‘Zionist pedophile rabbi’: Obscene, violent acts against Jews continue at UCLA

On Monday night, the UCLA Police Department said that it had arrested 25 protesters.

By Dion J. Pierre, The Algemeiner

A chaotic situation continues to unfold at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where pro-Hamas protesters have been rioting and committing obscene acts of intimidation and antisemitism.

“Shame on you,” “F—k you,” “You are not safe here!” a swarm of students who installed the latest pro-Hamas encampment at the school screamed while encircling UCLA administrative vice chancellor Michael J. Beck.

Things took an even darker turn when Rabbi Dovid Gurevich of the Chabad House at UCLA was encircled by protesters, who had covered their faces with keffiyeh scarves.

“Zionist pedophile Rabbi,” “F—king pedophile,” they said according to videos posted to social media, gradually encroaching on the rabbi. “We love a good Jew — we hate Zionists.”

The rabbi stood his ground amid other shouts of references to antisemitic conspiracies. According to the Daily Bruin, the protesters engaged in other disturbing behavior, including parading around campus with “fake bloody mummies” and “body parts.”

Marching through the campus, they proclaimed solidarity with Hamas terrorists, chanting, “We will honor all our martyrs.”

On Monday night, the UCLA Police Department said that it had arrested 25 protesters. A melee between the officers and protesters reportedly broke out in which one student was injured by a rubber bullet.

Reports estimate that over 100 protesters remain on school property, however. It is not clear when or how law enforcement will clear them.

Jewish activists widely commented on the carnage on the social media platform X/Twitter, expressing fear about what appears to be a perilous moment in American history.

“The Chabad Rabbi of UCLA was just physically assaulted live on camera,” said Harvard University student Shabbos Kestenbaum.

“The students subsequently began calling him a ‘Zionist pedophile Rabbi,’ telling him to ‘go back to Poland.’ We are in such a dark, dangerous time in our country, with almost no leadership fighting back.”

Others, commenting on the swarming of vice chancellor Beck, suggested that UCLA’s admissions committee potentially selected the students to reward their allegiance to the politics of the far left.

“You’d have to have a heart of stone not to laugh at this UCLA administrator,” said Noah Pollack, a contributor to the Washington Free Beacon.

“These are the people he wanted on campus. These are the people his admissions committee selects for. And now he gets to live with them while they threaten and humiliate him.”

Emily Austin, a pro-Israel activist and sports broadcaster, told The Algemeiner in a statement: “These students feel comfortable engaging in what increasingly looks like domestic terrorism because the authorities allow it. They do and say the most abhorrent things knowing there will be no consequences. This is a result of weak leadership, especially in California, where leaders’ failures stretch far beyond the campus.”

The riot at UCLA continues an unprecedented year in higher education in which students emerged in the hundreds and thousands to declare solidarity with Hamas, terrorism, and efforts to destroy Israel, the world’s only Jewish state.

Their demonstrations followed Hamas’ atrocities on Oct. 7, when the terrorist organization murdered over 1,200 people, kidnapped more than 250 others, and perpetrated systematic sexual violence during the terrorist group’s invasion of southern Israel.

At UCLA, anti-Zionist protesters have installed their third encampment, the first of which saw them block off entire sections of campus through which they blocked Jewish students from passing.

Violence, destruction of property, and open calls for murdering Jews have defined all three demonstrations, revealing what experts have described to The Algemeiner as the complete radicalization of higher education.

Examining the role of faculty in fostering the riots and antisemitism on college campuses is paramount, Asaf Romirowsky, an expert on the Middle East and executive director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME), said when the demonstrations began.

He explained that since the 1960s, far-left “scholar activists” have gradually seized control of the higher education system, tailoring admissions processes and the curricula to foster ideological radicalism and conformity, which students then carry with them into careers in government, law, corporate America, and education. This system, he stressed, must be challenged.

“This is 1984,” he said, alluding to George Orwell’s classic novel about a dystopian state. “As we can see, these rallies are not peaceful as their supporters have insisted. They are violent, verbally and physically. People are ending up in the hospital with injuries. This is analogous to Nazi Germany, and that should be a wake-up call to the American people. If these are the institutions that should be the vanguard of American democracy and Western values and this is what they are producing, we should be seriously questioning the functionality of higher education as a whole.”

AntisemitismHamasUCLA