Columbia Prof.: ‘Pains Me to Say’ I Wouldn’t Be ‘That Comfortable’ with My Child Wearing a Yarmulke on Campus

On Monday’s broadcast of NewsNation’s “Cuomo,” Columbia University Adjunct Associate Professor of International and Public Affairs Hagar Chemali stated that if she had a child “who wore a yarmulke on campus, I really don’t think I would be that comfortable with him on the campus right now.” And that while she didn’t feel unsafe on Columbia’s campus, the protests outside the school’s gate “made me feel extremely unsafe.”

Chemali stated, “Just because a protest is peaceful or seems peaceful because people aren’t throwing things, doesn’t mean that they’re not inciting violence, that they’re not spewing hatred or antisemitic remarks, that they’re not creating an environment that’s extremely hostile and uncomfortable for everybody. Now, me personally, to answer your question, I didn’t feel unsafe in the campus. I was there on Saturday. There were a lot of protests during the day and at night, I didn’t feel physically threatened, I felt deeply uncomfortable. However, if I had a child, for example, who wore a yarmulke on campus, I really don’t think I would be that comfortable with him on the campus right now. And that pains me to say that.”

She continued, “For the protests outside the gate, which are largely non-students, those protests I did not feel comfortable walking by at all. They did scare me. I would not feel safe going by them. They were spewing a lot of hatred and vitriol at Jews. They were telling them to go back to Poland, they were calling them pigs, things of this kind. It made me — that protest made me feel extremely unsafe.”

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