(Jewish Group) We're Jewish Berkeley Law Students, Excluded in Many Areas on Campus

[Behind the Aegis]

THIS IS THE JEWISH GROUP! RESPECT!!

We are second-year law students at the University of California, Berkeley. We are Jewish. And we are Zionists. (We are also speaking for ourselves, and not on behalf of the school or any organization.)

Friends, family, and the media repeatedly contacted us over the past several weeks to ask how it feels to be students at a school with “Jewish-free” zones. While there are no explicit “Jewish-free” zones at Berkeley Law, there is an unacceptable tolerance for excluding and demonizing Zionist identities. We want to share the impact this has on us as Jewish students.

Student leaders of organizations which adopted a Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) by-law this fall were required to attend “Palestine 101,” a training hosted by Berkeley Law Students for Justice in Palestine. The event’s stated purpose was to teach attendees to “learn ways to create a safe and inclusive space for Palestinian students and students that are in support of the liberation of Palestine.”

We support this purpose. Palestinian students should always feel safe, and students that support the liberation of Palestine should never feel excluded. So we—Jewish, Zionist students—attended, too.

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