In a shocking decision, Columbia University has chosen Professor Joseph Massad – a man who gleefully praised Hamas's brutal October 7 attacks on Israel – to teach a course on Zionism in spring 2025.
The stunning appointment has left many wondering how a professor who celebrated one of the bloodiest attacks on Jewish civilians since the Holocaust could possibly be entrusted to teach about Jewish self-determination.
Massad, who currently teaches Modern Arab Politics at Columbia, didn't just support the attacks – he reveled in them, describing the horrific events in an article for The Electronic Intifada as "astounding," "incredible," and a "stunning victory."
Even more chillingly, as families were still searching for their loved ones and identifying bodies, Massad wrote admiringly of "the sight of Palestinian resistance fighters storming Israeli checkpoints" and praised scenes of fighters breaking through Israel's border as "awesome." These words came just hours after Hamas terrorists had murdered, kidnapped, and tortured hundreds of civilians, including children and the elderly.
"This is like hiring members of the Nazi party to teach the history of World War II and KKK members to teach post-Civil War history," thundered George Mason University law Professor Adam Mossoff.
The pain and fear rippling through Columbia's Jewish community is palpable. "Joseph Massad does not belong on the faculty of any serious academic institution," declared Yaakov Menken, director of the Coalition for Jewish Values. "He believes that rape, beheading of babies, kidnapping, and mass murder are all legitimate 'resistance' to 'Israeli settler-colonialism'— in other words because the victims are primarily Jews."
The distress has sparked a groundswell of opposition, with nearly 80,000 people signing a petition demanding Massad's removal. Their message is clear: students feel unsafe sharing classrooms with a professor who celebrated the murder of civilians – who praised terrorists while their victims' bodies were still warm.
Despite Columbia President Minouche Shafik's testimony to Congress that Massad had been reprimanded and removed from the Academic Review Committee, he remains defiantly in good standing, even denying any punishment for his inflammatory op-ed. Meanwhile, Jewish students walk the same halls as a man who cheered their people's killers.
The deafening silence from campus organizations – from the Yavneh Board to the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies – speaks volumes about the climate of fear and intimidation surrounding this issue. As antisemitism surges on college campuses across America, Columbia's decision stands as a chilling testament to how far the boundaries of acceptable academic discourse have shifted.
Columbia's vile antisemitism, starting all the way at very the top and going all the way down to the students is nothing new, something that Shai Davidai knows only too well. Since October 7th, Davidai has launched a one-man movement against the antismetitism displayed at Columbia- and at the management's choices not to intercede and not to stop it. But instead of listening to him, Columbia recently banned Davidai from campus, although they claim that he is still in their employ, for “repeatedly harassing and intimidating” school employees, according to a university spokesperson.
Davidai's first message to Jewish parents now seems eerily prophetic. Here's what he said just days after October 7th: "I want you to know that we [the teachers and Professors] cannot protect your children from pro-Terror student organizations because the president of Colombia University will not speak out against pro-Terror student organizations."
For Jewish students at Columbia, the message is devastating: their university has chosen to empower someone who celebrated violence against their community to teach about their own history and aspirations for self-determination. As one generation learns about the horrors of October 7, another will be taught by someone who saw those horrors not as a tragedy, but as an achievement to applaud.
But it's not just about the Jews, it's also about young impressionable students whose parents pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition, who are being filled with vicious lies, under the guise of 'education' and who then take these sentiments with them as they make their way into the world.
The College Fix contributed to this article.
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