Jewish Learning Forced Underground, Once Again

Jewish Learning Forced Underground, Once Again

“Welcome to our bunker,” our professor and historian, Avi Shilon, jokingly proclaims as his students pass through the security checkpoint into our newly imposed underground classroom. Devoid of daylight and guarded by a six-foot-tall security officer, our class, History of Modern Israel, is Columbia University’s only course on Israel’s founding from a Jewish perspective. Welcome to history for the twenty enrolled students, or more accurately, history’s repetition.

Columbia University administration, in response to the January Intrusion by disruptive protesters and hurling of flyers filled with hateful speech, moved our class into an off-campus, underground room reminiscent of WWII bunkers. Yes we are physically safe, but we risk disgracing the human condition, and insulting those who gave their lives speaking for those who could not.

The shadows of Jewish history loomed over me, echoing through this windowless dungeon of a classroom. Professor Shilon, the target of tolerated “student bullying” by intruding masked protesters, managed to lighten the moment. But as I sat, reality sank in – Jews were in hiding, once again. Not in 1930s Germany, but on an American college campus in 2025, once again.

My opinion: We cannot allow the illusion of safety to overshadow the greater danger of the university’s room reassignment. Forcing Jewish studies underground has led to dangerous consequences before and we cannot allow history to repeat itself.

The forced relocation of our class highlights three troubling realities: (a) fear rather than academic freedom, now dictates Jewish campus visibility; (b) a glaring double standard forces Jewish studies underground, while similar courses remain unchallenged, (c) the silencing of Jewish voices is being normalized, echoing painful and familiar historical patterns.

Some background: My predicted lifespan was just four years, however, my greatest battle yet has been the freedom to freely study my culture. I live with a rare form of a muscular dystrophy and have faced immense adversity, yet I have prevailed by becoming the first person with my condition to walk the New York Fashion Week runway (Feb 2023, recognition reaching around the world), the first person with my condition to climb a mountain (Camelback Mountain in Arizona 2022), producing an internationally awarded documentary combating disability stereotypes and most recently setting a Guinness World Record for the fastest swim in my category.

My limited energy is invested into advocating for others, but despite my physical
challenges, nothing prepared me for the obstacles on campus today. Attending a class on the history of Israel would be my greatest challenge. Fear now dictates Jewish visibility over academic freedom. Protests against our class are framed as political opposition, but the response exposes something deeper – the silencing of Jewish voices in academic spaces.I am one simple Jew who is resisting efforts to erase Jewish history, once again.

“Safety first” – but at what cost? The university must protect its students. However,
relocating our classroom to a hidden underground location is not wholesome protection, but more so represents – a cowardly surrender rewarding intimidation and attempting to silence us, once again.

This reactive class reassignment goes beyond security, allowing fear to decide who learns openly, and who must hide. It reinforces disruption and hostility, keeping those causing fear above ground while forcing our learning, both figuratively and literally, underground. Framed as precaution, this decision continues a dangerous precedent that pushes Jewish studies out of sight, once again.

Imagine if during the civil rights movement, Black students had been hidden, instead of marching. It wasn’t tolerated then, yet today, in reaction to disruptive student protesters, it is.

The double standard at Columbia University is clear: courses on Israel’s founding, taught by an Arab Palestinian professor, continue undisturbed in open, sunlit classrooms. Yet, the only course on Israel’s founding from a Jewish perspective, is met with outrage, disruption, and forced underground. This disparity exposes a dangerous precedent: only Jewish studies are suppressed, and Jewish learning is pushed underground, once again.

Have we not learned, history repeats itself ? “Yidn, shraybt un farshraybt” translated
from Yiddish into English as “Jews, write and record.” According to Holocaust survivors, Historian Simon Dubnow repeatedly urged Jews to document their existence in the face of attempted erasure, before later being murdered in the Riga Ghetto. Dubnow understood that when Jewish learning is forced into hiding, it signals something far more dangerous than exclusion of one group, this suppression of one, foreshadows an attempt to erase identity itself not simply for Jews, but for any marginalized voice.

Jewish education has been hidden before, in 1930s Europe, as Jewish students were
barred from universities. Underground study groups emerged to preserve the erased.
Fundamentally, the gradual removal of Jewish studies, led to the persecution of millions. The world has supposedly learned, through transgenerational global anguish, that unchecked threats lead to the normalization of intolerance. Yet, in 2025 USA, here I am fighting by night for my life against a rare muscle disease, and fighting by day, as a Jew, for the right to learn – freely.

This facility re-assignment is not just about one class, one university, or one
administrative decision; it is a reflection of a recurring historical pattern where the suppression of Jewish voices is falsely justified, once again. My physical voice may be soft, but my pen screams. My purpose is to advocate for the voiceless to record the silent. My plea to Columbia University leadership is simple, please lead! Publicly stand against the disrupters and stop hiding the disrupted. I implore you to welcome us back into our original classroom, above ground. Please allow our studies to shine proudly once again. Metaphysically and physically, please allow the sunlight to shine in our room.

If we fail to recognize the weight of this class relocation decision, we risk allowing
history to repeat itself. And that is a risk the 15 million Jewish souls, along with millions of other marginalized souls, on this fragile earth cannot afford to take, once again.

Lilian Brasch (Lily B)
Ability Activist
Columbia University