A group of anti-Zionist Jewish students began building a “Liberation Sukkah” on Math lawns at around 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday, the first night of the Jewish holiday Sukkot. The group is planning to stay on the lawn for a week, the duration of the holiday, a member of the organizing collective told Spectator.

The Columbia chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace and Columbia University Apartheid Divest urged students in a Wednesday Instagram post to “come join us as we set up and have our first sukkot meal together!”

Sukkot is celebrated over seven days by dwelling and taking meals in a small hut called a sukkah. Dozens of students sat in a circle singing a Jewish prayer as the sukkah was constructed. The “Liberation Sukkah” is open to all individuals as the holiday “is about welcoming the stranger,” a flyer distributed on Math lawns reads.

“Here, we will gather in protest for the millions displaced in Palestine and, now, Lebanon,” the flyer reads. “We refuse to observe a holiday that revolves around shelter while turning our backs on the displacement, suffering, and death that our religion has been exploited to justify and our university profits from through their indirect investments in weapons manufacturers.”

A University spokesperson declined to comment.

Several Public Safety officers stood outside the lawns and three legal observers watched from outside the circle of students.

“We as anti-Zionist Jewish students are religious and celebrate this holiday and wanted to be able to celebrate it in a space that aligns with our values,” Shay, a Columbia student and member of the organizing collective, who spoke to Spectator on the condition of partial anonymity, citing safety concerns, said. “We believe that prayer is inherently political in every single space on this campus.”

Demonstrators sang Jewish prayers, including Hashkiveinu, Mi Chamocha, and Oseh Shalom.

“Your people are my people, your people are mine, your people are my people, our struggles align,” they sang, reprising a familiar song from last semester’s “Gaza Solidarity Encampment.”

“We have erected space where we are welcome as anti-Zionist Jewish students, which is not true of a lot of the other places, and where we can practice according with our values and fulfill the commandments of the holiday,” Shay said.

One demonstrator spoke to the group, reading the “community guidelines” for the sukkah described on a flyer. The guidelines read that participants “embrace and fight for Palestinian liberation in this space” and explain that “Everyone is welcome” and “this must be reflected in our actions.”

The guidelines also ask that participants “not disturb people while they are praying,” “not record or photograph people without their consent,” and “not use amplified sound.” The guidelines state that the group has “public safety, admin, and press liaisons.”

“Do not engage with public safety, administrators, and press,” the flyer reads. “We keep us safe.”

At sundown, the official start of Sukkot, students completed the construction of the sukkah and began the Shehecheyanu, a gratitude prayer.

The group published an op-ed in Spectator on Wednesday night under the name the Liberation Sukkah Collective, calling on students to join the demonstration.

“We believe that our ritual spaces, our prayer, and our religious observance must be integrated into our political solidarity with Palestine. Given that Zionist institutions such as Columbia/Barnard Hillel utterly dominate Jewish life on campus, anti-Zionist Jews are forced to make an impossible choice: either forgo our values to observe in spaces aligned with genocide, or forgo practicing our traditions altogether,” the collective wrote.

The University suspended JVP alongside the Columbia chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine in November 2023, citing repeated violations of an event policy that had been unilaterally revised just 17 days prior.

“With Columbia’s chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace still unjustly suspended by the University, anti-Zionist students struggle to access space for Shabbat services and other religious programming,” the collective wrote. “Here at Columbia, those in power have continuously wielded our Jewish identity as justification for their blatant anti-Palestinian discrimination, draconian repression of free speech, and bloody investments in genocide.”

The collective encouraged community members to “stop by, bring some food to share, and sit with us for a meal.”

“Later on, we will be inviting partner organizations to lead teach-ins on topics relevant to the themes of the holiday,” the op-ed reads. “All are welcome to come learn, pray, and partake in the mitzvah. Together, we can widen the sukkah, and bring down the walls that divide us.”