Multiple Jewish-led organizations on college campuses across the country marked the end of the religious holiday of Sukkot this week by calling for their universities to divest from Israel amid its genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
Sukkot commemorates the 40 years the Israelites spent wandering the wilderness, led by Moses, after they were freed from enslavement in Egypt. The holiday is often celebrated by constructing temporary structures called sukkahs, meant to remind the Jewish people of their ancestors’ displacement. This year, Jewish students adorned their sukkahs on campus with messages of solidarity with Palestinians, noting that the tradition has taken on increased resonance as Israel’s ethnic cleansing campaign has displaced millions of Palestinian families in Gaza over the past year.
Around 18 college chapters of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) took part in the demonstrations, with other student groups joining them across the country. According to a press release shared with Truthout by JVP, students built Gaza solidarity sukkahs at Northwestern University, the University of Chicago, Brown, Columbia, the University of Washington, the University of Rochester, UC Berkeley, Stanford, Yale, the University of North Carolina, Swarthmore, UCLA, Bryn Mawr, MIT, Rutgers, UC San Diego, Occidental, and more.
The sukkah demonstrations included teach-ins, prayer services, sacred meals, and other programs intended to foster understanding of the genocide and promote divestment and an arms embargo on Israel.
On many campuses, administrators responded to the demonstrations by ordering the destruction of the structures. Administrators also ignored harassment against Jewish students and their allies by pro-Israel agitators. At Northwestern University, for example, administrators tore down students’ Gaza solidarity sukkah not once, but twice — destroying it a second time after students rebuilt the structure.
Isabelle Butera, a student who took part in the sukkah demonstration at Northwestern, condemned the university’s actions:
Northwestern has spent all year claiming to care about the wellbeing of Jewish students, yet they send police to dismantle our sacred Sukkah in the dark of night. This reveals that Northwestern’s claims of caring for Jewish students were really only about punishing any students who speak out for Palestinian freedom. Because we dedicated our Sukkot to the people of Gaza who are currently enduring genocide, Northwestern decided to send in police to harass us
JVP also noted actions against students elsewhere.
Seventeen students from Brown University are reportedly set to face disciplinary action for violating a newly enacted rule against sleeping overnight on campus property, a standard that was enacted in response to the pro-Palestinian student encampments across the country earlier this year. The university barred students from being inside their sukkah or even within 20 feet of it from the hours of 2 am and 6 am, an unprecedented action that went against the university’s tolerance of Sukkot observations in the past.
“Every year on this campus Jewish students sleep in sukkahs without incident. We believe we are being treated differently because we…are standing with Palestine,” said Etta Robb, a student taking part in the Gaza solidarity sukkah at Brown.
At UCLA, police in riot gear stood near a sukkah and did nothing while right-wing agitators, many who had just attended an event featuring far right speaker Ben Shapiro, harassed pro-Palestine students. The agitators shouted at the demonstrators, used homophobic slurs, and tore parts of the sukkah apart for around half an hour, forcing students taking part in the sukkah to leave out of fear for their safety.
“The students were ultimately forced to abandon the sukkah and disperse for their safety. Only then did cops issue a dispersal order, but allowed agitators to remain and destroy the walls and decorations in the sukkah,” a press release from students said.
Shortly afterward, maintenance workers from the university destroyed the sukkah.
A spokesperson for JVP decried the universities’ actions against student demonstrators.
“These universities desecrate these student’s Jewish practice because their faith is intertwined with their solidarity with the Palestinian people,” said JVP media coordinator Liv Kunins-Berkowitz. “A university has no right to dictate what types of Jewish practice are legitimate. Anti-Zionist Judaism is a longstanding and rapidly growing expression of being Jewish.”
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