The University of Maryland’s Student Government Association (SGA) passed a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) resolution on Wednesday night, the eve of Yom Kippur, prompting fierce backlash from Jewish leaders on campus who called the timing “exclusionary”, JTA reported Friday.
The resolution, passed 29-1, urges the university and its charitable foundation to adopt BDS policies targeting companies and academic institutions allegedly “supporting or profiting from Israel’s regime of apartheid and occupation.” University officials clarified the vote is symbolic and will not affect investment policy.
Rabbi Ari Israel, executive director of UMD Hillel, condemned the vote’s timing, stating, “Holding a vote that seeks to demonize the Jewish homeland on a day when Jewish students will not be able to participate is exclusionary, biased, and flat-out wrong.”
The vote had originally been scheduled for Rosh Hashanah but was moved to Yom Kippur, according to student newspaper The Diamondback. In protest, 18 Jewish student organizations - including UMD Hillel - announced a boycott of future SGA meetings on the issue.
During the meeting, senior Abel Amene defended the scheduling: “I know some Zionists and Jewish exceptionalists have claimed that today is not the day to bring this resolution to a vote,” he said, as quoted by JTA. “But I ask you this simple question, if the genocide is occurring on a Jewish holiday … should we wait until tomorrow or the next day to do the little work we can do in our power to stop that genocide?”
The resolution follows years of failed BDS efforts at UMD, including attempts in 2017, 2019 (which was scheduled on Passover), and 2024. Its passage comes months after students voted in favor of divestment in an April campus-wide referendum.
UMD has one of the largest Jewish student populations in the country, and has seen a rise in anti-Israel protests on campus since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, massacre in Israel.
Last year, UMD permitted an anti-Israel rally by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) to take place on October 7. The university subsequently revoked the permit, following concerns from Jewish groups that such an event could glorify the Hamas murders.
SJP, in response, filed a lawsuit against the university. A federal judge later ordered UMD to permit the rally.
(Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)