In the late 1950s, the University of California, Berkeley started cracking down on campus politicking. By the ’60s, this effort almost becam
by Seth Mandel
There’s an iconic photo of the demonstrators marching through Sather Gate in November 1964. Ironically, they could not have done so in recent weeks: The antithesis of the Free Speech Movement, at the center of what is now the antithesis of Berkeley 1964, has had the gate blocked off. Pro-Hamas activists on campus have been blocking the gate and harassing any Jewish students in the vicinity. This comes on the heels of the same group’s violent and highly symbolic night of fascist role playing, in which they forced the cancellation of a Jewish speaker by physically assaulting a Jewish woman, spitting on others, smashing the venue’s window and hurling obscenities that wouldn’t have sounded out of place in The Zone of Interest.
It is appropriate, then, that the jackboot siege of Sather Gate was protested on Monday by a peaceful but determined march of Jews reprising their role as enemies of blood-and-soil racial hierarchies. “At noon,” an ABC affiliate reported that “the Jewish students marched onto Sproul Plaza and instead of passing through Sather Gate and past the banner, they avoided a confrontation by literally fording the creek to get to the other side on a foot path.” The report continues: “The crowd of 200 Jewish supporters ended up in front of California Hall where faculty members offered their support, commenting on the Feb. 26 disturbance that forced Jewish students to move off campus.”
That Feb. 26 incident was the breaking point. Anti-Semitic harassment and threats have been part of life for students there since Oct. 7. Other Jews have been assaulted on campus. A federal civil-rights complaint alleges that two-dozen law-school groups have anti-Jewish policies. Kosher restaurants have been targeted. It’s reached the point where one Jewish Berkeley professor is staging a live-in at his campus office.
Berkeley’s repression of Jewish civil rights won’t be solved by one march, but the change in posture to visible protest is welcome. The students and families tried working with the administration but have been ignored at every turn. A school spokesman even admitted the university would not be taking down the Palestine banner blocking part of campus because, although it clearly violates campus rules, “we assessed that using law-enforcement to clear it would create turmoil.” And God forbid there should be turmoil!
