Jonathon Kahn signed a letter endorsing the ‘Palestinian struggle’ as ‘an indigenous resistance movement confronting settler colonialism’
Columbia University has tapped Jonathon Kahn, a Vassar College professor who has endorsed the “Palestinian struggle” as “an indigenous resistance movement confronting settler colonialism, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing,” to spearhead an initiative promoting “meaningful dialogue.”
Columbia College dean Josef Sorett, himself embroiled in a scandal over mocking Jewish leaders during a campus panel on anti-Semitism, announced the appointment on Tuesday. Kahn will serve as senior associate dean of community and culture, a role in which he “will build and lead initiatives that cultivate curiosity, civic purpose and meaningful dialogue,” as Sorett put it.
The records of both Sorett and Kahn, however, raise questions about Columbia’s commitment to civil discourse. In May 2021, after Hamas launched missiles into Israel, beginning a nearly two-week war, Kahn signed a letter that accused Israel of instigating the confrontation.
“We affirm that the Palestinian struggle is an indigenous resistance movement confronting settler colonialism, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing, and stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people,” the letter read. “This is not a symmetrical battle,” it continued before noting any “so-called peace process” propagates a “fiction of a ‘two-sided conflict’ and the perpetual postponement of a just solution.”
“In the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza, and within Israel, Palestinians resist daily humiliation and violence from the Israeli military, settler militias, and lynch mobs. We salute their bravery and steadfastness.”
Kahn said in a statement sent to the Washington Free Beacon that he is “a Zionist” who also “deeply value[s] Palestinian life and Palestinians’ aspirations for statehood.”
“My beliefs are not fully captured in this letter that was authored more than four years ago,” he said. “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.”
Sorett, for his part, was one of four Columbia administrators who derided panelists at a May discussion of Jewish life on campus. One dean used vomit emojis to describe a Columbia rabbi’s op-ed, while Sorett sneered “LMAO” at Columbia’s Hillel director. Three of Sorett’s colleagues were placed on leave; Sorett was not.
Kahn’s resume is filled with initiatives promising to enhance civil discourse on campus. At Vassar, he served as “special adviser on inclusion and engaged pluralism,” developing campus-wide projects to foster belonging. At Columbia, throughout the 2024 school year, Kahn co-led the Practices in Community Building Fellowship, another civic dialogue effort that he will continue to lead.
Kahn will also return to teaching contemporary civilization, a required philosophy course for all undergraduates, which he says informed his ability to “creat[e] spaces where dialogue can take root and trust can grow — even when agreement feels out of reach.”
Sorett announced Kahn’s appointment on the first day of Columbia’s fall semester, with many at the Ivy League school hoping to start fresh following the Trump administration’s deal with Columbia. Columbia agreed to pay $200 million to the federal government over three years and $21 million to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in a bid to regain federal funding and settle concerns over campus anti-Semitism and other civil rights violations.
