'I am a Zionist' says Columbia's new dean of community and culture
Columbia University appointed Jonathon Kahn as senior associate dean of community and culture, a role focused on fostering dialogue and civic engagement.
Kahn previously signed a Vassar College letter supporting the Palestinian 'resistance movement' and BDS, though he now says he is a Zionist and does not fully endorse that letter.
A new dean of culture at Columbia University previously signed a letter expressing support for the Palestinian “resistance movement” against Israel.
On Sept. 2, Columbia announced Jonathon Kahn as its new senior associate dean of community and culture.
In this role, Kahn will “build and lead initiatives that cultivate curiosity, civic purpose and meaningful dialogue — facilitating student engagement with faculty outside the classroom, and helping reimagine what a liberal arts and sciences education can be in the next century,” according to Josef Sorett, dean of Columbia College.
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In 2021, however, Kahn signed on to an open letter from the community at Vassar College, where he was then working, that denounced Israeli policy against Palestine and called for “resistance” against the Jewish state, according to Jewish Insider.
The Vassar open letter situated Israeli actions within the broader context of what it called Israel’s “ethnic cleansing, dispossession, containment, and expulsion of Palestinians since 1948.”
The authors affirmed that “the Palestinian struggle is an indigenous resistance movement confronting settler colonialism, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing.” The statement also endorsed academic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) measures against Israel.
“We reject what the so-called peace process has become: an instrument of continued land grabs and state violence, propagating the fiction of a ‘two-sided conflict’ and the perpetual postponement of a just solution,” the authors wrote.
Overall, the letter supported a Palestinian right of return and framed solidarity with Palestinians as part of a global struggle against oppression, linking it to movements for racial and social justice in the United States.
In a written statement, Kahn told Campus Reform “I want to be clear. I am a Zionist.” Kahn also said that he is passionate about and acknowledges the importance of bringing Jews and non-Jews into respectful, civil discourse about “complex issues.”
“My beliefs are not fully captured in this letter that was authored more than four years ago,” Khan stated. “I didn’t agree with every sentence then, and I still don’t. But I put my name to that letter at a time when I felt in deep disagreement with actions taken by the Israeli government and I wanted to signal my support for the Palestinian civilians who were suffering.”
Kahn’s hiring comes after Columbia University agreed to pay $221 million to settle federal civil rights investigations into its handling of anti-Semitism, restoring access to over $1.3 billion in frozen federal research funding.
Campus Reform has contacted Columbia University and Jonathon Kahn for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
