A university president, a co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s, and the executive leadership of a leading anti-Zionist group are among more than 100 names to sign onto a Jewish open letter criticizing President Donald Trump’s “disingenuous claims of antisemitism to attack colleges and deport students.”
The letter, billed as “American Jews Opposing Deportations,” was published Thursday. It criticizes Trump’s stated intent to root out campus antisemitism by targeting student pro-Palestinian activists.
The letter stands out for uniting voices from disparate perspectives. Some of the signers are longtime and vocal progressives including several leading anti-Zionists. But others are university administrators, including an official derided by pro-Palestinian protesters at a university in the Trump administration’s crosshairs.
“We write, specifically, as Jewish Americans who condemn the charge of antisemitism being leveled against student activists – many of whom are Jewish – for their legitimate criticisms of Israel’s violence in Gaza and their universities’ connections to the Israeli occupation,” the letter states. “That this accusation is being used as a pretext to abrogate students’ rights to free speech, and to deport non-citizen students, should raise the highest level of alarm.”
The group released the letter as an immigration judge ordered Mahmoud Khalil, one of the most high-profile cases of a student pro-Palestinian activist being targeted by the federal government, to be deported to either Algeria or Syria. Khalil, a Columbia University student protest leader in the United States on a green card, had been held for months in immigrant detention before a different federal judge ordered his release in June.
The letter continues, “We are aware of the danger inherent in an administration full of people comfortable using antisemitic tropes while using purported anti-antisemitism as a cudgel to attack free speech, the most sacrosanct of American values.”
The letter also follows a recent survey of American Jews, conducted by the polling firm Ipsos, finding that 72% believe Trump is using antisemitism as an “excuse” to punish universities, a bump from a similar survey question in April. The poll, conducted in partnership with the University of California-Berkeley and the University of Rochester, also found that 58% of respondents do not support Israel’s war in Gaza.
Notable signatories of the new letter include Michael Roth, the Jewish president of Wesleyan University, who has stood out for sharply and publicly criticizing the Trump administration at a time when other university leaders have sought to make deals to restore federal funding.
Many others to sign their name are also academics, including Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of UC Berkeley’s law school, and David N. Myers, a professor at the University of California-Los Angeles and president of the progressive Zionist group New Israel Fund.
Chemerinsky — who was maligned by posters at Berkeley calling him “Zionist Chem” — was thrust into the center of debates over campus speech on Gaza last year after he got into a standoff with a pro-Palestinian student protester in his own backyard.
Berkeley recently turned over 160 names to the Trump administration as part of several ongoing federal investigations into antisemitism at the school — including anti-Zionist professor Judith Butler, who also signed Thursday’s letter.
Other signatories include:
- Ben Cohen, the co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s, who has been actively protesting the war in Gaza. (Cohen’s co-founder Jerry Greenfield, who resigned from the company this week, was not on the list as of press time.)
- Several prominent figures who either lead or are affiliated with Jewish anti-Zionism, including Jewish Voice for Peace executive director Stefanie Fox and several members of the group’s rabbinic council; Morriah Kaplan, the interim head of IfNotNow; Brant Rosen, founder of the Chicago anti-Zionist synagogue Tzedek Chicago; a regional co-chair of CODEPINK, which staged disruptive protests over Gaza on Capitol Hill; and Rabbi Andrue Kahn, the director of the relaunched American Council for Judaism, which advocates “Judaism beyond nationalism.”
- Lily Greenberg Call, a former Biden administration staffer who made headlines as the first of his appointees to resign over its handling of Gaza.
- Dr. Martin S. Hirsch, a leading infectious-disease researcher at Harvard University.
- Ariel Dorfman, a Jewish novelist, Duke University professor and former advisor to socialist Chilean president Salvador Allende.
- Barry Trachtenberg and Santiago Slabodsky, endowed chairs of the Jewish Studies programs at Wake Forest University and Hofstra University, respectively.
- Several Jewish journalists and media figures, including Peter Beinart; Adam Shatz, US editor of the London Review of Books; Jeff Gottlieb, a Pulitzer Prize-winning former Los Angeles Times reporter; and Dave Zirin, sports editor for progressive magazine The Nation.
Trump’s administration has pulled billions of dollars in federal funding from universities to date as part of its stated goal of fighting antisemitism. He currently has his sights set on the University of California system: In addition to the investigations at Berkeley, UCLA is wrestling with whether to accept a proposed settlement that would require them to pay $1 billion and institute policy changes including ending race- and ethnicity-based scholarships and ending gender-affirming health care for transgender individuals.
