Vandalism hits UBC Hillel House

PAT JOHNSON

Jewish students on the University of British Columbia campus are “absolutely shocked” by a brazen act of vandalism against Hillel House last week.

Between the evening of Nov. 21 and the morning of Nov. 22, two large rocks were thrown through windows at the Jewish student centre on campus. The incident occurred hours after the Jordanian and Israeli ambassadors had appeared together in a series of public events on the UBC campus and elsewhere.

“It’s a level of intimidation,” said Eyal Lichtmann, Hillel’s director, adding that Hillel students were shocked to be victimized.

“The staff walked in at 9 a.m. and there were two huge rocks on the ground and they saw the windows broken,” Lichtmann said.

University administrators responded impeccably, according to Lichtmann.

“UBC came in and took care of the whole matter within 24 hours,” he said. “UBC has been exemplary in their conduct and assistance in this matter. They have just been phenomenal. I would hope that every university would respond the way that UBC has. They took immediate responsibility for the vandalism. They boarded it up. The next morning they had new glass in.... This is not a reflection on UBC. UBC provided unbelievable amounts of resources for the ambassador event and they partnered with us on that event.”

This is the second incident of vandalism in recent years, Lichtmann said. The previous incident occurred after some Hillel students sent a letter to the editor of the student newspaper protesting the student government’s sponsorship of a visit by American linguist and anti-Israel activist Noam Chomsky.

“Noam Chomsky was [brought in] by the student government,” said Lichtmann. “Our students wrote a letter protesting student government money going toward the sponsorship of Noam Chomsky. They felt that should be sponsored by an individual club but not by the student union government that also represents Jewish clubs. Within hours of that letter going in – I believe that’s the timeline – our sign in the front of the building was vandalized, just ripped off. There was an enormous amount of damage, which caused thousands of dollars of damage.”

Meanwhile, Hillel is complaining that a member of the student government sabotaged the public event involving the ambassadors. Security officials, who are under the authority of the elected student council because the event took place in the Student Union Building, prevented any non-students from attending the event.

Pat Johnson is editor of MVOX Multicultural Digest, www.mvox.ca.

^TOP