Bronfman Center for Jewish Life Temporarily Closes Over Threatening Posts
The center was put on alert after the tweets of a student began circulating.
Early Wednesday morning, the Bronfman Center for Jewish Life at NYU sent out an email alerting students that it would be temporarily closed, citing, “several public online postings by an NYU student which were antisemitic in nature and potentially threatening.”
Several tweets that fit this description were shared on Tuesday morning by SJP Uncovered accompanied by statements that incorrectly identify the author, Alejandro Villa Vasquez, as a member of NYU Students for Justice in Palestine.
On Tuesday morning, SJP Uncovered posted a screenshot of Vasquez’s tweet which read, “thanks to whoever got my account suspended just cuz i [sic] expressed my desire for zionists to die.” The screenshot was accompanied by a non-sequitur caption referencing the recently passed Resolution on the Human Rights of Palestinians and a request that his former employers, NYU Silver and Washington Square News, condemn his tweets.
NYU Silver quickly replied, “NYU Silver condemns #HateSpeech of any kind by anyone. Alejandro Villa Vasquez does not work for NYU Silver and the language in his post is antithetical to social work.”
Washington Square News has yet to comment.
Other recent tweets from the student in question include references to “nyjews” and “zionist kkkunts,” while a string of much older tweets mentioning Hitler from 2014 were dug up in the scuffle between Vasquez and SJP Uncovered.
In subsequent, now-deleted tweets, SJP Uncovered provided contact information for NYU Public Safety and urged their followers to call. On Tuesday evening, Vasquez wrote, “was just apprehended by public safety! whoever didn’t have the balls to approach me themselves because i [sic] make them ‘feel threatened’ but had no trouble whining on the phone about my tweets, come on over sometime, i’d love to talk.”
Vasquez’s account was then made private until this afternoon. After deleting several of the aforementioned tweets, Vasquez unlocked his account to post an apology. The statement reads in full:
“I expressed extremely aggressive views toward Zionists because they believe in the genocide of ethnic and religious minorities. Since then, people have been conflating my anti-Zionist views with anti-Semitism, pulling up Tweets from 4+ years ago — falsely associating them with what’s happening now and threatening to ruin job prospects for me, a person that [sic] extremely vulnerable due to socioeconomic reasons; and all while not having the slightest clue about what was actually said or by whom. My views on Zionism do not reflect my views on Judaism. And none of my views reflect any entity I’m involved with. Any third party that’s being associated with me is either totally uninvolved or falsely accused of having any connection to me in the first place. My views reflect the racist and Islamophobic principals intrinsic to Zionism. It’s been explained to me why people are taking my anti-Zionist views the way they are though, and so I regret it. To anyone that genuinely feels scared, I’m sorry — I would have done things differently had I known it would actually instill fear in innocent people. I’ve spoken to the Wellness Center, to Office of Community Standards and Public Safety. They all know that there is no threat of danger. Anyone else that has something to say about me, I’m right here. My DMs are open.”
The apology does not address his tweets that made no reference to Zionism, but were still seen as antisemitic.
The Bronfman Center did reopen earlier this afternoon.
Both NYU Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace have condemned the tweets in individual posts as well as in a joint statement.
“Alejandro Villa Vasquez has made several remarks that are not only anti-Semitic, but outright normalize violence directed at the Jewish community at NYU and at large,” the statement read. “Contrary to what groups such as @SJPuncovered claim, Vasquez is in no form connected to or affiliated with NYU SJP/JVP — he is not a member of our OrgSync page nor has he ever attended a single one of our meetings. Nevertheless, we completely oppose and condemn his statements.”
