Jewish Columbia student says protesters burned his Israeli flag, hit him in face with rocks during campus chaos
A Jewish student at Columbia University said anti-Israel protesters snatched and burned his Israeli flag, then struck him in the face with rocks during campus unrest over the weekend.
Jonathan Lederer, 22, told cops he was displaying the Israeli flags shortly before 10 p.m. Saturday when a protester grabbed one of them and took off — while another agitator burned a second flag.
According to police, Lederer started shooting video of the incident when two other anti-Israel protesters hurled rocks at him, hitting him in the face before taking off.
“On Saturday night, the situation on campus hit a new low,” Lederer wrote in an article he penned for The Free Press and published Monday.
“Amid multiple protests both inside and outside of Columbia’s gates, my friends and I decided to show our pride yet again, as we have on so many occasions since Hamas began its war,” he said.
Lederer said he and his friends were singing songs calling for peace when they were confronted by “masked keffiyeh-wearers” who came “face-to-face” with the Jewish students.
“They chanted, ‘F–k Israel, Israel’s a bitch,'” he wrote. “We were told, ‘You guys are all inbred.'”
He said the protesters then started chasing them toward the campus gates shortly after midnight.
Lederer has had run-ins with the anti-Israeli mob in recent weeks as the demonstrations have intensified at Columbia, Yale University and other college campuses.
On Thursday, he was among the Jewish students who applauded an NYPD raid on campus that landed more than 100 demonstrators in handcuffs — although they were back on the school grounds just one day later.
“It wasn’t violent, but it was a show that rules are being enforced and that’s necessary,” Lederer said at the time. “Otherwise, without rules being enforced it’s chaos.”
Meanwhile, cops have reported other antisemitic incidents in recent days as the anti-Israel demonstrations have intensified, including a new tent city that sprouted up at Columbia.
On Saturday, Sahar Tartak, editor-in-chief of the Yale Free Press, was stabbed in the eye with a Palestinian flag while covering protests on the Ivy League campus.
One Big Apple merchant reported finding swastika stickers on her newsstand on Friday.
Also on Friday, a 41-year-old city resident told cops he found graffiti spray painted on the sidewalk on a Brooklyn sidewalk reading, “P—-y A– Jews,” according to police.
Last week, a pair of Columbia students were confronted on the Manhattan campus and told, “kill yourself,” and said one protester kicked his pal in the stomach before running off.
