On November 21, when Harvard and Yale students entered the Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale for Shabbat dinner, we were greeted by posters taped to the walls of the lobby. One displayed an ostensibly AI-generated image of former Yale Police Chief Anthony Campbell and previous Slifka Center Rabbi Jason Rubenstein in front of a group of student protesters. Both Campbell and Rubenstein worked at Yale during the wave of pro-Palestinian protests in 2024, and have both since left for Harvard. Their dismayed expressions on the posters indicate that the protests represented failures on the part of both recent Harvard hires. The protesters, all of whom appear to be students of color and one of whom wears a hijab, hold signs with references to Palestinian liberation and the genocide in Gaza. The implication is clear: Harvard, the receptacle of our fleeing campus leaders, is bad (true), student protestors suck (yikes), and their calls for freedom and an end to genocide are laugable (no!).
One of the posters in question.
Another poster was a spoof of an Al Jazeera article. “Harvard is a Good School They Will Win the Game This Year” the headline states. Below it, students had written: “In conjunction with the Gaza Ministry of Health the sport analysts from ESPNG (Entertainment Sports Network Gaza) have predicted that Harvard will beat Yale on Saturday 1,000 – 0.” This poster likens the ludicrous prediction of a 1,000-0 Harvard win to the Gaza Health Ministry’s claim that tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed in Gaza. The Gaza Health Ministry is Hamas-run and does not distinguish between civilians and combatants killed, facts that some supporters of Israel have used to delegitimize the numbers it reports. However, independent analyses and organizations like the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights have affirmed the health ministry’s numbers. For supporters of Israel’s campaign in Gaza, it is much easier to dismiss the death toll out of hand than grapple with the tremendous human cost of Israel’s actions. Basing a joke about Harvard’s admittedly abysmal football team on the alleged unreliability of the health ministry, then, not only affirms this dismissal but endorses the culture behind it: one that leaves behind a good faith pursuit of truth to avoid grappling with a government responsible for war crimes.
Slifka Center staff members have helpfully informed us that the posters were a joke (thanks, guys!). We remain distressed. Not only do these posters completely fall short humor-wise, but they also shed light on the wider and more insidious fact that the Slifka Center cultivates an environment in which students feel that posting this rhetoric will be not only acceptable, but bring them social credit.
This culture is embedded in the institution. The Slifka Center, in contexts ranging from official emails to informal conversations, describes itself as an explicitly Zionist organization, despite the fact that an increasing proportion of Jewish people are deeply critical of Israel and grappling with or disavowing Zionism.
A screenshot of an email sent by Slifka Center director Uriel Cohen
In a September 2025 Washington Post poll, 61% of American Jews said that Israel has committed war crimes against Palestinians, and 39% believe Israel was committing genocide in Gaza. Younger Jews—the population that Slifka Center purports to serve—are even more likely to be critical of Israel, with the same poll reporting that half of Jews aged 18 to 34 say that Israel has committed genocide.
Nonetheless, Slifka Center’s policies limit criticism of Israel, fostering a culture where the value of Palestinian lives is minimized and sidelining non-Zionist Jews. When Jews for Collective Liberation in Palestine (JCLIP), of which we are members, recently asked to hold a public conversation using space in Slifka Center, we were told that we could not because we are not a Slifka Center student group. Rather circularly, we cannot become a Slifka Center student group because, as we have been told in conversations with associate Jewish chaplain Rachel Leiken, “Slifka cannot and will not platform anti-Zionism.” These policies work together to effectively bar JCLIP from the space. Individual students associated with JCLIP are allowed in, because—as we have been told repeatedly—“Slifka may be Zionist, but we aren’t checking anyone’s credentials at the door.” While this sentiment may be expressed in good faith to us as individual Jewish students, it feels empty when considering the limitations placed on our ability to use the space explicitly as an organization. Effectively, our credentials are being checked at the door—and we are asked to leave parts of ourselves outside.
Slifka Center’s actions tell a proportion of Jewish students that they have to hide their political identities to be made welcome and seen as truly Jewish. But Judaism and Jewishness have historically taken on many forms. In this attempted erasure, Slifka Center ignores the long history of Jewish anti-Zionism even as it claims to cultivate a community “inspired by Jewish ideas, traditions, and values.” Despite claiming a commitment to pluralism, Slifka Center works to homogenize.
It is within this climate that someone designed, printed, and taped up posters making fun of pro-Palestinian students and Palestinian loss of life. Over a hundred Jewish students from Yale and Harvard passed by them on their way to and from Shabbat dinner. What would it look like for us to have a Jewish space on campus where this kind of rhetoric would not be platformed? What would it take to get us there?
If the Slifka Center is to call on its policies as justification for removing speech that is critical of Israel, it must apply those policies consistently. JCLIP members have previously been told that only Slifka Center student organizations could post approved posters on designated posterboards. While Slifka Center staff made a half-hearted effort to remove some of the most offensive Harvard-Yale posters—which were not put up by any specific group—they chose to leave most up. In a speech during Shabbat dinner, Slifka Center director Uriel Cohen referenced the posters as a part of the good lighthearted fun of the Yale-Harvard rivalry. There was no mention that any of the posters might be offensive, or that any had been removed. It is clear that Slifka Center’s policies are applied with rather obvious selectivity. When called upon to foil potential postering plans of pesky anti-Zionist activists, they are intractable; when they have the potential to check statements offending the lives and activism of Palestinians, they withdraw into a modest advisory role.
Slifka Center must make clear to students that trivializing the loss of human life, or seeking to ostracize fellow students, will never be permissible. There is value in having spaces on campus in which Zionist students feel comfortable sharing their views and perspectives. This does not make it acceptable for these spaces to dismiss the rhetoric expressed in these posters as jokes, nor to advertise pluralism while claiming that some have better “credentials” than others. At their best, Jewish communities can be the home of rich discourse, in which we learn from each other and grow and develop in our beliefs and values. It seems that Slifka Center has become so afraid of the consequences—the social, political, or financial—of confronting Zionism that it has lost sight of something more essentially human and, dare we say, Jewish.
Tessa Stewart
