the Arab world.

“When I asked a Hillel staff member … if the protestors were allowed to be there and if Slifka gave them permission she replied ‘they are allowed to be here’ and ‘anyone can be inside the building,'” Crispe wrote on X.

He also posted videos of the protest on X.

Crispe told The Fix around 30 students participated in the protest, chanting statements such as “end the occupation” and “From New Haven to Gaza.” Some also sang “End the occupation, we shall not be moved!”

Breaking from @NetanelCrispe:

Yale’s Hillel hosted a multi-hour protest last night organized and attended by leaders of Yalies4Palestine—Yale’s SJP chapter—which was responsible for last year’s encampments.

The Hillel kicked out pro-Israel students for filming the protest. pic.twitter.com/WT48BwVDQt

— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) January 22, 2025

Crispe said several Jewish students who attempted to film the event, including himself, were ultimately reprimanded by two staff members of the Jewish center and told to leave.

He identified them as Rachel Leiken, assistant Jewish chaplain, and Aviva Green, director of Jewish student life. Both were telling students that filming was not allowed and that anyone that was filming would be kicked out of the building, he told The Fix.

Crispe said some Jewish students also had their phones taken and the videos deleted by staff members.

Afterward, Shabbos Kestenbaum, a Jewish student advocate and recent Harvard graduate, called for Leiken’s removal in a post on X.

“Any individual in a leadership position, much less one working at Hillel, who escorts a pro-Israel Jewish student out of a building, is not suitable to be working with pro-Israel Jewish students, unless of course, Hillel International approved of such behavior,” Kestenbaum told The Fix in a recent email. “This is not merely my opinion, but the one shared to me by numerous pro Israel Jewish students at Yale.”

He also said he believes “Leiken should have escorted them out of the building.”

Leiken, when contacted by The Fix, sent a statement via email from the center Executive Director Uri Cohen addressing the protest.

Cohen described the protest in the lobby downstairs as “a small gathering of Jewish students … who shared their opposition to Mr. Bennett’s views and policies through song. At no time did this expression disturb the Bennett visit or program in any way.”

“… at Slifka, Jewish students had many different reactions to Mr. Bennett’s visit,” Cohen wrote. “The main event was filled to the brim on the second floor, while hundreds more had wanted to attend but could not for lack of space.”

“This event illustrated much of what it looks like to be a community that embraces Zionism and pluralism,” he wrote. “… Never in history have Jews agreed on everything, and that is certainly true today in Israel, in America, and at Yale.”

Cohen said Slifka is committed to supporting “Jewish diversity” through various social justice activities and learning communities. He said they will not ever “turn their back on any of these commitments.”

But Crispe told The Fix some Jewish students at Yale no longer feel comfortable in the Slifka Center as a result of the Jan. 21 protest. Others who asked to remain anonymous shared similar feelings of betrayal and fear with the Jewish News Syndicate in an article about the incident.

“Sanctioning of this protest by Slifka and allowance of members of SJP inside the building entirely undermined that statement and made the space unsafe for Jewish students at Yale,” Crispe told The Fix.

The Fix attempted to contact the Yale media relations office twice through email in hopes of an interview about the situation and Jewish students’ concerns, but it did not respond.

MORE: Purdue newspaper deletes names of pro-Palestinian protesters to protect students from Trump

IMAGE: Netanel Crispe/Instagram

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