Jewish leaders across New York are pressing the City University of New York for a stronger response after a Muslim campus leader staged a walkout targeting a Jewish representative during an interfaith event.

In a letter sent Tuesday to CUNY Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez, a coalition of Jewish community officials and elected leaders accused the university of failing to adequately address the confrontation, which unfolded last month at the City College of New York.

The protest occurred when Imam leaders at the event walked out in protest of Hillel director Ilya Bratman, who was representing the Jewish community on a campus panel. The imam blamed Bratman for suffering in Gaza, then led his followers out of the room.

The letter, signed by New York City Councilmember Eric Dinowitz — who chairs both the Council’s higher education committee and its Jewish caucus — along with top officials from the Jewish Community Relations Council, UJA-Federation, the Anti-Defamation League, the Academic Engagement Network and the American Jewish Committee, calls the walkout “outrageous,” “discriminatory,” and a moment that demanded a far more forceful institutional response.

The group argues that both the protest and the muted reaction from CUNY administrators “send a clear message to Jewish and Zionist students at CUNY: you do not belong here.”

“Against the backdrop of this shameful incident and rising antisemitism on campus, we urge CUNY to take steps to amend its student code of conduct,” the leaders write, calling for a “system-wide policy” to protect Jewish students.

CUNY, one of the country’s largest public university systems, is a decentralized constellation of dozens of campuses, each with its own administration and significant autonomy. That structure has long complicated efforts to impose uniform rules across the system, particularly around bias incidents and disciplinary standards.

Advocates say that fragmentation is no excuse for inaction.

Jewish groups have for months been urging CUNY leadership to adopt clearer, stronger protections for Jewish students amid a spike in anti-Israel protests and campus tensions since the outbreak of the Gaza war. Several recent episodes — including the CCNY walkout — have intensified pressure on the central administration to move faster and speak more forcefully.

Chancellor Matos Rodríguez has faced mounting scrutiny from lawmakers in Albany and City Hall over how the system is handling antisemitism complaints.

Jewish leaders say they want to see concrete movement: changes to the code of conduct, more decisive disciplinary mechanisms, and explicit guarantees that Jewish students will be protected across all campuses.

Whether CUNY can — or will — impose system-wide rules remains an open question.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)