Many Vanderbilt University students took seats at a campus speaking event only to leave them because of the event’s headliner, Anti-Defamation League (ADL) CEO Jonathan Greenblatt.
Jewish Voice for Peace Vanderbilt, a student organization part of the larger Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) group that advocates for Israel to stop its military campaign against Hamas terrorists, posted a video of the Thursday walkout to Instagram. In the video, a group of students left the auditorium immediately after Greenblatt, who attended the event via video call, was introduced to speak.
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The student organization said the ADL, which normally aligns itself with the far-left, is “a threat to marginalized communities” in the caption of its Instagram post. Dores for Israel and Vanderbilt Hillel, the student organizations that invited Greenblatt to speak, “put marginalized students at risk” by doing so, Jewish Voice for Peace continued.
“Jonathan Greenblatt’s presence on campus threatens marginalized communities, including [sic] Black, Muslim, Arab, queer, and non-Zionist Jewish students, among other groups,” an image in the Instagram post read.
“Jonathan Greenblatt falsely equates anti-Zionism with antisemitism all while aligning with real antisemites like Elon Musk just because he supports the Israeli genocide of Gaza,” the post continued.
The Tennessee Star reached out to JVP Vanderbilt through its Instagram page for comment but did not receive a response by press time.
Greenblatt and the ADL zeroed in on tracking antisemitic activity after Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack on Israel that resulted in 1,200 deaths and the kidnapping of 240 people. Antisemitic incidents increased by more than 360 percent three months after the terrorist attack, according to data from the ADL.
“Who in their right mind can watch Hamas terrorists commit atrocities, brutally murder civilians, kidnap children & elderly, & then protest Israel’s right to defend itself???” Greenblatt posted to X, formerly known as Twitter, in October after Hamas’s attack. “Stop with the insane accusation that Israel commits genocide. It’s factually incorrect & dangerous slander,” he continued.
Who in their right mind can watch Hamas terrorists commit atrocities, brutally murder civilians, kidnap children & elderly, & then protest Israel’s right to defend itself???
Let’s get a few things straight:
1. Israel does not occupy Gaza – Hamas does.
2. Stop with the absurd… https://t.co/qLcmfUlkeD
— Jonathan Greenblatt (@JGreenblattADL) October 18, 2023
Greenblatt became CEO of the ADL in 2015 and was previously a White House staffer for former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
JVP Vanderbilt shared another Instagram post in January that accused Vanderbilt and Chancellor Daniel Diermeier of supporting genocide against Palestinians. Vanderbilt Alumni originally shared that post for Palestine and the school’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, The Star previously reported.
“The Israeli government may have just declared war, but its war on Palestinians started over 75 years ago,” JVP wrote in an article after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, terror attack. “Israeli apartheid and occupation… are the source of all this violence.”
JVP, along with a number of other activist groups, helped organize rallies in Tennessee and across the country in protest of Israel’s war with Hamas, The Star previously reported. The group has another chapter in Knoxville, Tennessee, according to its website.
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Matthew Giffin is a reporter for The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Matthew on X/Twitter.
Photo “Students Leaving” by jvpvanderbilt.
