Universities Raze Jewish Students' Gaza Solidarity Sukkahs [View all]

https://www.commondreams.org/news/jewish-students-protest

Universities Raze Jewish Students' Gaza Solidarity Sukkahs

"I think it's despicable, cowardly, and highly hypocritical—after all the U.W. administration's efforts to supposedly address antisemitism on campus... just to tear down our sukkah?" said one student.

BRETT WILKINS
Oct 22, 2024

Some U.S. universities have torn down solidarity sukkahs that Jewish students opposed to Israel's war on Palestinians have built in recent days to honor the Sukkot holiday and to "protest as the Israeli military continues to invoke the Jewish tradition as fuel for the destruction of Gaza."

Sukkahs are temporary booths erected for the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, an eight-day celebration of the fall harvest and the ancient Israelites' escape from slavery in Egypt.

To honor the holiday, students from Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and other Jewish-led organizations constructed Gaza solidarity sukkahs on campuses including Northwestern University; University of Chicago; Brown University; Columbia University; University of Washington; University of California, Berkeley; Stanford University; Yale University; University of North Carolina; University of California, Los Angeles; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Rutgers University; University of California, San Diego; and other schools.

"For the past year, we have witnessed the Israeli government, the U.S. government, and even administrators at our university distort our thousands of years-old Jewish tradition to justify genocide," University of Washington student Talia Braester said in a statement.

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