On September 8th, an Israeli professor faced an antisemitic disruption by unauthorized attendees during her Queens College lecture where disturbing media and verbal slurs were presented.
The law professor, Yofi Tirosh, conducted a lecture on Zoom event titled, “Law, Religion, and Gender Equality in an Age of Democratic Backsliding: Fieldnotes from Israel.”
“It crossed my mind before the talk that some kind of protest during the lecture might take place. I assumed there may be hard questions or statements at the end of my talk. This would have been legitimate. However, I did not imagine this kind of disruption,” said Tirosh in a statement provided to The Knight News.
The lecture, hosted by the Center of Jewish Studies at Queens College, featured Dr. Tirosh, who is an associate professor at the Tel Aviv University Faculty of Law and a Senior Fellow of the Kogod Research Center at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem.
“The slogans that they (or he – I understand they don’t know whether this is one user or multiple users) were shouting were mostly antisemitic, not anti-war or the occupation, hunger or mass killing, to all of which I myself protest against and object. Additionally, I inquired later and found out that previous events in this series went smoothly. Perhaps this is because previous speakers were not based in Israel. When the disruption didn’t end with antisemitic slurs but included images of dead bodies and pornographic videos of male masturbation, I was shaken and shocked, but I held my [ground].”
Professor Tirosh explained that she, as well as the moderator, quickly removed the disruptive users from the meeting. It was decided that they will not let anyone else into the meeting, even legitimate participants who wanted to join in late. This would lower the risk of another sabotage.
“I asked participants to take a deep breath and resumed my talk. My heart was racing, but eventually, the talk went well and it was followed by a good session of Q&A.”
Dr. Tirosh added, “As with other examples of resistance and protest throughout the world, I believe outsiders who support the cause should support domestic protesters and resistors rather than turn against them. This is not what was done here. After The Times article, I received many messages expressing support and shock, including from people I don’t know, and from colleagues worldwide.”
Following this incident, Queens College Chief Information Officer and Assistant Vice President Troy J. Hahn, sent a mailer addressing two incidents this past September where, “Heinous antisemitic, racist, and pornographic material was screen-shared in Zoom-bombing incidents.”
The first, which was on Tuesday, September 2nd, happened during an Alumni Relations event titled, “At Home with QC,” and the second was during, “Law, Religion, and Gender Equality in an Age of Democratic Backsliding: Field Notes from Israel.”
After these disturbances, Hahn explained the results of an investigation made by the Queens College Information Technology Services (ITS) saying:
“A Queens College Information Technology Services (ITS) investigation determined that neither incident was a breach of our internal systems. The online events utilized a standard Zoom registration process, requiring participants to provide a name and valid email address to receive the event link. However, a misconfigured screen-sharing setting allowed participants, rather than just the event hosts, to share their screens, making it possible for the offenders—using one-time or false email addresses to gain access to the event—to share offensive content and disrupt the sessions.”
Hahn concluded the mailer stating, “Queens College unequivocally denounces these despicable acts and has reported them to university officials and to the NYPD on the advice of the college’s office of Legal Affairs as possible hate crimes. President Wu has also directed the college’s Office of Compliance and Diversity to review and investigate the matters. The safety of the campus community is paramount, and we will continue to investigate reports of any actions that compromise it.”
