NYC Jewish leaders demand action from CUNY after protest targeting Hillel rep at interfaith event

By Luke Tress

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9 December 2025, 7:26 pm

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Luke Tress is The Times of Israel's New York correspondent.

Jewish leaders in New York write the chancellor of the City University of New York (CUNY), the city’s public university system, demanding action following a protest against the Jewish representative at a campus interfaith event last month.

During the protest at the City College of New York, first reported by The Times of Israel, a Muslim leader led a walkout to protest against a Hillel director who was representing the Jewish community at the event.

The Muslim leader blamed the Hillel director, Ilya Bratman, for suffering in Gaza and led his followers out of the room. The incident sparked an uproar from the Jewish community and elected leaders in New York.

Jewish leaders write CUNY Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez, calling the walkout “outrageous” and discriminatory, and saying that CUNY has not issued enough of a response.

The walkout and CUNY’s response “send a clear message to Jewish and Zionist students at CUNY: you do not belong here,” the letter says.

The letter, dated to yesterday and shared with The Times of Israel today, is signed by New York City Councilmember Eric Dinowitz; Mark Treyger, the head of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York; Eric Goldstein, CEO of the UJA-Federation of New York; Scott Richman, the New York and New Jersey regional director of the Anti-Defamation League; Miriam F. Elman, the head of the Academic Engagement Netowrk; and Josh Kramer, the head of the American Jewish Committee in New York.

Dinowitz is the chair of the city council’s committee on higher education and the chair of the council’s Jewish caucus.

“Against the backdrop of this shameful incident and rising antisemitism on campus, we urge CUNY to take steps to amend its student code of conduct,” the letter says, calling for a “system-wide policy” to protect Jewish students at CUNY.

CUNY is made up of dozens of campuses around the city, which each have significant autonomy from the central administration, making system-wide changes difficult.