NYU students and faculty who are part of Jews Against Zionism called Monday for a boycott of Hillel International until the university cuts ties with the group, which offers religious programming and trips to Israel for students.

Jews Against Zionism announced the boycott as part of “Drop Hillel,” an anti-Zionist campaign criticizing Hillel’s “critical role in maintaining Israel’s apartheid state.” The post urged students to stop attending Hillel-affiliated events and demanded that university administrators, as well as student government members, cut all ties with the organization.

“Hillel spends millions of dollars a year on ‘Israel Programming,’ and recruits students to join their ‘Israel leadership network,’” the post read. “We call on all students of conscience to combat all forms of Zionism, both liberal and fascistic, and refuse to collaborate with Zionist and normalizing institutions.”

NYU spokesperson Joseph Tirella wrote in a statement to WSN that Jews Against Zionism was not affiliated with NYU.

“This campaign represents bad faith attacks on Hillel International, the world’s largest Jewish campus organization,” Tirella said. “Making hateful attacks behind anonymous accounts — and giving these attacks a platform — is corrosive and dangerous. The effort is offensive and we reject it unequivocally.”

Hillel International operates at universities nationwide to provide religious services and classes on Judaism for Jewish students. NYU’s Hillel branch also offers students free 10-day trips to Israel through the international Taglit-Birthright Israel program — a practice Jews Against Zionism called “propaganda tours on illegally occupied Palestinian land and territories.”

In the Instagram announcement, Drop Hillel denounced the “Hillel on Base” program, which does not operate at NYU but sponsors students to take a trip to Israel and volunteer at an Israeli Defense Forces military base. It argued the program supported “an occupational army engaged in crimes against humanity.”

NYU’s chapter of Jews Against Zionism launched the campaign alongside Jewish Voice for Peace chapters at Columbia University, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Michigan. A Jews Against Zionism organizer, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, told WSN that the boycott’s purpose was to move on-campus Jewish life away from Hillel.

“We are making efforts to build Jewish community focused on liberation outside of Hillel,” the organizer said. “We urge the student body — especially the Jewish student body — to not engage with Hillel, but rather to help us build Jewish spaces on campus rooted in liberation.”

In April, Jews Against Zionism and NYU’s Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine hosted a Passover meal as an alternative to NYU Hillel’s holiday programming. The two organizations regularly host gatherings in Bobst Library, such as fasts and vigils in solidarity with Palestine. The anti-Zionist student group also built a pro-Palestinian sukkah in October 2024, which its members moved from Schwartz Plaza to Washington Square Park, accusing Campus Safety officers of engaging in “hostile behavior toward students.”

On Friday, The New School’s student government voted to pause funding for its Hillel chapter after a report found “extensive ties” to international law violations, citing activities in territories deemed illegally occupied by the United Nations during Hillel’s Birthright trips. However, administrators vowed to keep funding Hillel, claiming student senators could not dictate financing of on-campus organizations.

FSJP announced in April that it launched a tribunal to investigate instances of disciplinary action the university had taken against pro-Palestinian students and faculty since Oct. 7, 2023. In response, NYU spokesperson Wiley Norvell told WSN that the university “upholds academic freedom as a bedrock principle and a core value for a free society,” and that the tribunal was “no service to the cause of free expression on campus.”

Contact Zachary Karp at [email protected].