Most days for the past three weeks, the Students for Justice in Palestine group has set up a table on the University of Chicago’s leafy quad with signs saying “Israel is Starving One Million Children” or “Israel Bombs Hospitals.” Members of the group chant, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” which many Jewish students hear as a desire to exterminate Israelis.
Leah, a 22-year-old senior who spoke on the condition she be identified only by her middle name, feels assaulted by the rhetoric. She has stopped crossing the quad to get to class, where someone who sits behind her has a sticker on their laptop that says “Free Palestine, Destroy Israel.” Her sister, a sophomore at the school, “has called me crying multiple times after crossing the quad,” Leah said. “I’m genuinely afraid.”
