Serious threats were leveled against Jewish students and staff at Cornell University over the weekend, sparking massive concern for their safety and the closure of a building that hosts a kosher dining hall and other Jewish-related services. (Cornell is located in Ithaca, New York — about 60 miles south of Syracuse.)
The threats were made via anonymous posts on a Cornell discussion forum, which subsequently went viral on social media platforms on Sunday.
Screenshots of the troubling posts were shared by a user, believed to be a Cornell alum, on X. The user highlighted messages that called for extreme violence against the Jewish community, including explicit calls for the rape and murder of Jewish women and stalking Jewish individuals to harm them.
The posts created panic by claiming that the university’s kosher dining hall, known as 104 West – which also houses the Center for Jewish Living – was on lockdown. This led to heightened fear among Jewish students, with many reportedly too scared to leave their dormitories.
Cornell University President Martha Pollack was swift to address the situation.
“Earlier today, we became aware of deeply disturbing antisemitic messages threatening our Jewish community. The messages specifically targeted 104 West — the Center for Jewish Living. These posts were found on an external website that has no affiliation with Cornell. We immediately informed law enforcement about this,” she said.
Pollack emphasized the university’s stance on the matter, stating, “Any threats of violence are completely unacceptable. We will work diligently to ensure that those responsible face justice to the fullest extent of the law. Our topmost priority at this moment is the safety and well-being of our community.”
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19 Responses
Martha Pollack has to ban pro Palestinian protests at Cornell! These protesters are violent and bloodthirsty and they cannot be accorded basic American freedom of speech because they abuse it. This is yelling Fire in a crowded theater.
It will only help if the police and politicians understand the severity of the situation and export these people permanently. Otherwise, others will just be encouraged to continue to threat and try to carry them out. These people are a threat to not only Jews, but all Americans as well!!!
These schools have been hiring Arab professors who indoctrinate their students into Jew hatred and then the universities are wondering why this is happening.
The educated elite. The future elected officials and judges will come from these people.
I am told that in 1939, the first place that Hitler ימ”ש got traction was in the universities amongst the academics. History repeats itself. Extremely scary.
Hopefully law enforcement is working to track down and arrest these terrorists.
So Jews are the new whites.
These are death threats. Why isn’t the FBI arresting the perpetrators?
The FBI and DOJ are very busy tracking mothers and fathers who were in Washington on Jan 6 holding American flags, please don’t call them, they have their hands full with the number 1 priority
Chris Wray and his FBI buddies are as corrupt as ever. This episode clearly does NOT fit the narrative! The corrupt FBI will only go after a WHITE heterosexual Republican male allegedly “threatening” a minority or transgender. The FBI will not do anything at Cornell, Cooper Union, or any of these other poisoned democrat owned universities. Merrick Garland will never allow that. As Karine Jean-Pierre so eloquently lectured the Nation, we must stop Islamophobia in its tracks. Arab Americans are disproportionately discriminated and beaten more than any other group, including blacks.
Not Getting Involved: Perhaps take a moment to get some facts before you launch into one of your mindless rants. Federal (including FBI), NYS Police and Ithaca police responded immediately to the request from the Cornell campus police and administration. There were federal agents on campus yesterday. The same online threats are sadly becoming a norm on many campuses with substantial Jewish student bodies.
For those old-timers, this building is the same as what was know for decades as the “Young-Israel house” which has evolved into the CJL facility. It was one of the few “out of town” colleges where yidden from NYC could go and have kosher meals with a daily minyan as far back as the 1960s.
Cornell should take strong actions — including firing Russell Rickford, supposedly a history professor, who expressed exhilaration at Hamas barbarism, dismissing all students who participate in anti-Semitic behavior, and firing all faculty all participate in the same. G-d willing, Cornell will do this.
Its leadership, however, is pathetically weak and it will probably and pathetically take no significant action.
As a Cornell alumnus I received the standard tepid response from Pollack when Rickford proclaimed his exhilaration over hearing about the attacks. I wrote back that she should do more than just “condemn it in the strongest possible terms” and fire him. I also mentioned how I’m now embarrassed to admit that I graduated from there. The response I got was an even less forceful restatement of above condemnation.
I certainly wouldn’t expect anything else.
Regarding the latest threats, I am a bit surprised, but that’s probably because I’m still picturing the school and it’s population as it was when I attended, when every other student was either Jewish from Lon Gisland or Chinese.
Contrary to what this and some other articles have stated, the dining hall and shul are not closed, and minyanim continue, which is good as that protects the Jews on campus more than anything Hochul and Pollack could dream up.
BinyaminGavriel: Well stated. If you look carefully at the photo of the meeting this morning between Gov. Hochul, the NYS police regional commander and jewish students, the inside of the building looks identical to when I was there more years ago then I would like to remember. The current leadership (Pollack et. al.) are tone deaf, not only to the events of the past few days, but the increasingly hostile environment on campus for the past several years. The mindless effort in the name of “academic freedom” to allow blatantly anti-semitic guest speakers on campus and articles by faculty members ostensibly cloaked in “Palestinian liberation” rhetoric has to end. When we were at Cornell, no one was afraid to walk up the hill to the Quad from the Young Israel House wearing a yalmulke. In the past several years, there have been a number of disturbing incidents which have been ignored to a large extent by university leadership. This weekend’s threats are just the latest manifestation of what has been happening on campuses across the country. Time to take action NOW and not “study” the problem or create a community wide “forum” to study ways of improving tolerance
To chaya13: Hitler became chancellor in 1933. It did not take 6 years before he turned on the Jews.
Gadolhadorah, they responded and now what? Nothing will happen, that’s what. These people are in universities all over the USA and nothing is being done. The FBI is very busy investigating political opponents…
Chabad and Hillel are active at Cornell. What are they doing about this? Where is Agudah when we need them? We have powerhouses with connections and influence, but they need to be activated.
Ironically doxxing the terrorists who posted these death threats turns them into victims and creates problems for the people identifying them
Gadolhadorah: I thought the same thing when I saw the pics. Other than the sign changes it looks pretty similar. (I wonder if we overlapped – bgg1)
But the tone on campus as well as on most other campuses has gotten progressively worse. I don’t recall any major antisemitic issues from my time there other than some comments from a self-hating NES professor during his diatribe on why he knows Halacha better because he also went to Yeshiva (spoiler: he married a shiksa), and a Chemistry professor who insisted that we couldn’t take a makeup for a prelim scheduled on Yom Tov.
That obviously didn’t morph into death threats overnight, but I don’t know if you could pinpoint a time where it went from minor inconveniences to an environment where overt antisemitism was accepted and even encouraged. I feel sorry for the current generation of students there. Obviously secular college has always been a risky undertaking, but I know many people who grew tremendously there, and for them it was a good opportunity. But I don’t think I could ever suggest going to any of these schools to anybody. There are much better ways to waste your money. Like using it as fuel to cook with when your gas stoves are confiscated.