Last week, I sat in Yale University’s Beinecke Plaza leading around 50 classmates in nigunim — wordless melodies from the Jewish Hasidic tradition — and other Jewish songs and prayers. As is typical when I sing nigunim, I went home that day feeling spiritually rejuvenated, but, unlike usual, most of those singing with me that day were not Jewish.

That’s because both Jewish and non-Jewish students, inspired by anti-Apartheid protests in Beinecke Plaza decades earlier, had gathered for a week-long sit-in to demand that Yale divest the portion of its endowment invested in the stocks of military contractors, which make the weapons Israel is currently using in its war with Hamas in Gaza. The students were protesting under the Occupy Beinecke coalition, which includes Yale Jews for Ceasefire, a group of Jewish students dedicated to fighting for a ceasefire in Gaza as well as sustainable peace and equality within the region.

In the latest multi-thousand word feature depicting America’s “education culture war,” the Washington Post’s “They Quit Liberal Public Schools. Now They Teach Kids to Be Anti-‘Woke’” (4/15/24) fawningly profiled Kali and Joshua Fontanilla, the founders of the Exodus Institute, an online Christian K–12 school that aims to “debunk the ‘woke’ lies taught in most public schools.”

Palestinians in Khan Yunis have continued to unearth dead bodies in what is believed to be the largest mass grave in Gaza’s history, first discovered at Nasser Hospital last Saturday. The discovery comes two weeks after the Israeli military withdrew its troops from the southern city on April 7 after a three-month siege, leaving utter destruction in their wake.

THE DEPARTMENT OF Education’s Office for Civil Rights has opened an investigation into the University of Massachusetts Amherst in response to a complaint that alleges that the school took months to address the harassment of Palestinian and Arab students.

In the previously unreported civil rights complaint, 18 students said that they have “been the target of extreme anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab harassment and discrimination by fellow UMass students, including receiving racial slurs, death threats and in one instance, actually being assaulted.” The result, the students said, was a hostile environment for all Arab and Palestinian students, those perceived to be Palestinian, and their allies on campus. Among the most chilling allegations involves a student yelling “kill all Arabs” at fellow students protesting Israel’s war on Gaza.