On the afternoon of May 21, a group of approximately 150 community members including at least 20 De Anza students, gathered at the Library Quad for a rally opposing antisemitism.
“Thank you all for answering the call when we needed you,” Dan Gotesdyner, 19, a computer science major and member of the Jewish Student Union, said. “Our unity and our strength is alive and well. The Jewish community was hurt, and the Jewish community responded.”
The rally, named the “Rally for Yael,” featured speakers from the De Anza Jewish Student Union, members of other Bay Area Jewish communities and a student from Columbia University.
“Truth and love will always win,” Amit Cohen, 19, a political science major and JSU member, said. “To all of you here, I promise that the people of Israel live. I promise we will dance again.”
This rally came about two weeks after a pro-Palestine rally held at the same location decrying the Israeli siege of Gaza and calling for an end to U.S. aid to Israel on May 9.
“My friends and I went to observe and record what we saw. There was no art in sight and in its place was a flash mob brandishing signs calling for ‘justified resistance’ and intifada,” Gotesdyner said. “Eventually, my friend Yael (Aharon) was hit in the head with a large Palestinian flag by a woman who does not attend this institution.”
Speakers recounted their concerns about rising antisemitism in the U.S. and experiences in the midst of heightened political tensions over the ongoing war. Between speakers, the organizers played songs, including “Hurricane,” “Golden Boy” and “Tel Aviv,” while distributing popsicles and water to attendees.
“We must remember that there is a time for mourning, but there is also a time for strength in the face of adversity,” Gotesdyner said. “In the place of a perpetual Yom Hazikaron (day of remembrance for the fallen) must come a perpetual Yom Haatzmaut, the day celebrating our liberation and the re-establishment of our sovereign home.”
These rallies came amid widespread protests and student encampments at universities across the U.S. over the Israeli siege of Gaza.
Aharon, 19, whose major is undecided, said the altercation happened at around 4:15 p.m. on May 9 and that she went to the protest that day solely to film and observe.
“I turned my back to the girl and continued to film the walkout,” Aharon said. “A few seconds later, I felt something hit my head. I turned around and there she was, the girl holding the Palestinian flag from earlier.”
Aharon also said she did not process that she was hit with the flagpole until after the fact, as well as that she had suffered a minor concussion.
“Everything seemed very hazy,” Aharon said. “I did nothing, only registering what had happened over an hour later when a few other students and I reported the incident to the campus police.”
Isabel Caballero-Texiera, 27, biology major, said she worked with the organizers’ security team at the May 9 rally.
“Because I saw there might have been an issue, I placed myself between (Aharon and the girl with the flag),” Caballero-Texiera said. “I reached up and kept making sure the flagpole did not hit anyone, specifically the girl next to me that was recording and trying to get people’s faces on camera.”
“It was jarring and very confusing when I heard (Aharon’s) story,” Caballero-Texiera said. “When I heard the story, I reacted, ‘Oh my goodness, who was it? What happened?’ To then find out that I was right there and saw what happened.”
Caballero-Texiera said that she and other organizers who worked security had seen the group of students who attended the rally to record and capture people’s faces, and understands why participants of and speakers at the rally would not want to be recorded.
“The threat of doxxing is a very real threat,” Caballero-Texiera said. “For example, medical students have been denied entry to a lot of medical schools, even if they have already been admitted, because they appear on these lists (like the Canary Project). This group of people that had come by on their phones were visibly saying, ‘Make sure you get people’s faces, make sure you get it on camera.’ At that point, they were pushing past people to try to get into the crowd and get to the front to film the various speakers.”
Caballero-Texiera acknowledged that attendees had started chanting at the observers after the rally, but said its organizers tried to break that up as soon as possible, also emphasizing that the group did not fully surround the observers and that organizers had escorted them safely.
“It was a hot day — almost 90 degrees — everyone had been in the heat for a couple hours and this group had, for the past hour, been pushing people and shoving cameras in people’s faces. People got irritated and, yes, that happened,” Caballero-Texiera said. “I and a couple other security guards went, ‘Hey, y’all, don’t start surrounding them; we know you aren’t near them but even making a circle might be seen as aggressive; don’t do that.’ The group never completed the circle — they got to almost half a circle, but it did start and they stopped.”
Professor Ilan Glasman, choral director and attendee at the May 21 rally, said the phrase “from the river to the sea” used on the May 9 rally, calls for the elimination of all Jewish people, and emphasized that there is a difference between criticism and delegitimization.
“In fact, many Israelis criticize the government,” Glasman said. “I can say, ‘I don’t like Benjamin Netanyahu. I don’t like his policies, the way he treats non-Jews, how he treats women or creates tension with Joe Biden,’ but delegitimization is saying that Jews stole the land, or that there shouldn’t be an Israel at all; ‘This is Arab land, this is Muslim land. This is Palestine.’ That is a big difference.”
Glasman reiterated that, while Israel makes mistakes and that settler violence in the West Bank and atrocities in the siege of Gaza are unjust, he believes that Zionism isn’t equivalent to settler colonialism and that it is peaceful.
“The Balfour Declaration, which was about 30 years before the 1947 (United Nations partition plan), stated that there should be a return to the homeland, and that’s really what Zionism is,” Glasman said. “The word Zionism has been hijacked and turned into a bad word; an occupier or colonizer who is interested in eliminating whoever is in the way.”
“Of course, there are people on every side who are extremists. Sometimes, a small minority of extremists make the loudest noises,” Glasman said. “So it may look like a policy when Israel hits the people making food in Gaza. The truth is, even if it wasn’t a mistake, there are rogue soldiers who do it in the name of themselves and not in the name of the country.”
Foothill-De Anza campus police were seen in the area equipped with riot gear including helmets and batons. Officers asked rally attendees to remove their flags from flagpoles as the poles could be used as makeshift weapons.
“People were not out here going, ‘Free, free Israel,’” Glasman said. “We’re out here looking for coexistence, peace and understanding. That’s what the rally here was; we had chants and songs.”
“Change must come, and it must come from decisive administrative action,” Gotesdyner said. “De Anza is funded by community taxes – our money. Are we paying for Israeli students to be subjected to a culture that invalidates their identity, delegitimizes their home and enables violence against them?”
Editor’s note: The release of this article was delayed by a lack of available sources.
