‘I’m screaming for help’: Jewish students face violence at UC Berkeley Israel talk
Police seemed overwhelmed by about 200 anti-Israel protesters who broke into a building where an IDF reservist was scheduled to speak
Plywood covers a door and window at Zellerbach Playhouse on the UC Berkeley campus on Tuesday following a raucous protest by pro-Palestinian protesters the previous night. Photo by Aaron Levy-Wolins/J.
This article originally appeared in J Weekly.
Jewish students at UC Berkeley evacuated from a campus theater Monday night after a mass of protesters, chanting “Intifada! Intifada!” and other slogans, shattered a glass door at the venue and shut down a scheduled lecture by an Israeli attorney who is also an IDF reservist.
Several students who were attending or working the event at Zellerbach Playhouse were injured, including two young women, one of whom sprained a thumb wrestling to keep a door shut as protesters tried to muscle it open. Another female student reportedly was handled around her neck, leaving marks. A third student said a protester spit on him.
Ran Bar-Yoshafat, who is a reserve combat officer in the Israel Defense Forces and was deployed in Gaza, planned to discuss international law as it pertains to Israel. “He’ll explore whether Israel violates international law, the rules of wartime conduct, and how the IDF can better protect civilians,” a social media post publicizing the event said.
The talk was conceived of as a small lecture in a classroom building. But organizers moved it at the direction of campus police when it became clear that Bears for Palestine, the Cal affiliate of Students for Justice in Palestine, had called for a protest to “shut it down,” said Joseph Karlan, a student leader of campus pro-Israel group Tikvah and one of the event organizers.
@benshapiro @BillAckman Jewish students with speaker Ran Bar-Yoshafat forced to flee from angry mob in an underground tunnel at UC-Berkeley. Only ten Berkeley police officers unable to hold off hundreds. #antisemitism #Berkeley pic.twitter.com/Q1WVWCf6nq
— Daniel Berardino (@DanielBerardin4) February 27, 2024
“Shut it down: Genocidal murderers out of Berkeley,” Bears for Palestine announced on Instagram. The post showed a picture of Bar-Yoshafat with glowing red eyes and a stamp under his face saying “murderer.”
“This individual is dangerous. Ran Bar-Yoshafat has Palestinian blood on his hands,” read the post, which got more than 2,200 likes and dozens of supportive comments. Bears for Palestine did not respond to an Instagram message seeking comment.
‘The mob’
Videos circulated widely on social media, showing protesters outside wearing keffiyehs and masks, yelling “You can’t run! You can’t hide! We charge you with genocide!” and other anti-Israel chants, and banging on the building’s glass door until it shattered. Videos also showed the students who were trying to attend the event being led down hallways — what one person described as an “underground tunnel of the building” — in order to safely evacuate the premises.
The incident raised questions among some about whether UC Berkeley is doing enough to protect Jewish students.
Even prior to the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre and the ongoing Israel-Hamas war — which has led to recurring pro-Palestinian protests that some say use intimidation tactics with violent slogans — the university was under scrutiny after a number of student groups at the law school banned speakers who support Israel. In December 2022, the U.S. Department of Education said it had opened a civil rights investigation into the university over the law school controversy.
A spokesperson for the university lambasted the conduct of the protesters Tuesday. “What happened last night was despicable,” Dan Mogulof said.
He said property damage to the theater was still under evaluation, but he confirmed that there were broken windows and at least one broken door, which was damaged after being forced.
Mogulof pushed back on the idea that UC Berkeley provided inadequate police protection. There were 19 officers present, the university said, including the chief of campus police.
“The size of the crowd, the size of what was a mob, and the willingness and readiness of that mob to engage in violent behavior” were shocking, Mogulof said. “We are deeply disturbed by what happened. It was a terrible experience for the audience.”
‘They found us’
Karlan said protesters found out about the location change for the 6:30 p.m. event about 15 minutes before it was to start, and blasted it out on social media.
“They found us,” said senior Vida Keyvanfar, a co-president of Tikvah. “I was the first to notify our security team: ‘OK, they’re coming. I can see them.’ It was a gigantic mob of people stomping, marching and screaming,” she said.
UC Berkeley estimated there were about 200 protesters who “began to surround the building.”
“I was getting calls left and right from students who had RSVP’d,” Keyvanfar said. “They were saying ‘I can’t get through the crowd. How do we get let in?’”
She said protesters told her they were on the list, but weren’t, and demanded to be let in.
“They were surrounding the table that I was standing at, yelling and screaming. There was spit flying left and right,” said Keyvanfar.
She said a university administrator advised her to shut her laptop, worried that the protesters would take a photo of the RSVP list. “They’re looking at the names,” the administrator said, according to Keyvanfar.
At that point it was determined that it was “too unsafe to stand out there,” she said. “There were protesters to the front of me, to the side of me and behind me. I was getting kind of swallowed.”
Elijah Feldman, a junior who belongs to the Jewish fraternity, was also there to help with the event. “There weren’t many cops, but everyone was trying to keep them out,” he said of the protesters. “They got into doors that were locked from the outside by trying to push through.”
He said he was called slurs and spit at.
“I personally was verbally attacked, being called a Jew and dirty Jew, with a very nasty connotation,” he said. I was also called a Nazi and spit at. All in my face.”
“We’re going to lose this’
Though campus police officers were present at the event, they appeared to be overwhelmed by the size of the demonstration.
Audio of the campus police scanner uploaded to YouTube revealed a chaotic situation.
“We have a crowd at the door on the west side,” an officer says. “I’m trying to clear them away from the door.”
“I don’t see how we’re going to clear this,” another says.
At one point an officer describes a door that’s been opened and protesters inside.
“I need more people at this gate,” an officer says, sounding alarmed. “We’re going to lose this.”
“We need cover!” another yells.
Later, police officers confirm that the attendees have been safely moved out of Zellerbach but that protesters have reached the stage and lobby. Officers report vandalism and broken windows.
“We approach events like this with two priorities: to do what we can so that the event can go forward, and to do what we can to safeguard student safety and well-being,” Berkeley Chancellor Carol T. Christ said in a statement. “Last night, despite our efforts and the ample number of police officers, it was not possible to do both given the size of the crowd and the threat of violence.”
A secure location
By 6:45 p.m., Karlan said, the Jewish students inside Zellerbach were told that the event was canceled.
Videos posted on social media show students being led single-file down a concrete staircase to an underground hallway. “We’re like Yahya Sinwar,” one person jokes, referring to the Hamas leader said to be hiding in tunnels underneath Gaza.
At that point, students contacted Rabbi Gil Leeds of UC Berkeley’s Chabad and arranged for Bar-Yoshafat to speak at the rabbi’s off-campus home.
Sobkin said more than 20 students managed to make it to the lecture. Leeds said he saw several students arrive in tears, including two women who were injured. He said he stayed up past midnight, fielding calls from concerned parents.
The statement on Tuesday from Christ and Provost Benjamin Hermalin expressed “deep remorse and sympathy” to the students and members of the public who fled in fear from Zellerbach and said the incident “violated not only our rules, but also some of our most fundamental values.”
“We deeply respect the right to protest as intrinsic to the values of a democracy and an institution of higher education,” the statement said. “Yet, we cannot ignore protest activity that interferes with the rights of others to hear and/or express perspectives of their choosing.”
In a video of Bar-Yoshafat’s opening remarks at Chabad to students, who were seated at long tables set up in Leeds’ backyard, Bar-Yoshafat acknowledged the “very stressful” interruption by protesters.
“Just because some very young people call me a genocidal murderer doesn’t make me one,” he told the audience.
Said Sobkin, “Despite everything that happened — which was probably one of the worst things on campus I’ve yet to experience other than Oct. 7 itself — we had a successful event.”
This article originally appeared in J Weekly.
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