Colleges brace for Oct. 7 anniversary

Colleges face a major test Monday as pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel students both hold events for the anniversary of Hamas’s attack on Israel.  

Campuses still stinging from last academic year’s protests will see demonstrations, vigils and movie screenings as students mourn both the 1,200 people killed on Oct. 7 and the thousands of Palestinians killed in the war since.

“At Hillel, we’re, of course, taking seriously the anniversary of Oct. 7, which represents, for Israel and the Jewish people, one of the most challenging place in Jewish history in terms of loss of Jewish life through atrocities and murder,” said Adam Lehman, president and CEO of Hillel International, the largest Jewish student organization in the world.  

In the past year, college campuses have been at the center of controversy in the U.S. surrounding the war in the Middle East, with the protests and anger on both sides leading to the ouster of three university presidents, classes moved online and even graduations canceled.

Many colleges are hosting events this year that focus on respectful dialogue in an effort to get both sides to talk to each other and work together to get past the bad blood built up in the past year.

“Last year, we focused our attention on ways of talking to each other after seeing a dramatic breakdown of communication in our community,” said New York University President Linda Mills at an “In Dialogue” event last month, Gothamist reported. “This year, we are focused even more intently on the things that divide us as a community, as a nation, and as a world. NYU has a unique opportunity to bridge this divide. … Let us all gather this evening under the umbrella of our shared community, our extraordinary grief, and our deep love for each other.”

But that divide could be stark Monday as groups gather in mourning for different reasons.

“I think that both on campus and off campus, people are going to continue to speak out against the genocide that they’re witnessing and the growing violence across the region, as Israel has been attacking Lebanon as well,” said Zoha Khalili, a staff attorney for Palestine Legal. 

Lehman says his group has created a specific campaign surrounding the anniversary.

“It’s titled Every Day Since, because for many Israelis and many other Jews around the world, the trauma of Oct. 7 has continued to animate the thinking and their experiences, most notably as so many of us continue to pray for the release of the many hostages who have now spent a year in captivity as a result of Hamas’s acts on Oct. 7,” he said.  

The campaign has four tracks: remembrance, education, activism and bridge building.  

Lehman said many locations will be hosting screenings of “Screams Before Silence,” which documents the sexual violence done by Hamas militants on Oct. 7. 

Pro-Palestinian advocates are also planning multiple types of events, including protests, vigils and guest speakers.

“It’s going to be a very somber occasion, regardless of, obviously, where you stand on the political spectrum, because this is a year that has been a very difficult year in more ways than one,” said Zainab Chaudry, director of Council on American Islamic Relations in Maryland.  

“And I think that many people have decided to be in community, to be with others, and they’re grieving, their mourning, they’re reflecting […] there’s also a sense of wanting to develop resilience and renewed sense of determination to continue advocating for the voiceless,” Chaudry added.  

At Wake Forest University, administrators canceled a talk organized by faculty for students with Rabab Abdulhadi, a professor and founding director of the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies program at San Francisco State University, about the anniversary.

The school said the decision to cancel was necessary due to “a series of cascading events that eroded the University’s confidence in ensuring security in the rapidly-evolving environment surrounding the public event date” after students circulated a petition to stop the event, saying the professor is “a self-proclaimed Hamas sympathizer.”

But at the University of Maryland, the Students for Justice in Palestine group won a legal battle last week after the university canceled a vigil for those killed in Gaza scheduled for Monday that the administration had originally approved. A federal judge found the cancelation violated students’ free speech, ordering the school to allow the event to proceed.

The University of Maryland said in response that it will work on the “implementation of a robust safety plan” that will include a “strong security presence” for the vigil.

“Some administrators at some campuses, it has been challenging. Some campus administrations have been more accommodating and more flexible, more immediate in terms of the guidelines that student groups need to abide by in order for them to be able to coordinate events on campus,” Chaudry said.

“Others, not so much. I think some universities are more concerned about safety issues and just other forms of backlash or retaliation. So they’re, I think, trying to be more careful or be more conservative about how they grant accommodation requests,” she added.  

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) called the timing of vigil for Gaza at the university “inappropriate” after the court ruling.  

And Lehman said Hillel is “concerned at many levels about the way in which anti-Israel groups are planning to use Oct. 7 and the week surrounding it.”

“First of all, we’re concerned about the cynical co-opting of Oct. 7 as a day of tragedy for Israel and the Jewish people by anti-Israel groups. As most people know, Israel hadn’t even responded to the atrocities of Oct. 7 until many days later, and yet, anti-Israel groups are using Oct. 7 and the week surrounding it, specifically to, you know, pursue further demonization of Israel,” he said.