#Shai Davidai

[al-kol-eleh]

[unsolicited-opinions]

I unreservedly condemn Betar US.

Terrorism, racism, and bigotry are wrong and repulsive, whether promoted by Islamists or fringe right wing Jews.

I do not claim them and I wouldn't piss on their heads if their hair was on fire.

This isn't advocacy for the Jewish people, this throws gasoline on a fire which is already far too hot.

The ADL and Shai Davidai are 100% right about these shitheads.

[booasaur]

For months now, Columbia professor Shai Davidai has been harassing and doxxing his students, including those who've lost family in Palestine. He's recorded them, heckled their protests, mocked when they were attacked by chemical weapons by former IDF soldiers and had to go to the hospital. There have been 50 complaints about him, the Columbia president admitted.

Now, during the escalated Columbia protests, he's saying the National Guard should be brought in. Why? EVEN the NYPD admitted they've been completely peaceful. Seems odd when the biggest association with the National Guard and college war protests are the Kent State shootings.

Is there a single objection to this video that isn't rooted in Islamophobia, racism, and xenophobia?

Share what? What's so inherently alarming about this? Why incite more hate and possible violence against people praying?

Please sign this petition to remove him from a position where can continue to target students.

ETA: I forgot to mention, he called the organizers of these peaceful protests--including Ilhan Omar's daughter--to stop a genocide the Hitler Youth.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

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[eretzyisrael]

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[justinspoliticalcorner]

Prem Thakker at Zeteo:

Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian who helped lead negotiations between Columbia University and student protesters, had appealed to the school for protection from harassment and possibly Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents one day before the Trump administration detained him on Saturday, emails obtained by Zeteo show. The most recent among the leaked messages was an email Khalil, a green card holder, sent to Columbia interim president Katrina Armstrong on March 7. “Since yesterday, I have been subjected to a vicious, coordinated, and dehumanizing doxxing campaign led by Columbia affiliates Shai Davidai and David Lederer who, among others, have labeled me a security threat and called for my deportation,” he began. “Their attacks have incited a wave of hate, including calls for my deportation and death threats. I have outlined the wider context below, yet Columbia has not provided any meaningful support or resources in response to this escalating threat,” he added. “I haven’t been able to sleep, fearing that ICE or a dangerous individual might come to my home. I urgently need legal support, and I urge you to intervene and provide the necessary protections to prevent further harm.”

The message was especially notable given several reports of ICE being spotted on campus throughout the week and Columbia’s own guidance published this weekend about “potential visits to campus” by ICE. In the memo, the school said faculty and staff “should not interfere” in “exigent circumstances” where ICE agents seek access to university buildings or people without a warrant. Columbia University and Lederer did not immediately respond to Zeteo’s requests for comment. Davidai, who had been suspended from campus last year over allegations he had harassed university staff, denied collaborating with the Trump administration to get Khalil deported. “Let me be absolutely clear: I have never had a direct line to the administration. Even if I did, I would never use such influence to target an individual. This is not who I am or what I stand for,” Davidai told Zeteo. “Like many, I’ve called out Khalil’s repeated legal violations and demanded accountability. But as I always remind my students, just because one event follows another doesn’t mean it caused it.” In online posts, Davidai had called Khalil a “terrorist supporter” and suggested he should be deported, tagging Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Khalil’s March 7 email came after an earlier Jan. 31 email he sent, in which he urged the school “to take immediate action to protect international students at Columbia facing severe and pervasive doxing, discriminatory harassment, and very possibly deportation in retaliation for the lawful exercising of their rights to freedom of speech, expression, and association…” Khalil cited a threatening post by the pro-Israel organization Betar in January. In the post, the group wrote that he said, “Zionists don’t deserve to live” – a statement Khalil “unequivocally” denied making in his email to university officials. Betar also wrote that ICE⁩ “is aware of his home address and whereabouts” and that they “have provided all his information to multiple contacts.” “He’s on our deport list!“ Betar added. [...]

Targeted Removal Before Arrest

On Thursday, March 6, Khalil emailed Gerald Lewis, the vice president of Columbia Public Safety, and cc’d Armstrong regarding the deactivation of his university ID. Khalil wrote that during a campus protest, he was approached by public safety staff who informed him his ID had been deactivated due to not being registered for classes this semester. “I am a recent alumnus, having graduated in December 2024, with my degree set to be conferred in May. By now, I believe you’ve confirmed that I entered the campus like any other Columbia affiliate, swiping my ID and showing it to security,” Khalil wrote. “I questioned why I was being singled out, as I am aware of other Columbia affiliates who were in similar situations and were not approached, despite being in close proximity to me at the time,” noting that the staff who approached were “well aware that I am a Palestinian national, as we have previously communicated and worked together to ensure safe campus protests.” “However, when I asked for clarification on how I was identified and why I was the only individual approached, they refused to provide any explanation,” Khalil wrote, questioning why he was the only individual targeted and who issued the instructions for the staff to approach and remove him from campus. Khalil wrote that the lack of a clear justification raised concerns for targeted discrimination.

Zeteo reported that Mahmoud Khalil sent an email to Columbia University’s VP of Public Safety Gerald Lewis and cc’d Interim President Katrina Armstrong about being the victim of harassment and doxxing from pro-Israel Apartheid fanatic Shai Davidai and his affiliates a day before his illegal arrest and detention by ICE.

[vyorei]

[dragoneyes618]

It was one of  those rare occasions where words speak far louder than a thousand pictures. On October 18, days after the slaughter of many of his countrymen, Israeli-raised Columbia Business School professor Shai Davidai took to the university’s quad. He asked the small group of Jewish students who’d turned up that evening holding signs calling for the release of the hostages to video him and share what he was about to say with the world.

Then came one of the most extraordinary, painful scenes of the post-October 7 era. The 41-year-old lecturer proceeded to emit a cry of grief almost primal in its pain. “My name is Shai Davidai!” he screamed, clearly struggling to hold back tears. “I’m a professor at Columbia Business School! I am Israeli! But before all of that, I am a dad!... And I want you to know: We cannot protect your children from pro-terrorist student organizations because the president of Columbia University will not speak out against pro-terrorist student organizations! Because the president of Harvard University, because the president of Stanford, because the president of Berkeley, will not speak out against pro-terrorist student organizations!”

Davidai’s passionate denunciation poured forth for ten minutes, as he spoke without a script, his words wrenched from a heart that had been shocked into action. The video, titled “An Open Letter to Every Parent in America,” went viral and became a cry heard across the Jewish world.

Davidai’s warning to Jewish parents was well ahead of his time. Months before the media caught on to the fact that the campuses of elite American universities had become hotbeds of anti-Semitism, while the vast majority of the public was unaware of what was happening in the hallowed halls of America’s most prestigious institutions, the Columbia professor was the first to sound the alarm about the Ivy League’s takeover by extremists.

Six months after the first viral video, came a second one. On April 22 of this year, Professor Davidai attempted to enter the Columbia University building where he teaches to conduct a “peaceful sit-in” in the area where pro-Hamas protests were being held, only to find that, surprisingly, his access card had been deactivated. Columbia’s administration had anticipated Davidai’s attempt, and the university’s chief operating officer, Cas Holloway, was waiting for him at the entrance. Holloway told him that he would not be allowed in “to maintain the safety of the Columbia community,” but suggested he take his protest elsewhere. “No!” Davidai responded, “I am a professor here! I have every right to be anywhere on campus! You cannot let people who support Hamas on campus and not let me, a professor, go on campus! Let me in now!” The crowd began to chant “Let Shai in!” as Holloway remained stone-faced.

Climbing onto a fence, Davidai shouted, “I have not just a civil right as a Jewish person to be on campus. I have a right as a professor, employed by the university, to be on campus! We just want to be Jewish in public!” The video ends with a police officer, acting on Columbia University’s orders, escorting Davidai and his supporters away from the premises.

The second viral video confirmed what Davidai had warned about six months earlier — that the powers-that-be were firmly aligned with the pro-Hamas movement  — but it also underlined something else: the Columbia professor’s transformation from academic to campaigning activist — the face of Jewish resistance on university campuses. The once-obscure liberal academic has become the most prominent and fearless truth teller about the moral rot at the heart of the Ivies. Along the way, he’s lost friends, received threats, become the target of attacks, and had to rethink his future in the United States. But he’s also gained colleagues, inspired hope, defended Jewish pride, and become a guardian for thousands of students.

Four months on from that second video, Columbia, in particular, and universities in general, are enveloped in tense calm ahead of another uncertain semester. Campus protests have ceded the headlines to the conflict with Iran and the presidential elections, but little has changed on the ground. The most significant development concerning Davidai is that his apparent nemesis, Columbia’s president Minouche Shafik, has recently resigned. But contrary to the narrative pushed by the media that this is a victory for pro-Israel voices, Davidai sees it as just another example of the impunity that still reigns in higher education. “Shafik moved on to a better job because it was financially advantageous for her, without apologizing or taking responsibility for what happened,” Davidai says.

Shai Davidai’s story is no tale of a liberal mugged by reality, and waking up a conservative. His epiphany doesn’t reach his politics. “I’m a lefty Israeli. I’m pro-Palestine. I’m pro-Israel. I’m anti-terror,” he says. But for this university professor who has decided that America’s elite institutions are too important to be abandoned — unlike the high-profile Jewish philanthropists who’ve washed their hands of America’s elite institutions — there’s a grim determination to hang on and punch back. “The best way to fight back is by being openly and publicly Jewish and showing them that we are not afraid.”

Limits of Liberalism

Savyon is a small, upper-middle-class enclave in central Israel. According to the latest census, just over 4,000 people live there, among them Shai Davidai’s parents, Eli and Zohara, well-known philanthropists who specialize in donations to Israel’s medical institutions. Eli’s father Binyamin Davidai was one of the founders of Israel’s national airline, El Al. That monied background has inevitably become a focus of the left-wing campaign in America against Davidai’s positions. Lurid headlines in campus newspapers about the Davidai dynasty’s supposed role inside the “Zionist” army are intended to delegitimize the Columbia professor’s activities. But all of that is a world away from Savyon: After months of public exposure during which both he and his family were targets of threats, nothing compares to the safety of one’s parents’ home.

“There were moments when we were afraid,” Davidai recalls. “There were moments when my wife and I had to go to the New York Police Department to show them some things from the Internet. When I was locked out of campus and saw the brainwashing that was happening inside, I was afraid. But it was always clear to me that what I’m really afraid for is the students. There are a lot of them, and they are the ones experiencing all the hate.”

Ensuring the safety of Jewish students goes beyond the typical duties of a university professor, but given what he has witnessed on campus since October 7, Davidai has taken on a responsibility he never anticipated. This role as a “guardian” has forced him to witness some truly abhorrent situations.

“First of all, we had instances of physical violence. Those were completely unacceptable, and yet, no one has faced consequences for them. There was the incident where, after a protest, a group of protesters cornered a Jewish student simply because he was wearing a yarmulke. And of course, there was the instance where protesters broke into a building like terrorists. They took a custodian hostage for a few hours before releasing him. There was actual violence. But for me, when we look at the bigger picture, the worst thing was when the students and professors started talking about Hamas not as ‘them’ but as ‘we.’ They would say ‘we are Hamas’ or ‘our rockets.’ And to me, that really showed that the lines between good and evil have blurred. Because at that moment, when you don’t see the difference between yourself and a terrorist organization, that’s the beginning of the end,” Davidai explained.

“When you actually call on Hamas to harm Jewish students on campus, that crosses the line from being pro-terror to actively engaging with terrorists,” says Davidai. “So, you are a terrorist. You’re pushing the terrorist ideology. You’re not doing it with a gun, you’re not doing it with a suicide-bomb belt, but you are doing it with pushing the ideology. Goebbels was a Nazi. He never held a gun.”

But while what he’s experiencing now is terrifying for any Jew, what deeply concerns Davidai is what these actions signal about the future of the United States.

“If you look at the processes that are happening, most of the leaders of the protesters are young, but in ten or fifteen years, they won’t be young anymore. They’ll be senators. They’ll be in Congress. And if we don’t stop this now, we know where we’re headed,” he warned.

For Davidai, who was educated at institutions like Cornell and Princeton, it’s no coincidence that we’ve seen the worst actions in institutions located in the so-called ‘blue states.’ “We see it more in the blue states because that’s where the bigger metropolitan cities are, and that’s where you generally have more riots, more discord, more crime, and less policing of it,” he explained. “So you have this idea of liberalism — and, by the way, I’m a very liberal person, but I also understand that to maintain a liberal point of view and a liberal life, you have to stop being liberal at some point. And I think American liberals don’t understand this. They don’t understand that if they are liberal about everything, liberalism will end.”

Firmly rooted on Israel’s left — Davidai made headlines last year when he was punched in the face by a policeman at an anti-government protest in Tel Aviv — he’s most worried by the rise of anti-Semitism on the American left. “A very problematic issue is that we are used to having a lot of anti-Semitism from the extreme right. And when they are anti-Semitic, they’re not ashamed of it. But from the extreme left, it’s a very intellectual anti-Semitism. It’s an anti-Semitism that makes the person feel like they’re doing something good, something moral, and you see that more in the intellectual hubs of the blue states.”

However, to find one of the root causes of the problem, Davidai suggests, we shouldn’t focus solely on the protesters, but rather on the content of what is being taught in the universities. In recent years, the curriculums at prestigious institutions have been altered with a clear intent to portray Jews and Israel as the villains of history.

“In some classes, it’s completely open lies, like when they teach about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But there are classes where it’s hard to find the logic. For example, there was a famous case in an architecture class. It had nothing to do with Israel, nothing to do with Palestine. But in a 12-week series of classes, one week, the discussion was about design, and they called it ‘the design of genocide,’ talking about Israel. They insert this into that kind of context. There was a case last week from the translation program, where they have a journal called Arab Literature, and they posted a map. So they put out, what do we call it? A new journal, and the cover was a map of Israel, and they called it Palestine. And they said, with the native languages, it is Arabic, right? So you can see that there are already lies, half-truths. Another example: a student told me they were in Rashid Khalidi’s class. He’s a very famous historian, and Rashid Khalidi, they said, doesn’t lie, he just tells you half the story. So I asked her, ‘What do you mean?’ She said, ‘He talks about 1936 and the land of Palestine, and the Grand Mufti was traveling in Europe. And then his students asked, ‘Where did he go in Europe?’ And he said, ‘It doesn’t matter.’ Well, he didn’t go to see the Olympics. He went to see Hitler in Germany! But when the professors teach you in a certain way, they don’t want to teach you how to think.”

Over the months, Professor Davidai has gained public exposure, and whenever possible, he has questioned not only Columbia’s behavior but also that of other elite universities. In this context, one might ask an obvious question: Given that Ivy League institutions seem to have embraced extreme radicalism, why doesn’t he go elsewhere? The answer is firm: “I feel responsible for the safety of Columbia’s 1,500 undergrad Jewish students. If you ask me personally, what’s best for me, of course, I want to leave. But if you ask me, what’s best for our community? I think we can’t leave. If all the Jews left Harvard and Columbia and Yale, where would we go? And then they tell us, ‘Why don’t you leave? Leave the United States! If it’s so bad, go to Israel.’ We deserve to be in these places. The anti-Semites want us to leave. Staying is our way of fighting.”

Newfound Unity

The decision to fight it out at Columbia — where others have preferred to move on from the elite schools — marks Shai Davidai’s often lonely path in activism. It’s not the only example of his heterodox nature. Many people assume that he’s right-wing and conservative, given his fierce stand for Israel. That couldn’t be further from the truth, as Davidai is a self-defined secular lefty.

“I grew up in what you’d call a ‘chiloni’ home. We didn’t keep Shabbat, but we did Kiddush every Friday. We observed all the holidays. Some of my family members fast on Yom Kippur; some don’t. But I also have religious people in my family, so we’re kind of a mix — we have very religious people, and very secular people. Growing up, and being here, taught me that you can treat religion as something to fight over, or you can treat it as a personal choice and something we can learn from each other. My goal in this fight right now in the United States is to unite all Jewish people. Because in New York City, where I’ve lived for seven years, anti-Jewish crime has been the number one hate crime for seven years — more than anti-African American crime, more than anti-Asian. And for me, it doesn’t matter if the victim is a secular Jew or a Satmar Chassid from Williamsburg, whether he is Orthodox or Conservative. For me, you are attacked as a Jew, and I am a Jew, so we’re all in this together.”

This realization — that many people hate us simply for being Jewish — spurred Davidai to use his newfound public recognition to start a podcast called “Here I Am”, (“Hineni”) with Shai Davidai.

According to Davidai, this quest for unity is the primary change he’s experienced in his personal life since October 7th. “I think I understand very deeply now that with hate and anger, you can’t solve anything. I really think that there’s a lot of hate in these protesters. And I think in Israel, in the pro-democracy rallies that I was part of, there was a lot of hate on both sides. And I think hate is very natural. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t fight. We need to fight, but you can’t fight out of hate.”

Lonely Path

Beyond the sense of idealism often associated with fighting for one’s beliefs, Davidai found that in the new, hostile environment of the American campus in the 21st century, becoming the face of a movement defending Israel can exact an extraordinarily high toll.

On February 7, 2024, a group of social psychology graduate students from the Society of Personality and Social Psychology, of which Davidai himself is a member, formally petitioned the academic society’s executive committee to sanction him. Their charge was severe: They claimed that Davidai “has intentionally targeted and put vulnerable students from multiple marginalized racial, ethnic, and religious backgrounds at risk through his actions.” The letter, authored by a faction calling themselves “SPSP Graduate Students Against Racism,” was submitted through a “representative” as the group, composed of individuals “from racially minoritized backgrounds, pro-Palestinian, and/or themselves Palestinian,” did not feel “safe disclosing their identities given Davidai’s targeting of individuals — especially Palestinians and students of color — who have expressed similar views.”

Their grievances centered on a series of comments Davidai had made on his X (formerly Twitter) account, which allegedly violated the SPSP’s code of conduct. For instance, Davidai had called for the expulsion of “peaceful and non-violent student protestors” and urged his followers to pressure Columbia’s administration into suspending groups like Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace. These groups, it should be noted, have engaged in overtly anti-Semitic activities on campus — but that detail seemed to be of little consequence.

Davidai denied the allegations, insisting he had never targeted any Columbia student. Nevertheless, the university launched an investigation into “alleged misconduct,” an inquiry that remains unresolved. The “witch hunt” against him inevitably evoked comparisons to the Dreyfus Affair — the infamous case in which a Jewish French military officer, Alfred Dreyfus, was falsely accused of treason. “I wanted to make it public because I truly believe that sunlight is the best disinfectant,” Davidai remarked. “Columbia needs to understand that many people are invested in this investigation, and they can’t just orchestrate a Dreyfus trial to get rid of me.”

A conversation with Davidai reveals how profoundly his life has changed in the wake of his fight for Jewish students on university campuses. Once firmly on the path to becoming a conventional academic, he now finds himself  an activist — an evolution that comes with a steep price, especially given the fact that Israel advocates have failed to match the fervor of the pro-Hamas mob and turn their advocacy into a mass movement across American campuses. “I expected more ‘Shai Davidais’ to emerge at other universities,” he admits. “I hoped that at every university there would be one, two, or three professors speaking up and fighting. It honestly broke my heart that so many people remained silent.” Despite this, Davidai acknowledges those who have spoken out, especially the students who have displayed courage in the face of adversity.

Davidai’s activism has cost him friendships. Colleagues who once were close now keep their distance, and some peers shun him outright.

“Shai acts like a 12-year-old in need of attention, desperately staging viral videos and demanding retweets at the direct expense of the community he’s supposed to be caring for,” remarked Lee Kovarsky, a law professor at the University of Texas.

The irony, Davidai observes, is that many of these same academics who now ostracize him for defending Israel would be barred from teaching in Islamic countries due to their gender, ideology, or religion. “What’s happening in the United States — and I think it’s beginning to happen in Israel — is that people are prioritizing identity over values. They decide, ‘I am a progressive, I am a Democrat, I am a Republican,’ and it becomes like rooting for a sports team — you put on the jersey, and it doesn’t matter what the team does.”

Exit Strategy

The campaign against Davidai did not remain confined to the digital sphere; by mid-April 2024, it had gained national attention.

On April 17, 2024, Minouche Shafik, then president of Columbia University, was summoned to testify before Congress regarding her administration’s failure to address anti-Semitic incidents on campus. Unlike her counterparts at Penn and Harvard, who had faced similar inquiries, Shafik had the advantage of time to prepare, having been out of the country when her peers were grilled by Congress. But there was one issue she couldn’t sidestep. During the session, Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar explicitly named Shai Davidai, accusing him of harassing students who were peacefully protesting in support of Palestine. Shafik, visibly perturbed by Davidai’s relentless criticism of her leadership, tersely responded, “As president, I’m used to being attacked, but attacking our students is unacceptable.”

This moment made official what had been an open secret: Davidai was now the face of Jewish resistance on campus, and the prime target of pro-Hamas groups. And as such, he was marked for retribution.

Davidai’s response was swift and unambiguous. “The President of Columbia knows for a FACT that I’ve never attacked any of our students,” he wrote. “She knows I have been only speaking out against pro-Islamic Jihad organizations, their radical leaders, and terrorist-loving professors. She lied under oath.”

One might have expected the Shafik-Davidai confrontation to escalate, but many were caught off guard by what happened next.

Last week, Minouche Shafik resigned as president of Columbia University, and most media outlets portrayed her departure as a triumph for the pro-Israel movement. Shafik was seen as a “casualty” of the Jewish resistance that has gained momentum in response to the wave of harassment on university campuses in recent months. Her resignation followed that of Harvard’s Claudine Gay in January 2024 and Penn’s Liz Magill, who was the first to step down in December 2023. Shafik, who had failed to label Hamas as a terrorist organization and couldn’t ensure the safety of Jewish faculty and students at Columbia following the events of October 7, stated in her resignation letter that “This period has taken a considerable toll on my family, as it has for others in our community.”

If this was indeed a victory for the Jewish resistance, its architect would undoubtedly be Columbia’s own Professor Shai Davidai, the first to sound the alarm about the rise of anti-Semitism on university campuses, with Columbia being a particular focus. Yet, Davidai offers a perspective that challenges the prevailing narrative. “The reality is that they didn’t dismiss her. We didn’t fire her. She resigned. She left her job to take another, better position within the British government,” Davidai told Mishpacha following the announcement, referring to Shafik’s advisory role at the Foreign Office, an appointment that’s come under heavy criticism because of her role in the Columbia debacle. “It might seem like a small difference, but it’s actually quite significant because it reflects what’s been happening at Columbia all year — you can act with impunity, and there are no consequences. She essentially decided she wanted to leave. But no one told her, ‘You did wrong. You need to go.’ And at no point did she admit to any mistakes.”

Staying the Course

While the resistance movement may not have achieved its goals at the highest levels of university leadership, it has certainly struck a blow where it hurts academia the most — in the wallet. The universities’ failure to condemn antisemitism has been a wake-up call for many Jewish donors, who have realized that, unwittingly, they have been funding the indoctrination of future generations. Heavyweights like billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman and investor Mark Rowan, who have donated hundreds of millions of dollars to Ivy League schools, have frozen their contributions until the administrations firmly condemn the pro-Hamas demonstrators. Specifically, at Columbia, names like Robert Kraft, Leon Cooperman, and Leonard Blavatnik have made the same decision — a move that Davidai sees as very positive. In fact, last year, the university postponed its annual fundraising campaign, known as “Giving Day,” due to the backlash from donors over how the administration handled the aftermath of October 7th. In 2022, Columbia raised $30 million in just 24 hours. There was no campaign in 2023, and this year’s is theoretically scheduled for October 1st.

“That’s another way to fight,” Davidai asserted. “I think part of the battle is just being openly and proudly Jewish on campus, holding an Israeli flag, going to pro-Hamas protests and pushing back, showing them that we’re not afraid, we’re not going to leave. And it also means that people with money need to stop giving it to Columbia.”

But beyond the shifts in his social and more personal circle, the events that Davidai and his family have experienced since October 7th have made them uncertain about their future in the United States.

“I’m raising my two amazing kids in New York, and for the next two years, at least, I’m staying in the United States because I think I have a personal responsibility, but we also have a responsibility as a community to fight back here,” he explains. “In two years, we’ll have to see what’s happening in Israel, what’s happening in the world, and then make decisions based on the new facts.”

Like many in America’s vast Israeli diaspora, the October 7 attacks — and the depressing response of so many on the American left — have led Davidai to question what they’re doing in the land that offered so much to liberal high-achievers like him.

“You know, Israelis living in the United States never stop thinking about going back to Israel,” he says. “The question is, do you think about it every day, every week, or every month? In the beginning, I thought about it every day. I’ve been in the United States for 14 years, so my wife and I used to think about it every day, then every week, and after several years, once a month. But the truth is, after October 7th, that thought is back in my mind every day.”

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Dion J. Pierre

Published: Feb 6, 2024

Columbia University professor Shai Davidai, a Jewish Israeli, defended his right to condemn Hamas’ atrocities on Thursday after learning that an anonymous group of graduate students has accused him of anti-Palestinian racism and demanded that a professional association of which he is a member publicly censure him.

Anti-Zionist TikTok influencer Jessica Burbank first reported the accusations the graduate students lodged in a letter to the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP), an organization founded in 1974 to promote the social psychology field and its usefulness to society. Comprising over 7,500 student and faculty members, it provides invaluable funding and networking opportunities.

Accusing Davidai of “targeting individuals — especially Palestinians and students of color,” the students’ letter describes his efforts to hold pro-Hamas student groups accountable for harassing Jewish students and defending terror as “decolonization” as “blatant dereliction of duty with respect to his responsibilities and ethical standards as a professor and faculty member of SPSP.” The students additionally accused him of promoting “doxxing” and “misrepresenting” the views of pro-Hamas groups, all of whom have defended Hamas’ atrocities on Oct. 7 while calling for a ceasefire, a strategy they have employed to portray themselves as a pro-peace movement.

On Thursday, Professor Davidai told The Algemeiner that the man depicted in the letter is not someone his community, students, and peers would recognize, and he accepts that enduring assaults on his character is a consequence of defending the Jewish people wherever they are, be it Israel or New York City.

“Look, I’m speaking up against evil, and against the support of evil,” he said. “I’m willing to take the reputational hits because people that won’t like me for saying what I’m saying — I don’t need them to like me. This isn’t about the performative virtue signaling that is en vogue right now. This is about having a moral compass and standing up for what’s right.”

Davidai went on to express concern that his colleagues in the field have not defended him, a silence which suggests that incriminating pro-Israel activists with baseless accusations will not be denounced or resisted even by moderates holding nuanced views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Israel’s war against Hamas.

“If I have to pay the price, I’ll pay the price. Thousands and thousands of Jews and non-Jews contact me to say that calling out pro-Hamas support on US college campuses is the right thing to do,” he continued. “And the irony is that I won’t be silenced. They might take away my reputation. They might take away my job and my career. But I’m not the kind of person who will be quiet now that there’s a personal cost for telling the truth. They’re just proving my point.”

Davidai first achieved national notoriety after delivering a thunderous speech before a crowd of students and others gathered on campus in which he called the school’s president a “coward” for refusing to condemn Hamas apologists and anti-Zionist demonstrations on campus.

“I’m talking to you as a dad, and I want you to know we cannot protect your children from pro-terror student organizations, because the president of Columbia University will not speak out,” Davidai said to the students, whom he asked to film and send the remarks to their parents. “Citizens of the US are right now kidnapped in Gaza, and yet the president of the university is allowing — is giving — her support to pro-terror student organizations.”

In many ways, becoming a public figure has been a detriment, Davidai said. His email is flooded daily with notes from antisemites accusing him of being an “Elder of Zion” and a “genocidal baby killer.”

His colleagues, furious that his exposing antisemitism and left-wing radicalism at Columbia University has caused important donors to pull their support from the school, have never commented on the hate mail even though they are always copied as recipients of it, he alleged.

==

"One of the things that is a classic trope of the religious bigot, is while they're denying people their rights, they claim that their rights are being denied. While they are persecuting people, they claim to be persecuted. While they are behaving colossally offensively, they claim to be the offended party. It's upside-down world." -- Salman Rushdie

The people chanting for the extermination of Jews and the destruction of Israel, supporting a Jihadist terrorist organization, and demanding Israel not be allowed to defend itself, are pretending they're the victims and filing spurious claims to silence dissenters.

This is how you tell who really holds the power. No matter what their stupid slogans and fraudulent scholarship say. You're not supposed to notice it because of the victimhood language they use, but they're aggressive authoritarians who have seized institutional power. The fact that Davidai's career is at risk for a completely reasonable position, while the students' enrolments are not, demonstrates this.

The sets of pro-Hamas people and pro-Palestine people are a single circle. They are not a peace movement; they are a violence movement. Like Islam itself, watch what happens when you don't submit to its demands.

[youthchronical]

Who is Mahmoud Khalil? Columbia University pro-Palestine activist detained by US - The Times of India

Federal immigration agents detained Mahmoud Khalil, a well-known pro-Palestinian activist, on Saturday. Khalil, a legal US resident, played a major role in last year’s student protests at Columbia University. Khalil’s wife, who is eight months pregnant, was unable to locate him at a New Jersey detention center, raising concerns about his whereabouts, reported news agency Associated…

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

Source

[eretzyisrael]

Source

[angrybell]

So the rule for Columbia University seems to be simple. If you celebrate killing Jews and promising make the Intifada a world wide phenomenon, you’re cool and no penalties shall accrue. If you protest and criticize people who are celebrating the killing of Jews and promising to make Intifada a world wide phenomenon, you’re evil and you will be suspended from your job and banned from campus.

Clearly not enough people have divested from Columbia. More needs to happen because this is beyond absurd.

[zigcarnivorous]

remindself : juxtapose two notorious whitetrash shitbags that got utterly dragged on like the same day and compose essay on their respective 'reach' (audience versus investors) and delineate the corruption haaa *take special note and dishonorable mentions bc several more public zionists got wrecked simultaneously and it is so good🥰

[al-kol-eleh]

Shai Davidai