Right now my campus is, to put it bluntly, a giant mess. Campus access has been restricted to students living in the seven residential halls on Morningside campus and the essential workers. I am a paying student just like everyone else at the university and I am currently restricted from my own campus, kosher dining halls and any peace of mind. These rioters are calling themselves a part of the “student intifada” and have been physically moving Jewish students, or anyone who believes in Israel’s right to exist, away from Hamilton Hall. Not only do my friends and I feel unsafe walking near campus, but this is all happening the week before I am taking final exams for this semester. How can I be expected to focus on classes when people are calling, whether they know it or not, for me to be killed for being me?

Unlike the historic protests at Columbia in 1968, where university policies were targeted and not fellow students, Jewish students are now being threatened for just being Jewish. These protests are no longer a moment of unity for the Columbia student body.

My classmates are trying to emulate the 1968 protests at Columbia and failing; in doing so, they create a toxic environment on campus that negatively affects the Jewish community.