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By Marc Tracy and Eliza Shapiro
The arrest of a former Columbia University graduate student who gained prominence amid that campus’s pro-Palestinian demonstrations has divided the American Jewish community, which finds itself trying to reconcile a longstanding focus on Jewish safety and support for Israel with a historical commitment to civil liberties.
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For several left-wing Jewish groups, the arrest signaled creeping authoritarianism.
“It is utterly despicable that they are carrying out this authoritarian lurch under the guise of fighting for Jewish safety,” Eva Borgwardt, the national spokesperson for IfNotNow, a Jewish group that is often critical of Israel, said of the Trump administration.
Sophie Ellman-Golan, the director of strategic communications for Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, added, “Jews, regardless of where they stand on political activism and organizing, feel in their bones how deeply dangerous this is.”
That sentiment was echoed during a news conference near Columbia on Monday evening by several Jewish professors and activists who accused the Trump administration of using genuine antisemitism as a pretext to further its goals of deportation and limiting free speech.
“What’s happening on this campus — or to this campus — is not about protecting Jews,” said Marianne Hirsch, a retired English professor and Holocaust scholar whose parents were Holocaust survivors. “Pro-Palestinian speech and activism does not mean a lack of safety for Jews,” she added.
Joseph Howley, a classics professor at Columbia who has supported the pro-Palestinian demonstrations, said in an interview that Mr. Khalil, whom he knows, is “dedicated to negotiation, mediation and finding peaceful agreements to conflicts.”
Professor Howley also noted that Mr. Khalil did not obscure his identity. Opponents of the protests, including the A.D.L., have blamed some protesters for wearing masks to hide their faces. Several faculty members even proposed a universitywide ban on face coverings at classes and other events.