UC Berkeley professor Ron Hassner hauled a suitcase, pillow and sleeping bag into his campus office Thursday evening and began converting the small room into his temporary home.
Hassner, faculty director of the Helen Diller Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies, began an open-ended “sit-in protest” over what he and many others in Cal’s Jewish community see as the failure of university administrators to protect Jewish students. A wave of anti-Zionist activity — and antisemitic intimidation — began on campus after the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre in Israel, including mob violence on Feb. 26 at Zellerbach Playhouse, where an Israeli speaker was slated to appear.
Hassner intends to eat, sleep and teach from his office until the university administration addresses a series of requests he issued in a letter Thursday to UC Chancellor Carol Christ and Provost Benjamin Hermalin.
“If my students feel that they cannot walk safely across campus without being bullied, then I will not cross campus either,” he wrote.
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