Noga Brenner-Samia, Director General of Hillel in Israel, participated in a special discussion held at the Knesset’s State Audit Committee, regarding the conclusions of the State Comptroller's report on dealing with the wave of antisemitism.
In an interview with Israel National News - Arutz Sheva, Brenner-Samia spoke about the reality on the UCLA campus during these stormy times: "There are students who are very scared and are hiding their Jewishness. They avoid coming to campus, they are staying indoors, while there are students and activists who have raised their heads and are trying to fight and stand up for themselves in order to get their rights to a higher education, for which they paid a lot of money at Columbia University."
On Hillel’s ways of dealing with the protests at Columbia University, she notes that Hillel is indeed putting in effort to raise its voice, while upholding dialogue with the university administration. One of the main efforts now is to protect the students and ensure their safety while working with the university administration to put an end to this, and demand that they enforce the law on campus."
Brenner-Samia also emphasizes that the campus regulations themselves do not allow protests as currently seen against Jews and Israelis and Hillel is demanding enforcement along with punitive measures to be imposed on the violent protestors.
“However,” she says, “there was no real surprise when the riots broke out. This has been bubbling for quite some time and everyone knows that. In some places we were surprised by the severity of the events, and in others we were surprised by the lack of enforcement by the university. We expected the university to cut it short right at the very beginning."
"We are currently preparing for this year's parties and graduation ceremonies, and we are holding discussions with the university administrations to properly prepare for these graduation ceremonies, both from a security point of view and to avoid any unpleasant surprises," Brenner-Samia points out.
In response to our question of whether the protests influence young people's decisions about where to study, she answers in the affirmative. "There are 11th and 12th graders who have to choose a university for another year or two, and this is becoming a serious consideration. Some say that it might be easier to get accepted to Columbia University today, while others say that it might be easy to get accepted, but it will be difficult to study there. It’s so hard to know at this point where things are going to go, but there is no doubt that what happens on the campuses has an impact both on the students of today and the students of the future."
About her organization's activities, Brenner-Samia says that in addition to dealing with the hatred, Hillel continues to strengthen areas of Jewish identity among the students and is a home for them to celebrate Jewish holidays and Shabbat. "This is perhaps the greatest heroism, that alongside all these difficult events, we continue to proudly hold on to our Jewish identity, strengthen it and celebrate it.”