On Wednesday morning, I spoke to Barak Mendelsohn, an Israeli American professor of political science at Haverford College, outside Philadelphia. He recounted the wave of antisemitic intimidation and violence that had overtaken the prestigious liberal arts school after Hamas massacred more than 1,000 Jews and set off a war with Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, leading this week to a landmark agreement by the college to confront antisemitism on campus and ensure Jewish safety.
Since Oct. 7, Mendelsohn’s classes have been boycotted; he was investigated by the college for suggesting on social media a link between anti-Zionism and antisemitism; he was chased by an angry mob after he gave a talk at nearby Swarthmore College and even had the mezuzah on his university office door stolen.
As we talked, he asked me to hold on a second so he could soothe his crying baby. When he returned, he mentioned matter-of-factly that there had been so many threats on his life and that of his family that it wasn’t safe for his children — who are all under age 6 — to play in their front yard.
Mendelsohn was not being hyperbolic. He sent me X posts that called him a “filthy Jew” and wished him a “Happy Holocaust Day” while including his home address.
Mendelsohn, who said he “didn’t really identify as an Israeli or a Jew before Oct. 7,” nonetheless became, for Haverford’s militant pro-Palestinian activists, “that Jew from Israel.”
For Mendelsohn and other Jews at Haverford, an almost three-year nightmare of near-constant antisemitic abuse began days after Oct. 7. Pro-Palestinian activists shared graphics depicting Hamas paragliders and demanding “Stand with Palestinian resistance.”
A Haverford professor, Tarik Aougab, praised the day’s violence in a reposted tweet that pictured a bulldozer breaking through a fence surrounding Gaza and the words “[w]e should never have to apologize for celebrating these scenes of an imprisoned people breaking free from their chains.”
Encampments were set up as protesters blocked access to campus buildings, and chanted “long live the Intifada” and “from the river to the sea” slogans synonymous with the destruction of Israel.
The abuse went far beyond a celebration of Hamas’ attack on Israeli citizens.
When a film about the massacre at the Nova Music Festival was screened on campus, the lawsuit alleged that demonstrators “carried signs and stood in formation” themselves at the entrance in an effort to block students from attending.
Mendelsohn became a mentor for Jewish students, many of whom told him they avoided going to the dining hall and other public spaces. They were repeatedly asked, said Mendelsohn, “Are you Jewish?” and if they answered yes, “Are you a Zionist?” Those who argued in the affirmative were shunned. Jewish students spoke of friendships ended because they refused to renounce their support for Zionism and connection to Israel.
In speaking to Jewish students, he was struck by how often they spoke of “hiding” their Jewish identity for fear of being attacked, verbally and physically — which in the Jewish imagination hearkens to the plight of European Jews during the Holocaust.
Indeed, a lawsuit brought by the Deborah Project, a public interest law firm that focuses on the civil rights of Jews in education, details a litany of antisemitic abuses, intimidation and threats against Jewish students — and the indifference of college administrators.
Posters for a Shabbat dinner on campus and events discussing Jewish identity were torn down by protesters. When Jewish students complained to the Haverford administration, the lawsuit said, they were told “the wind had blown down the posters.” Student leaders actively sought to block “Zionists” from conducting school tours and, according to Mendelsohn, an official complaint was lodged when a Haverford alum overheard students responsible for distributing funds to school clubs discuss how they could prevent money from going to Jewish organizations. (The administration brought no action in the case.)
Ally Landau, a Haverford basketball player, proposed holding an antisemitism awareness event at a women’s basketball game. But according to the Deborah Project’s lawsuit, administrators pushed her to cancel it because of fears that anticipated violence from pro-Palestinian activists would cause the team to forfeit the game.
In effect, Haverford’s Honor Code created a hierarchy that treated some students and their free speech rights as more equal than others.
When a film about the massacre at the Nova Music Festival was screened on campus, the lawsuit alleged that demonstrators “carried signs and stood in formation” themselves at the entrance in an effort to block students from attending. Similar disruptions occurred at numerous other events with Jewish speakers. Even though Wendy Raymond, Haverford’s president, attended one of these events (and later criticized the protesters in May 2025 congressional testimony), she took no action in response, Mendelsohn claimed. In fact, it took more than two years for her to meet with Club Chai, an on-campus Jewish organization formed after Oct. 7.
When Jewish students pushed the college’s diversity, equity and inclusion coordinator to address the rising wave of antisemitism, she told them that racial minorities have never felt safe at Haverford and Jewish students should not expect anything different. If they wanted acceptance on campus, they must condemn genocide.
The inattention to their plight is what led Jewish students to sue the college, and brought about the agreement reached this week.
It contains the usual litany of institutional responses to campus discrimination: “annual antisemitism awareness training,” the creation of an antisemitism committee, and a process for Jewish students to raise claims of antisemitism on campus.
But perhaps the most important aspect of the agreement is the closing of the “Zionist loophole,” which allows for antisemitic violence and intimidation as long as those hurling epithets use the word “Zionism,” not “Jew.” For the first time, Haverford’s administration is acknowledging that Zionism and affinity to Israel are essential to modern Jewish identity and that discriminating against Jews because they are Zionists is a civil rights violation.
It should serve as a model for other academic institutions dealing with the scourge of antisemitic harassment and violence.
Not surprisingly, the agreement has brought sharp criticism.
For example, Jonathan Zimmerman, a columnist at The Philadelphia Inquirer who says he believes in Israel, complained that the deal risks infringing on the rights of Israel’s critics. According to Zimmerman, “Either you believe in free expression for everyone, or you don’t believe in it at all.” The local branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Philadelphia) also criticized the settlement, saying, “If opposing or criticizing Zionism can be characterized as discrimination against students who support Zionism, then legitimate political debate becomes vulnerable to institutional censorship.”
Mendelsohn says such arguments are divorced from the reality of what happened at Haverford — and misstate what the agreement actually says. “If someone said that Zionism equals racism, nothing is going to happen to them,” he said. The same goes for accusing Israel of genocide. “But if you attack someone for being a Zionist, that is a different issue.”
He pointed out that in his classes he regularly debates the different incarnations of Zionism, and he and his students are frequently critical of Israel’s policies. But when those criticisms are weaponized against Jewish students and used as justification for exclusion or discrimination, then the line between debate and harassment has been crossed.
Moreover, one of the key elements of the agreement reached this week is its reform of the Haverford Honor Code, which previously divided the campus into “privileged” and “marginalized” groups.
Those in marginalized groups were granted more leeway in exercising their free speech rights than those in privileged classes — and even though Jews were facing constant and often violent discrimination, they were placed in the privileged category.
In effect, Haverford’s honor code created a hierarchy that treated some students and their free speech rights as more equal than others.
What’s happened at Haverford since Oct. 7 is less about speech and more about conduct.
What is perhaps most frustrating about these free speech arguments is that for years college campuses have been hotbeds of free speech infringement, with regular complaints of microaggressions and racist, misogynist, homophobic, Islamophobic, transphobic, ableist and classist speech. Yet the same groups that have gone through speech with a fine-tooth comb prefer to contextualize and justify antisemitism.
Last, what has happened at Haverford since Oct. 7 is less about speech and more about conduct.
The Haverford agreement, for example, bans students from wearing masks on campus (masked students were often at the forefront of intimidating and threatening Jewish students) and calls for “effective security” for Jewish events. How is ensuring that Jewish students can gather and debate without fear of violence or intimidation anything other than a pro-free-speech position?
Indeed, for almost three years, Jewish students and faculty at Haverford have been subjected to intimidation, discrimination and even violence, while those responsible have hidden behind claims of “free speech” to justify their actions. And for three years, Haverford administrators pandered to the mob and left Jews defenseless. This week’s agreement is an important first step in righting the wrongs that have been done — and hopefully other academic institutions will follow suit.
After all, no parent should have to worry about sending their kids to college or letting their children play in their front yard simply because they are Jewish.
Michael Cohen is the publisher of the newsletter Truth and Consequences and hosts the weekly podcast “That ‘70s Movie Podcast.”
