Yale Jewish students speak out after anti-Israel demonstrators refuse to let them walk through campus

‘The one word I would choose is devastating,’ said student Netanel Crispe

Jewish students at Yale University who were subjected to verbal abuse and had their right of way blocked on campus by anti-Israel demonstrators are speaking out about the antisemitism they’ve experienced.

“This type of discrimination and ongoing harassment of Jewish students on campus has not only disrupted, but completely shattered the framework that I had and that many of my peers had upon arriving at Yale,” student Netanel Crispe told Fox News Digital.

“The one word I would choose is devastating.”

Crispe, 22, was seen on video this week with a human chain of anti-Israel demonstrators barring his way as he attempted to walk through Yale’s Beinecke Plaza. An anti-Israel tent encampment had sprung up on the New Haven, Conn., campus ahead of a Wednesday speech by firebrand Israeli right-wing minister Itamar Ben Gvir.

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Gvir had been invited to deliver a speech on Yom Hashoa, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, by Shabtai, a Jewish intellectual society not officially affiliated with Yale. Demonstrators were seen on video hurling water bottles at Ben Gvir and attendees of the lecture as they were exiting the Shabtai building on Wednesday.

Crispe, a senior who is studying U.S. history, said that when he got word that a new “emergency” anti-Israel protest had sprung up on Tuesday, he decided to walk around the plaza to show that he and other Jews wouldn’t be driven out of what should be a communal university space. When the demonstrators saw him roaming the grounds, he said they called out instructions to form a human chain and bar his way.

He said they similarly obstructed the path of other Jewish students attempting to exercise their right to walk through university grounds. Crispe alleged that the demonstrators would break the human chain to allow non-Jewish students to pass through.

“I was trying to access the space. This is a communal space that is supposed to be available to students and that all students pay a lot of tuition to be able to use,” Crispe said.

Sahar Tartak, a Yale junior, said an anti-Israel demonstrator had referred to her, Crispe and another Jewish student as “scum” as they strolled the university grounds and subjected them to other racist abuse. Video of the aftermath of the incident was posted online.

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Yale graduates stage a walkout during the commencement ceremony at Old Campus, New Haven, CT, Monday, May 20 2024.  (Richard Harbus for Fox News Digital)

“You’re trying to victimize yourself, is that what it is? That’s what you people do, so I should get used to that,” the demonstrator can be heard saying.

When asked who he was referring to by the phrase “you people,” the demonstrator replied “Israelis, Zionists… Caucasians.”

Tartak had been assaulted at a prior anti-Israel Yale demonstration in April 2024, where a demonstrator allegedly jabbed her in the eye with a Palestinian flag. She says being a Jew at Yale the last two years has been “terrifying.”

“Anybody who stands up for a Jewish right to life, and that tends to be Jewish students, that puts a target on your back,” Tartak said.

Crispe, a practicing Hasidic Jew, said that antisemitism on Yale’s campus has been “pervasive” since the horrific Hamas Oct. 7, 2023 attacks on Israel, which saw more Jews killed in a single day since the Holocaust. The student group Yalies4Palestine called for a march to “celebrate the resistance’s success” just two days after the attack.

Yale associate professor Zareena Grewal wrote “settlers are not civilians” and “Palestinians have every right to resist through armed struggle” on social media as the attacks were still ongoing.

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Yalies4Palestine, which celebrated the terrorist attack of October 7, lost university recognition after violating Yale’s rules. (Yalies4Palestine)

Yale revoked recognition of Yalies4Palestine, which is the university’s chapter of “Students for Justice in Palestine” a far-left group linked to many of the explosive campus protests, after members “flagrantly violated the rules” with their campus encampments. According to the Yale Daily News, Yalies4Palestine denied organizing the protest this week, but it was held responsible for amplifying the event with social media postings.

The organization wrote on Instagram that “disbanding a group doesn’t stop a movement” and it wouldn’t be silenced.

Yale also claimed it’s taking disciplinary action against students who participated in the “disturbing” campus demonstration.

The university said it had cleared the encampment from university grounds due to its violating campus rules.

“Concerns have been raised about disturbing antisemitic conduct at the gathering. The university is investigating those concerns, as harassment and discrimination are antithetical to learning and scholarship. Yale condemns antisemitism and will hold those who violate our policies accountable through our disciplinary processes,” the school said in a statement on Wednesday.

Yale said it has cleared the encampment.  (FNTV)

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“I arrived at Yale with the hope and excitement of being able to learn from and contribute to this broader diverse community and to be able to contribute what I had to give as a Hasidic Jew, to be able to be proud and open in this space, and all that was shattered as a dream,” Crispe told Fox News Digital.

Fox News Digital reached out to Yale for additional comment.