This past week, we as Jewish Voice for Peace at Northwestern members sought to honor the Jewish festival of Sukkot by creating a Gaza Solidarity Sukkah, a temporary structure used to celebrate the holiday. During Sukkot, a holiday that honors the displacement of our Jewish ancestors as they fled slavery in Egypt, we are reminded of the mass displacement and genocide in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen by Israel. On Wednesday night, the University tore down the sukkah we constructed on Deering Meadow. As a last resort, we relaunched our sukkah at The Rock on Friday, as it seemed to be the only place where University administrators would allow us to observe Sukkot, per the new code of conduct’s intentionally vague language that prohibits unpermitted “3D structures.” Once more, NU forcibly removed our sukkah.

We dedicated our sukkah to Gaza amidst the intensifying Israeli genocide that has now taken the lives of over 42,500 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. Israel is bombing hospitals, schools, universities and refugee camps with the clear goal of displacement and ethnic cleansing of the region. On a holiday that honors Jewish displacement, we find it impossible to separate our Judaism from the current violence in Palestine.

Both the state of Israel and institutions like NU justify their support of the genocide based on Jewish safety. As anti-Zionist Jews, we have to assert that Israel and a university that unequivocally supports it do not remotely make us safer: they threaten the well-being and future of our Jewish communities.

The University has demonstrated its disgust with any action that challenges its support of a genocide by reprimanding pro-Palestinian protests all last year. We have no doubt that our solidarity with Gaza contributed to the desecration of our sukkot.

The University has spent the last year weaponizing its purported protection of Jewish students, and now that we as Jewish students seek to observe our religion through one of Judaism’s most holy rituals, NU has forced us to repeatedly experience the violent removal of our sacred structures. On both occasions, University officials informed our organization and specific members that we are facing violations specifically for “noncompliance” when we were asked to tear down our own sukkah. Jewish tradition asserts that tearing down or moving the sukkah before the end of the holiday is sacrilegious.

“In the construction and blessing of this sukkah, your students established a sacred site for Jewish practice,” Rabbi Rachel Kipnes wrote in an open letter on Thursday. “Moving it, according to Jewish law, is an act of desecration. It interrupts these students’ ability to uphold their Jewish obligation to observe the festival of Sukkot.”

Sukkot is a holiday often observed in one’s own backyard. As college students, we believe we have a right to observe holidays practiced outside on University grounds where we pay to live, work and study.

We originally sought to use Deering Meadow — an open space with no trees to block our view of the sky (the roof is latched so we can dwell under the stars) — and visible enough for community members to observe with us. NU shut us down. Left with no other options, we then sought to use The Rock, a historically celebrated and protected space of expression and currently the only place where tents are permitted, as a last resort. And given that Hillel and Chabad both institutionally support the state of Israel and their members have actively threatened the safety of our JVP members by recording and threatening to dox us at protests while telling our members “the Nazis would have loved you,” we simply had nowhere else to go.

The code of conduct does not allow for Jewish students to observe a religious holiday but permits University administration to commit hate crimes against Jewish students. What does its violent suppression of religious expression mean for other forms of free speech on campus?

Moreover, the University is clearly aware of its culpability. NU employees tore down both sukkot after sundown — the first after media and legal observers had left, the second after world-renowned Chicago anti-Zionist activist Rabbi Brant Rosen, who led the blessing of our second sukkah, had left. In the second removal, they took the sukkah off campus so that we could not record the destruction of the beautiful and sacred structure we created.

NU has clearly demonstrated that its desire to suppress any form of Palestinian solidarity is so strong that it’s willing to commit hate crimes against its own students. Its actions make it clear: If NU ever claims again to care about antisemitism, its claims are hollow and hypocritical.

We as JVP members demand the University immediately repeal the recent amendments to the Code of Conduct and Demonstration Policy that repress student activism and restrict the ability of students and student groups to function on this campus. We demand the University repeal any sanctions against students who “violated” these new, convoluted and restrictive codes since their implementation. We urge the University to make all future changes in collaboration with students.

Furthermore, we call on the University to cease its support of a genocidal ethnostate by cutting academic and financial ties with Israel. We call on our government at large to immediately end arms sales to Israel.

We call on our fellow students to stand beside us in these demands.

Signed,

Jewish Voice for Peace at Northwestern members involved in Sukkot

Editor’s Note: This letter may not represent the views of every individual member of Jewish Voice for Peace at Northwestern.

JVP NU is a university chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace. JVP can be contacted at [email protected]. If you would like to respond publicly to this op-ed, send a Letter to the Editor to [email protected]. The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of all staff members of The Daily Northwestern.