The University of Pennsylvania, once a bastion of Jewish life in American higher education, has become a kind of ground zero for the sharp rise in antisemitism on college campuses in the United States. Sunday night, student organization statements and rallies ostensibly supporting the Palestinian cause turned to vandalism and destruction of university property.
As part of the broader demonstrations in Philadelphia — which included the targeting of a Jewish-owned restaurant — Penn students marched across campus, shouting slogans calling for violence against the Jewish people, ethnic cleansing against Jews in Israel, and the destruction of the Jewish state.
They also spray-painted messages like “intifada” and “avenge Gaza” on both the university’s buildings and private businesses.
Those videos, which alongside the photographs were provided to National Review by University of Pennsylvania junior Noah Rubin, capture protesters saying (in Arabic), “From water to water, Palestine will be Arab” and “The gate of Al-Aqsa is made of iron; only the martyr in spirit and blood can open it. We sacrifice for you, O Al-Aqsa!”
Rubin told NR that Sunday night’s slogans and graffiti — though only the latest step in a history of antisemitism at the university — are a stark warning for him and his Jewish classmates.
“It feels like we’re not welcome, and it feels like we’re just supposed to go along with our normal lives, business as usual, when we’re being targeted on our own campus,” he said. “This is just clear intimidation and incitement to violence.”
After the events of Sunday night, Rubin circulated a survey to Jewish members of the University of Pennsylvania community, gauging their thoughts. The testimonials demonstrate that he is not the only Jew at Penn who sees trouble ahead.
“My wife and I seriously contemplated leaving campus for the night because we were so concerned for our safety,” one respondent said.
“The riots really scared me. I have to go to campus tomorrow and I don’t know how I’ll feel getting there and seeing all the vandalism and graffiti calling for my murder,” another replied. “I don’t know if any of the people I see on a daily basis were there because they wear masks. I don’t know who I can trust and I don’t feel safe on campus anymore.”
A third told Rubin, “When I heard the call-and-response for ‘intifada’ from the speaker holding the megaphone and the crowds shouting, I felt absolutely terrified to walk in the street as an identifiably Jewish person.”
Rubin emphasized to NR that though Sunday night’s vandalism and calls for violence are the worst the university has faced in this most recent flareup of antisemitism, they are certainly not outliers in campus activity since October 7; Penn held a “Palestine Writes Literature Festival” even before Hamas attacked Israel that included on its speakers list notorious antisemites.
“What happens next is a student in the hospital,” Rubin said of the escalating sloganeering and destruction of property at Penn. He pointed to the phrase “from the river to the sea” being projected on several campus buildings in November as one example, and Penn student Tara Tarawneh’s speech at a rally saying the events of October 7 made her feel “so empowered and happy” as another.
The organization behind these protests, rallies, graffiti, and genocidal slogans, Rubin said, is Penn Students Against the Occupation. But it is not only students who have offered such rhetoric. Professors, too, have expressed their support for Hamas and intifada. Huda Fakhreddine, for instance, an assistant professor of Arabic literature, can be seen at a rally clapping when a speaker told Jews they can “go back to Moscow, Brooklyn, Gstaad, or fucking Berlin where you came from” and promoted “resistance by any means necessary.” She reposted on X an assertion that Hamas’s attack on Israel was legal under international law and shared a statement saying Israel “bears sole responsibility for the violence.”
Ahmad Almallah, an instructor of creative writing at Penn, led demonstrators in chanting, “There is only one solution: intifada revolution” and “Resistance is justified.” Mohammed Alghamdi, a professor at the medical school, was filmed destroying posters of Israeli hostages.
Almallah and Fakhreddine have been involved with Penn Students Against the Occupation — both having spoken at a walkout the organization responsible for calls for intifada planned shortly after the October 7 attack — alongside Margo Natalie Crawford, Eve Troutt Powell, and Ania Loomba, all members of Penn’s faculty.
The University of Pennsylvania has not addressed Sunday night’s demonstrations and vandalism and has not returned NR’s requests for comment at press time. President Liz Magill is slated to testify in front of the House Education & Workforce Committee Tuesday morning alongside the presidents of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in a hearing titled “Holding Campus Leaders Accountable and Confronting Antisemitism.”