Columbia University’s Chief Operating Officer, Cas Holloway, met Davidai at the entrance and told him he would not be allowed in.
By Vered Weiss, World Israel News
An Israeli professor was blocked from entering Columbia’s campus to ‘hold a peaceful sit-in’ and discovered his ID card had been deactivated.
Shai Davidai, an Israeli-American Business professor wished to stage a pro-Israel sit-in demonstration after anti-Israel protests have been occupying the Manhattan campus for nearly a week.
A video taken of Davidai trying to enter the area shows his discovery that his ID card has been deactivated and that he was denied access to the main campus.
Columbia University’s Chief Operating Officer, Cas Holloway, met Davidai at the entrance and told him he would not be allowed in.
An hour earlier, Davidai said that he had received an offer from Holloway to hold this sit-in in a separate area from the main anti-Israel protest with the protection of public safety officers.
Davidai rejected this offer and posted on social media that the offer was “a continuation of six months of gaslighting and degrading the Jewish community.”
He then posted “This is 1938,” comparing the treatment of Jewish professors at universities like Columbia to the harassment and dismissal of Jewish instructors in Nazi Germany.
Shai Davidai, who often expresses his pride at being a Zionist and for having served in the IDF, has been vocal about antisemitism on campus beginning in the immediate aftermath of the October 7th massacre.
In October, Davidai delivered a speech criticizing Columbia’s administration for allowing “pro-terror student organizations” to harass Jewish students on campus.
After having been barred from entering the main part of campus, Davidai said, “I have not just a civil right as a Jewish person to be on campus, I have a right as a professor employed by the university to be on campus.”
He added, “Being Jewish in public has become a political statement,” Davidai said. “It’s not a privilege, it’s a right, and they’re not allowing me that right.”