U of Maryland won't allow group to hold event on Oct. 7

(JTA) — The University of Maryland has revoked a permit for pro-Palestinian groups to hold an event on the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel, following concerns from Jewish groups that such an event could glorify the Hamas killings.

According to the campus Students for Justice in Palestine chapter, the planned event was a “vigil” to be held jointly with the school’s chapter of the anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace.

University President Darryll Pines announced the change in a letter to the school on Sunday, writing that “numerous calls have been made to cancel and restrict the events that take place that day.”

“As a university community, we acknowledge the significance of the anniversary of October 7 and recognize the horrific suffering it represents for people here on our campus and across the globe,” Pines wrote. Without naming any specific events, he said “only university-sponsored events that promote reflection” would be allowed that day, with “all other expressive events” pushed to either before or after the anniversary. A university spokesperson declined further comment.

The news of the cancellation was celebrated by a coalition of campus Jewish and pro-Israel groups, including Maryland Hillel, Terps for Israel, the Jewish Student Union and a campus chapter affiliated with the Israeli-American Council.

“October 7th, the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, is a day of mourning for the Jewish and Israeli community,” the groups wrote on Instagram. “We are relieved that SJP will no longer be able to appropriate the suffering of our family and friends to fit their false and dangerous narrative.”

The campus conflict over Oct. 7 was an example of emerging fault lines across global Jewish and pro-Palestinian communities about what the anniversary means and how it should be memorialized. Jewish and pro-Israel groups hope to use the day to mourn the 1,200 Israelis killed by Hamas on the day of the attacks. Meanwhile, pro-Palestinian groups including JVP view the date primarily as the start of Israel’s brutal assault in Gaza that has killed tens of thousands to date — and are largely glancing over, or even supporting, the attacks themselves. 

All this comes as universities are more generally bracing for the return of contentious student activism around Israel this fall. The Maryland saga also took place as news was emerging that six Israeli hostages in Gaza had been killed by Hamas.

Pines did not reference the hostages in his letter but said that he had ordered a safety assessment around the planned events and that campus police had determined “there is no immediate or active threat.”

Even before the deaths of the hostages, Maryland had quickly found itself the brunt of a pressure campaign from Jewish parents who argued both that allowing SJP to rally on the anniversary date was inappropriate, and that the school was failing to classify a range of pro-Palestinian rhetoric as antisemitic.

In their statement, Jewish groups said that having only official university events held on the anniversary — a decision that would presumably also prevent the Jewish groups from holding their own event — was “not an ideal situation,” adding, “We wish that we could have utilized campus space to grieve together as a community.” A memorial event is being planned at the Maryland Hillel building, which is not governed by the university.

JVP’s Maryland chapter, which organized on the College Park campus after Oct. 7 and has aligned with SJP on other protests, said on Instagram it was “disappointed” and “angry” at the move. Both groups said the planned event would have been peaceful and argued they had just as much right to use the day to mourn Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza.

“Some members of our campus Jewish community claim that October 7 is a day for Jewish grief and Jewish grief alone,” JVP wrote. “They consistently refuse to let us mourn the loss of 186,000 Palestinians murdered by Israel” — an estimate of the Gaza dead that is several degrees larger than the Gaza health ministry’s own, but one that Maryland’s SJP chapter, citing a letter about Gaza’s public health crisis published in the medical journal The Lancet, has promoted at other campus events.

In its own lengthy statement, SJP called the pressure campaign against the group “racist” and made no reference to Hamas or to the 1,200 Israelis murdered by the terror group on Oct. 7. Instead, the student group described the date as “one year since the Zionist entity began its most recent genocidal campaign against the Palestinian people.” 

SJP added that the university’s cancellation came “at the behest of Zionist pressure and threats” and said, “We honor the lives of all martyrs of this genocide, yet Zionists on this campus celebrate the death and destruction of Palestinian life.” 

In a joint statement posted before the event’s cancellation, both groups asserted, “A vigil mourning the loss of hundreds of thousands of innocent lives poses no threat to the Jewish community on our campus.”