Members of Jewish Voice for Peace at Northwestern constructed a second “Gaza Solidarity Sukkah” at The Rock at about 4 p.m. Friday afternoon, just two days after the group’s initial attempt was squandered by University officials and police officers on Deering Meadow.
About eight students set up the sukkah, joined by more than 20 attendees who were led in prayer by Rabbi Brant Rosen and songleader Adam Gottlieb of anti-Zionist synagogue Tzedek Chicago.
In a statement posted to the group’s Instagram, JVP NU said the placement of the sukkah at The Rock was a “last resort against campus repression” due to an exception in the University’s new Demonstration Policy which allows one tent to be present at The Rock. The policy notes that “One small camping tent at the Rock will continue to be permitted for guarding and painting it.”
“The university’s violent removal of our sukkah and crackdown on the draconian code of conduct policies do not scare us,” Weinberg senior Paz Baum said in the statement. “We are strengthened in our commitment to a Free Palestine and expressing our Judaism on campus.”
Sukkot, an eight-day celebration that runs Oct. 16 through Oct. 23 this year, marks the fall harvest and honors the 40 years Israelites spent wandering the desert after fleeing slavery in Egypt. The construction of a hut-like temporary structure called a sukkah is traditional during the holiday, commemorating the impermanent shelters the Israelites lived in during that time.
About a dozen members of JVP NU set up the initial sukkah on Deering Meadow just after 6 p.m. on Wednesday. University officials then asked the students to remove it, citing a new policy which prohibits unauthorized 3D installations, and subsequently dismantled it around 9 p.m. after the students refused to comply. A University spokesperson told The Daily the students face disciplinary action.
JVP organizers said they were informed by a Student Affairs official that members of the organization are being investigated.
Pro-Palestinian Jewish students at several other universities, including Brown University and Columbia University, set up similar installations on Wednesday to mark the first day of Sukkot.
“It is not the right of a university to pick and choose which religious rituals students can observe,” JVP’s national organization and the NU chapter wrote in a joint statement posted to Instagram on Thursday. “Northwestern’s actions have nothing to do with protecting Jews and everything to do with silencing anyone who stands up for Palestinian rights.”
A member of the University’s Event Support Team arrived around 4:30 p.m. and conversed with two student organizers.
Rosen, a prominent anti-Zionist Jewish leader who spoke at the pro-Palestinian encampment on Deering Meadow in April, led the group in prayers to observe Sukkot and Shabbat, the Jewish sabbath which lasts from Friday evening to Saturday night. Rosen said the sukkah resembles the makeshift tents occupied by Palestinians who have been driven from their homes in Gaza.
“We are celebrating Sukkot, which is known as a time of rejoicing, but it’s also many things,” Rosen said. “And in a time of genocide, a time in which Israel is inflicting genocide, genocidal violence on the Palestinian people, all of our Jewish holidays really are tools of solidarity, and Sukkot is no exception.”
The move also comes less than two weeks after University officials vowed to discipline students who participated in a walkout at The Rock organized by NU’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine to commemorate the one-year anniversary of Oct. 7 and protest Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza.
According to a University spokesperson, the walkout violated the new prohibition on demonstrations at The Rock before 3 p.m. and the use of amplified sound there before 5 p.m. on weekdays, as well as a requirement in the Demonstration Policy that individuals comply with on-site officials.
Although the Demonstration Policy permits “one small camping tent” at The Rock, a University administrator told members the sukkah did not fall under that definition, according to JVP member and Medill senior Isabelle Butera.
NU staff told students they were “in violation of University policy,” according to spokesperson Eliza Larson. She also said the Sukkah did not meet the definition of a “tent” permitted for guarding The Rock.
Butera, who is a former Daily staffer, said the administrator also made “allusions” that the banners contained “political” and “inflammatory” language.
According to Baum, University administrators informed JVP organizers the second sukkah would be taken down by 6:30 p.m.
At around 6:25 p.m., a pickup track flanked by six University Police officers arrived at The Rock. University employees loaded the sukkah onto the truck to be removed. A procession of about 40 students trailed the truck as it drove north.
This is a developing story and will be updated as new information becomes available.
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— JVP sets up Gaza Solidarity Sukkah on Deering Meadow
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