‘Welcome to our bunker,” our professor and historian, Avi Shilon, jokingly proclaims as his students pass through the security checkpoint into our newly imposed underground classroom.
Devoid of daylight and guarded by a six-foot-tall security officer, our class, History of Modern Israel, is Columbia University’s only course on Israel’s founding from a Jewish perspective. Welcome to history for the 20 enrolled students, or more accurately, the repetition of history.Columbia University’s administration, in response to the January intrusion by disruptive protesters and the hurling of flyers filled with hateful speech, moved our class to an off-campus, underground room reminiscent of World War II bunkers.
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