BrownU Jews for Ceasefire Now arrested

"The students called upon Brown University President Christina Paxson to publicly commit to proposing and supporting a divestment resolution at the next Brown Corporation meeting..."

Photo courtesy B. Evans

20 Jewish Brown University students were arrested by officers from the Providence Police Department on Wednesday while staging a peaceful sit-in inside University Hall, the University’s main administrative building. The students, members of BrownU Jews for Ceasefire Now, were calling on Brown University President Christina Paxson to publicly commit to proposing and supporting a divestment resolution at the next Brown Corporation meeting.

In their press release, BrownU Jews for Ceasefire Now declared that they would not end the sit-in until President Paxson publicly committed to proposing and supporting a divestment resolution at the next Brown Corporation meeting, following the recommendations in the Brown University Advisory Committee on Corporate Responsibility in Investment Practices’ 2020 report “To Recommend Divestment from Companies that Facilitate the Israeli Occupation of Palestinian Territory.” The students believe that divestment from companies profiting from ongoing violence in Gaza is a material way for Brown University to promote an immediate ceasefire and a lasting peace.

President Paxson, wrote the students, “stated throughout the sit-in that she would not consider divestment.” Since their demands were not being met, the students continued the sit-in - singing, praying, and peacefully calling for divestment and a ceasefire. After 5 pm, students were informed by deans that they were trespassing. Legal observers and members of the press were told to leave.

Around 5:45 pm, and for the next 90 minutes, students were arrested on the charge of willful trespass. Officers from Brown’s Department of Public Safety removed students in handcuffs from University Hall and loaded them into Providence Police Department transport vans, in which they were taken to the Providence Public Safety Complex.

Somewhere between 400 and 600 supporters gathered outside University Hall in solidarity with the sit-in and sang a Jewish psalm for peace as each student was escorted out of the building.

All students were released by 10 pm and a court date has been set for November 28.

“BrownU Jews for Ceasefire Now demands that Brown University do its part to promote an immediate ceasefire and lasting peace.”

You can watch video of the protest and arrests here:

Statements from the students:

“I was raised knowing that the single most important thing I could learn from Judaism is the pursuit of justice and the repair of the world, tikkun olam,” said Rafi Ash, one of the 20 Jewish students who were arrested during the sit-in. “We should not need to use the violence that was perpetrated against our ancestors to understand the wrong we see before us. We cannot let our government and our educational institutions support ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and genocide. When we say ceasefire now, we mean peace for all, freedom for all, we mean justice for all; an end to death, an end to apartheid, an end to authoritarian fascist nationalism.”

“As Jewish students mourning friends and loved ones, both Israeli and Palestinian, we’ve had enough of our university using us as a justification to maintain financial support of an apartheid state,” said Lily Gardner, a Jewish undergraduate participating in the sit-in. “We’re sick of pretending that our academic and personal lives should go on as normal.”

“Generations of Brown students have fought for this divestment campaign, and now as a senior, I’m proud to know I am not the first nor will I be the last student to take up this call,” said Eli Grossman, a member of BrownU Jews for Ceasefire.

“We are Jewish students. So many of us have lost ancestors to anti-Jewish violence: we recognize more than anyone the threat of antisemitism, but we do not feel threatened by Palestine advocacy on College Hill,” said Anila Marks, a member of the sit-in and member of BrownU Jews for Ceasefire Now. “It is my personal belief that the Jewish call to justice cannot be ignored. When militant anti-humanitarian forces actively threaten human lives, as they have in Gaza, we share a collective responsibility, as Jewish people, to stand behind social justice and peace.” 

“We call on our Jewish communities to not only mourn for ourselves but to take action to protect the civilians of Gaza being bombed every day in their homes,” said Ariela Rosenzweig, a Jewish student participating in the sit-in. “We will sit in University Hall until Brown and Christina Paxson contribute to global calls for ceasefire by committing to divestment now.”

Photo courtesy B. Evans

Interview with organizers:

After the event reporters spoke to two of the organizers. The student organizers preferred to remain anonymous, identifying themselves only as a Junior and a Senior at Brown University. I edited the conversation below for clarity and combined all the reporter’s questions as coming from one reporter when in fact there were many reporters asking questions.

Reporter: Why did you feel the need to organize this today?

Organizer 1: We feel that our religion and our identity are being co-opted and we are here to let the world know that there is not this monolith Jewish body that is in support of Israel. We think it's really important to both let the world know that, so that the tide can shift and also to do something about it, which is why our peers sat in today and demanded that our university president put divestment from weapons manufacturers on the docket for the next corporation meeting.

Organizer 2: The Jewish community right now, around the world, is broken and is oftentimes using fear to exclude empathy for others. We're making a very strong statement that there is not a binary. [This isn’t] “Jews who support the actions of the Israeli state” and “non-Jews who are attacking Jews.”

We are standing in solidarity with the Palestinian people because our hearts have been broken since the October 7th attack - and even before - [because of] the pain and suffering in Israel-Palestine that affect all of our friends and families. We can't sit here in silence and [let] it [continue] to happen. We don't sleep. We can't function. We're here because we need to make a statement. There's no choice about it.

Reporter: We'd spoken to some students outside who were saying that your group is not representative of the [entire] Jewish community at Brown.

Organizer 2: No one's ever going to be able to represent an entire ethnicity, an entire group. At the end of the day, we're trying to dispel the narrative that there is one Jewish voice, that the Jewish voice is in favor of the indiscriminate bombings in Gaza that have now come at the cost of over 10,000 Gazan lives. That is not the case.

We're following in the footsteps of Jewish Voice for Peace and If Not Now, saying that, “We, as Jews, with Jewish history, with Jewish values, with the culture and heritage of our ancestors, know that we must stand up right now and say, 'No' and to say, 'Stop' and 'ceasefire' and to ask our universities to do what their students are asking of them.”

Reporter: Brown University said about 20 students were arrested for trespassing. Was this something you guys were expecting?

Organizer 1: Our peers went in knowing that they had a demand and that they were going to stay until that demand was met - and they were prepared to meet the consequences.

Reporter: You're calling for a ceasefire. We know that the term can bring up emotions on both sides. Why do you think that's the best kind of avenue for a peaceful resolution to what we're seeing overseas?

Organizer 2: I can get into the history of Israel-Palestine [but] I think none of us have time to do that right now. At the end of the day, our families in Israel-Palestine exist in a cycle of violence - a constant state of violence that's met by resistance that's seen as violence, that's met with more state violence. This is not just a call for a ceasefire. This is a call for the end of the over 75-year cycle of violence.

I have family in Israel-Palestine. I'm scared for them. [Since] October 7th I haven't been able to sleep. It's not a question for us about whether or not to be here and demand a ceasefire. It's not a question of military strategy. None of us are here going to claim to be a military strategist for the Israeli army. We're saying we don't believe that there's a military strategy that is legitimate if it comes at the cost of over 10,000 people. I'll not stand by and say that an army and a state have the best interest of the Jewish people in mind.

Reporter: What about the hostages? Why not a sit-in until they release the hostages?

Organizer 2: The same reason that a demand for a ceasefire wasn't in our demands of President Paxon. It was a demand for divestment. We can't expect the president of a university to make a political statement. She's not realistically going to call for a ceasefire. She's not realistically going to call for the release of hostages. I'll stand here right now and say, “I want a ceasefire and I want the immediate release of the hostages.” Absolutely. I have people from my communities who are hostages in Gaza right now.

Reporter: Are you planning more sit-ins?

Organizer 1: We are taking this day by day. We know that this is an ongoing issue and it's not going to go away anytime soon. We are committed to putting everything we have on the line and doing everything we can, within our boundaries and within our lives as students, to ensure that there can be peace and safety for all.

Reporter: The song that you guys were singing as students were [being arrested]. Talk to us about what that means and what kind of message you were trying to send to the students who were being taken into custody.

Organizer 1: The lyrics are, 'We will build this world from love. I will build this world from love." I think it speaks volumes about what we're trying to do. We are here out of grief and mourning, and out of a desire to see an end to this conflict and an end to this slaughter and genocide in Gaza. We're here to support our friends who are inside and to make our message clear.

Organizer 2: I'll also add that the reason we're singing in Hebrew, the reason I'm wearing a tallit, which is a prayer shawl, is because this [issue] is core to our Jewish identity. This is not us showing up as activists. This is something that is core to my Jewish identity. I cannot sit silently while something like this is happening in my name. As over 10,000 people have been killed within a month - in my name - I cannot sit silently. The song is about how we will build a world of justice. That is the world I have grown up learning [about in Jewish teachings and] has taught me to stand [up] for and that's what I'm doing. I'm doing what I've been taught to do.

Reporter: Anything you want to say to the students, their families, or the community?

Organizer 2: I want to say that it's really scary right now. The reason I'm masked is because I'm scared about the fact that there has been so much public canceling, doxing, and shame for people who are choosing to stand up and say that enough is enough with the violence and the indiscriminate bombing. Antisemitism is real and scary. We feel it. We are Jewish students. That is not the same thing as anti-Zionism. It is not the same thing as criticizing the actions of a state in military expansionism. Those aren't the same things. We are not self-hating Jews. I love my Jewish culture. I am loudly Jewish and that is why I'm here.

According to BrownU Jews for Ceasefire Now:

“Over 1,400 Israelis and over 10,000 Palestinians have been killed since the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7. In light of the killing of thousands of innocent civilians in Gaza, and violence backed by American aid and weapons, BrownU Jews for Ceasefire Now demands that Brown University work to promote lasting peace by divesting its endowment from companies profiting from the war in Gaza. The group joins a growing movement of American Jews calling for the end to this genocide. 

“In March 2019, as a part of the Brown University Undergraduate Council of Students’ annual election cycle, undergraduate students voted on a referendum calling upon the administration to “divest all stocks, funds, endowment and other monetary instruments from companies complicit in human rights abuses in Palestine and establish a means of implementing financial transparency and student oversight of the University’s investments.” The referendum passed with overwhelming support.

“But President Christina Paxson refused to support divestment, stating that ‘Brown’s endowment is not a political instrument.’ Jews for Ceasefire Now rejects that Brown’s financial support of weapons manufacturers who profit off the war in Gaza represents an apolitical position. 

“In the past month over 1,500 Brown University faculty and students have signed statements in support of divestment, adding their names to hundreds already signed on. In a letter published on Tuesday, 168 Brown University faculty publicly urged the university to “join the international calls for an immediate ceasefire” and to protect students advocating for Palestinian rights.