Elon Presman was about 100 feet away from the UCLA Palestinian Solidarity Camp when he heard screams: “Zionists! Zionists!
The 20-year-old Israeli realized that activists were targeting him.
“Human chains!” they cried.
Pressman said a line of protesters held hands and marched toward him, preventing him from entering the center of the UCLA campus. He said other activists unfurled turban scarves, blocking his view of the camp.
“Every time I take a step back, they take a step forward,” Pressman said. “I was just forced to leave.”
Pro-Palestinian activists demonstrate at UCLA’s Bruin Plaza following Monday’s arrests on the Westwood campus.
(Brian Vanderbrugge/Los Angeles Times)
A week ago, police swarmed the UCLA campus, dismantling a pro-Palestinian encampment and arresting more than 200 people. But the camp’s legacy remains a hotly contested issue, especially among Jewish students, who make up nearly 8 percent of the university’s 32,000 undergraduate students.
In the days leading up to April 30, pro-Israel counter-protesters attacked the camp with fists, sticks and chemical spray, and it took police hours to stop the violence, amid growing frustration among many Jews: video Activists were shown restricting the passage of Zionist students they targeted.
Some Jewish students said they were frightened when protesters graffitied “Death 2 Zionism” and “Baby Killer” on campus buildings and blocked access with wooden pallets, plywood, metal barricades and human walls.
The pro-Palestinian student movement includes various forms of activism, including calls for a ceasefire in Gaza, support for Hamas and demands that universities divest from companies doing business with Israel. But on campuses across the country, no word is more inflammatory than “Zionism.”
On May 2, a pro-Israel activist removed a pro-Palestinian sticker from the sign as the protest camp was being dispersed.
(Brian Vanderbrugge/Los Angeles Times)
At its most basic definition, a Zionist is a person who believes in the right of the Jewish people to a state in their ancestral homeland as a refuge from centuries of persecution—in other words, after which Israel was founded of the Jewish state.
Using this definition, the Anti-Defamation League considers anti-Zionism to be a form of anti-Semitism. But protesters, including many Jews, draw a sharp distinction, arguing that Zionism fuels Israel’s right-wing government and say the attack on Gaza amounts to genocide against Palestinians.
Some of the Jewish students who attended the camps played a role in ostracizing the Zionists.
Members of UCLA’s Jewish Voice for Peace, a small but rapidly growing group on campus, believe they have a moral responsibility to pressure university officials to divest from Israel.
On May 2, UCLA facilities employees cleared and dismantled a pro-Palestinian encampment on campus.
(Brian Vanderbrugge/Los Angeles Times)
They said the camp and its checkpoints were not hostile to Jews. Restricting access to classmates was simply a pragmatic move to protect the protesters inside from physical, verbal or emotional abuse.
“We are committed to keeping each other safe,” said Agnes Lin, 22, a fourth-year art and art history student and member of Jewish Voice for Peace. She said anyone who agrees with the UC Divestment Coalition’s demands and community guidelines is welcome.
“What is not popular is Zionism,” she added. “Or anyone who actively adheres to a very violent, genocidal political ideology that is currently actively harming the people of Gaza.”
In effect, students who support Israel’s existence are excluded – even if they oppose Israel’s right-wing government and its bombing of Gaza.
Senior Adam Thaw, 21, said activists blocked him and others from entering a public walkway leading to Powell Library.
After telling him they weren’t letting anyone through, one male activist looked at his Star of David necklace and said: “If you’re here to support this is anti-Semitism, then you can leave.”
Senior Adam Thaw is a member of the UCLA Hillel Student Council, the largest Jewish campus organization in the world.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
“Who are you to tell me where I can go and where I can’t go?” explained the student council member of UCLA Hillel, the largest Jewish campus organization in the world.
UCLA declared the camp “illegal” as complaints from Jewish students mounted. Chancellor Gene Block said in a statement on April 30 that most activists were peaceful but some’s tactics were “shocking and disgraceful.”
“Students on their way to class,” he said, “are physically blocked from accessing parts of campus.”
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The campus was dark and silent at 4 a.m. when Sabrina Ellis joined dozens of activists setting up camp on the Dickson Court lawn.
Ellis, a 21-year-old international student from Brazil, took turns guarding the entrance after setting up tents and building barricades with wooden pallets and plywood.
Ellis didn’t call it a checkpoint. The goal is to exclude and physically block “agitators” — anyone who might be violent, record a student, or disagree with the cause.
“Our priority is not people’s freedom of movement,” Ellis said. “It ensures the physical and mental safety of the people in our camps.”
The longtime member of Jewish Voice for Peace — who wears a giant Star of David on her T-shirt and a headscarf wrapped around her shoulders — said the camp “does not profile based on religion.”
But when activists blocked Zionist students from public campus spaces, they faced accusations of viewpoint discrimination.
Sabrina Ellis, a junior and member of Jewish Voices for Peace at UCLA, has been a member of the pro-Palestinian camp from the beginning.
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
Before anyone was allowed in, Ellis said, a protester read out the camp’s demands, which included calls for the University of California and UCLA to divest all funds from companies “complicit in the Israeli occupation” and to boycott ties to Israeli universities. All contact, severed ties with Los Angeles.
Activists then described their safety guidelines: ask before taking photos or videos; wear masks to limit the spread of the coronavirus; do not post identifying information or photos; and do not interact with counter-protesters.
If a student disagrees, “we kindly tell them they’re not allowed in,” Ellis said.
Some Jewish students were shocked by the experience and were distraught and even crying when they arrived at Hillel.
“They are seriously going about their day but can’t get in when protesters ask them, ‘Are you a Zionist?’ Or look at their necklaces,” said Daniel Gold, executive director of UCLA Hillel .
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For pro-Palestinian Jewish activists, the camp is a peaceful space that promotes justice, a welcoming interfaith community with therapist-led processing circles and candlelight prayer services.
A blue tarp and blanket were laid out in the center of the lawn for Islamic prayers, Passover seder and Shabbat ceremonies.
On the first night, about 100 activists, many of them Jewish, gathered in a circle to pray, sing, drink grape juice, and eat matzah soup, matzah and watermelon.
“It’s really beautiful,” said Lin, an art major. “We try to preserve these spaces to show that Judaism transcends Zionism.”
On April 29, pro-Palestinian demonstrators camped out at UCLA’s Dickson Plaza.
(Brian Vanderbrugge/Los Angeles Times)
Other Jewish students moved more cautiously through the camp.
Pressman, who immigrated to the United States when he was 12 and calls himself a Zionist, was shocked when he scanned the yard on his first day. He said he saw signs that read “Israelis are native to 2 hell” and banners and graffiti with red inverted triangles, a symbol used in Hamas propaganda videos to indicate military targets.
“Do people know what this means?” he wondered.
Pressman said he tucked the Star of David under his T-shirt, walked in, approached the activists and introduced himself as an Israeli citizen.
“Maybe we can find common ground,” he asked, “one to the other?”
He said some students raised their hands and blocked him as he walked away. Others treated the conversation as a joke. He said a protester told him everything Hamas was doing was justified.
Pressman said he had a good conversation: a self-proclaimed anti-Zionist activist who admitted that he was not 100 percent educated on Zionism but agreed that Israel should exist. They concluded that the activist was a Zionist.
On May 1, pro-Palestinian camp participants reinforced camp barriers at UCLA.
(Brian Vanderbrugge/Los Angeles Times)
But he said most of Pressman’s exchanges ended negatively when activists realized he was defending Zionism. He said he was called a “dirty Jew” and a “white colonizer.”
Other students — even those who don’t fully support the camp — said they have not experienced such slurs.
Rachel Burnett, a senior who identifies as a non-Zionist Jew, disagrees with calls for divestment and academic boycotts, particularly of the UCLA Nazarian Center, which It is an educational center for the study of Israeli history, politics and culture.
When a classmate entered the camp after vouching for her, Burnett was disturbed by anti-Israel signs and graffiti that read Abu Ubaida, the spokesman for Hamas’s military wing. But she also connected with protesters, including a woman wearing a hijab.
“Certainly, it’s obviously horrific that some protesters deny October 7th or condone violence as long as it comes under the guise of decolonial resistance,” Burnett said. “But that’s not the case for many students at the camp.”
Rachel Burnett, a senior who identifies as a non-Zionist Jew, disagrees with calls for divestment and academic boycotts, particularly of the UCLA Nazarian Center, which It is an educational center for the study of Israeli history, politics and culture.
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
Burnett contrasted what she saw as a peaceful, friendly atmosphere inside the camp with the pro-Israel counter-protests, in which people chanted well-intentioned slogans such as “Bring the hostages home” but did Hostile behavior occurred.
She said that as counter-protesters gathered for a rally on Sunday, a pro-Israel activist spat at her and told her she should be massacred on the kibbutz on October 7.
Just as some pro-Palestinian activists demonize all Zionists as evil and support genocide—ignoring widespread views within the Zionist community—Burnett believes some pro-Israel counter-protesters are making the camp Student activists in have dehumanized themselves and spread “mass hysteria narratives.”
As the camp grew—organizers established entry points near Royce Hall and Powell Library—videos shot by some Jewish students quickly went viral.
“It’s time to leave,” one protester, wearing a yellow safety vest and turban, told one of the students video as he guarded an entrance near Powell Library. “You don’t have a wristband.”
A standoff ensued.
“Are you a Zionist?” the protester asked.
“Of course I am a Zionist,” the student replied.
“Yes, we don’t let the Zionists in.”
