Israeli PhD student at Johns Hopkins says she was attacked by protester for talking about Oct. 7
An Israeli PhD student at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, says she was attacked by an anti-Israel protester on the university campus after speaking about the plight of the hostages held by Hamas.
Recounting the incident on X, formerly Twitter, Noga Mudrik writes that she was “hit by a girl holding a Palestinian flag, right at the campus entrance.”
“She shouted at me to go back to Europe and hurled insults at me and Israelis,” she writes. “This happened right after I spoke to TV journalists about the hostages and Oct. 7.”
Mudrik adds that when she moved to the US for her PhD two and a half years ago, she “never imagined I’d have to defend my safety or my right to exist as an Israeli,” but says that since then, the “right of free speech turned into violence.”
“I came here to do research, and I want to do the research I love. I did not come to defend my safety, nor my right, or the rights of my family, friends, and millions of others in Israel—Jews, Arabs, and others of different religions—to exist,” she adds.
She attaches images of some of the signs she came across on the John Hopkins campus, including one declaring that “Zionism upholds Nazi ideology and white supremacy.”
When I moved to the States for my PhD about 2.5 years ago, I came here to learn and do research. I never imagined I'd have to defend my safety or my right to exist as an Israeli. But we crossed a red line long ago when the right of free speech turned into violence.
— Noga Mudrik ????️???????? ???? (@MudrikNoga) May 1, 2024