Jewish UPenn student Claudia Tawil describes frightening antisemitic campus culture

Jewish students studying at the prestigious University of Pennsylvania are living in fear over vile alleged threats to “obliterate” them, a student has claimed.

Claudia Tawil, 19, told The Post that the atmosphere on campus has been “really scary” — as the Ivy League institution faces a civil rights complaint accusing it of being “a magnet for antisemites.”

Tawil claims Jewish students have been continually harassed on campus and subjected to chants in support of Hamas’ violence, including: “There is only one solution: intifada resolution.”

The chemistry student explained that phrase deliberately echoes Hitler’s “final solution” and calls for deadly violence against Jewish people in Israel.

“It basically means they want to obliterate us,” she said.

“There was also a rally where I was in class and I heard outside ‘Free Palestine, Hamas Hamas Hamas’.

“I was in class and I couldn’t focus. A terror organization that rapes women, beheads babies, and burns them in ovens is not something anyone should support.” 

“Israelis don’t support oppression and we are not pro-death on either side.”

Tawil said hateful anti-Jewish messages have been scrawled over doors and walls throughout the school, including one that reads: “The Jews R Nazis.”

Another scribbled in chalk on the pavement at the campus read: “Israel is an apartheid state.”

According to the Brandeis Center, a non-profit civil rights organization, students have also reported that “many Penn professors have also made anti-Semitic, pro-Hamas statements in the classroom and on social media”.

“Penn students report feelings of intense distress and fears for their safety while the rallies continue and while their professors continue to show their support for Hamas,” a statement from the organization read.

Earlier this week, heinous antisemitic slogans were beamed onto buildings at UPenn.

Multiple social media accounts Thursday shared pictures of a “light show” that saw anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian messages projected onto the walls of the campus buildings.

“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” read one message lit up against the John M Huntsman hall.

“Zionism is racism,” another declared.

“Penn funds Palestinian genocide,” a third said.

UPenn president Liz Magill addressed the disturbing vandalism Thursday and confirmed an investigation is underway.

“Last night, vile, antisemitic messages were projected onto several campus buildings, including on Penn Commons, Huntsman Hall, and Irvine Auditorium. Penn Police were notified and quickly responded, and a full investigation is currently underway. We will pursue this matter to the fullest extent and take swift action in accordance with our policies,” she said in a statement.

“For generations, too many have masked antisemitism in hostile rhetoric. These reprehensible messages are an assault on our values and cause pain and fear for our Jewish community. Penn has a long and rich history of robust debate about complicated issues of the day. Projecting hateful messages on our campus is not debate, it is cowardice, and it has no place at Penn.”

The hateful slogans are just the latest brazen act of antisemitism at the esteemed university.

Magill recently acknowledged a rise in antisemitic acts on campus including “swastikas and hateful graffiti” as well as “chants at rallies, captured on video and widely circulated, that glorify the terrorist atrocities of Hamas, that celebrate and praise the slaughter and kidnapping of innocent people, and that question Israel’s very right to exist.”

The anti-Jewish culture has become so pervasive that the Brandeis Center said it was filing a complaint against UPenn — as well as Wellesley College — with the Office of Civil Rights in the US Department of Education.

The complaint alleges that “Penn has allowed its campus to become a hostile environment for its Jewish students as well as a magnet for anti-Semites.”

According to Kenneth L. Marcus, founder and chairman of the Brandeis Center and former US assistant secretary of education, colleges and universities have “failed to keep Jewish students safe and are in clear violation of well-established federal civil rights law.”

“There’s been a lot of talk about rooting out antisemitism on campuses, and it’s time to hold these colleges accountable,” he added.

The complaints “seek immediate and specific action to address increasing discrimination against and harassment of Jews in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” a statement from the human rights nonprofit read.

Earlier this month, two dozen members of Congress sent her a letter condemning the university’s alleged lack of a prompt and unequivocal condemnation of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.

On Monday, several UPenn staffers received targeted, antisemitic emails threatening violence against members of the university’s Jewish community.

The emails allegedly “threatened violence” against Jewish members of the school, especially those working at Penn Hillel — a Jewish organization on campus — and Lauder College House, UPenn’s president revealed in a statement Monday.

“These messages also included hateful language, targeting the personal identities of the recipients,” Magill said.

The college’s public safety officers found no credible threat but have increased security around campus.

The university notified the FBI of the potential hate crime and is investigating the threats.

Authorities are working “urgently” with the FBI to ”identify the individual or individuals who are responsible for these hateful, threatening emails and to ensure they are apprehended and punished to the fullest extent of the law,” Magill said.

Meanwhile, a student believed to be from UPenn was filmed saying she felt “so empowered and happy” by the Oct. 7 terrorist attack by Hamas against Israel, which killed over 1,400 people.

The clip, circulating online and shared by US Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) of the Bronx, shows the back of the woman as she spoke at a pro-Palestinian rally, saying: “I remember feelings so empowered and happy, so confident that victory was near and so tangible.”

“I want all of you to hold that feeling in your hearts. Never let go of it. Channel it through every action you take.”

In the aftermath of the monstrous Hamas attack, UPenn’s leadership was criticized for taking too long to disavow the slaughter.

The Ivy League campus was also heavily criticized even before the Oct. 7 terror attack for holding a Palestine Writes literature festival, which included a number of speakers and invitees previously accused of making antisemitic statements.