Israeli student attacked with a stick outside Columbia University library: cops

An Israeli student was beaten with a stick outside Columbia University’s main library this week — amid heightened tensions on the Ivy League campus over the Israel-Hamas war.

Cops responded to a report of a 24-year-old man assaulted at 535 W. 114th St. — right outside Butler Library — around 6:10 p.m. Wednesday, the NYPD said.

The victim and a 19-year-old woman were having an argument, which turned physical when she allegedly beat him in the hand with a wooden stick, according to police.

The suspect, Maxwell Friedman, of Brooklyn, was arrested and charged with an assault, cops said, adding that the victim refused medical attention at the scene.

The victim — an Israeli student at Columbia’s School of General Studies — said he confronted the woman after seeing her ripping down flyers with names and pictures of Israelis kidnapped by Hamas this week, according to the university’s student newspaper, the Columbia Daily Spectator, which first reported the attack.

“This is because me being an Israeli these days. Not me because being myself,” said the man — who asked to be identified by the initials “I.A.” due to concerns for his safety.

“It is because me being an Israeli who is under a certain kind of threat.”

I.A. and a group of other students encountered the woman earlier Wednesday when they were putting up signs in Uris Hall with the Hamas kidnapping victims, a friend of the victim told the newspaper.

She asked to help the group, telling them she was Jewish, and eventually stayed with them throughout the morning, the friend said.

Then, around 5:30 p.m., I.A. and four friends were outside Butler Library when they saw the suspect ripping the posters down, he told the Spectator.

When the group approached the teen — who now had a bandanna obscuring her face — she allegedly hurled obscenities at them and rushed at I.A. with a stick, he told the paper.

She tried to punch I.A. in the face, but he defended himself, he said.

By the time the scuffle was broken up, I.A. had bruised one hand and broken the ring finger on the other, he told the Spectator.

The student said he will not be returning to campus in the near future due to concerns for his safety.

I.A. has also told other Jewish and Israeli classmates that he does not feel safe, and warned them about hostilities on campus in light of protests over the conflict scheduled for Thursday, he added.

“We were all kind of shocked that this stuff can happen on our own campus, which should be a safe haven,” he said.

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“We don’t know how to handle the situation, let alone that our families and friends are going through the worst nightmare, and we are mentally in the same ship with them,” he continued. “And, now, we have to handle the situation that campus is not a safe place for us anymore.”

The incident has raised questions about antisemitism and political divides on the Morningside Heights campus.

“What has for years been the intimidation of Jewish students has become physical,” Jewish Insider executive editor and New York native Melissa Weiss wrote about the attack in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Columbia University did not immediately reply to The Post’s request for a comment on the attack.

Others on campus said it was not an isolated incident.

“There have been so many incredibly disgusting and vile anti-Semitic acts on campus [this week],”a Barnard College senior who asked to go by  “K.A.,” told The Post Thursday.

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“Hillel [the Jewish student group] has resorted to serving three meals a day because Jewish students don’t feel safe on campus.”

Former IDF soldiers who are now students in General Studies, or “GS,” have been mocked in group chats with pictures sent of worms and parasites, and messages “calling them second-class citizens,” K.A. continued.

“[People call] their friends who are in danger ‘your little terrorist sh-tbag friends,’” she said.

“It’s literally Nazi sentiment that’s been spread around campus.”

K.A. added that she feels that the Hamas attack last weekend brought out anti-Semitism sentiments from students, faculty and administrators that had previously been “closeted.”

“People don’t understand that when they’re blaming Jews and Israelis…it’s going to have physical consequences like this,” another student, who asked to go by “E.Y.,” said of the attitude on campus that led up to Wednesday night’s attack.

“It’s tragic that it only took four days of this… for it to escalate to physical violence in a place where I like to believe that I’m surrounded by compassionate students.”

Jewish students were especially on edge due to a planned protest by the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) organization set for Thursday afternoon.

“As of now, we don’t really know exactly what they’re planning to do,” K.A. explained, though she noted that Jewish students and their allies were planning to hold a silent counter-protest nearby.

SJP did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for a comment on the event.

The students’ concerns extend to the wider New York area, as well: The NYPD has ordered all officers to report in uniform starting Friday after the former head of Hamas called for a global “Day of Jihad” protest in support of the attacks against Israel.

“I am strongly of the opinion that what happened this weekend, no matter what side you are on, should not have been celebrated,” said another student, who asked to go by “S,” and who spent two years of her childhood in Israel.

“A lot of Jewish and Israeli students have been really grieving and mourning, and to have that thrown back in our faces on campus.. it’s kind of exacerbated everything that’s happened,” the student added. 

She noted that a Muslim student approached her about her social media posts on the events of the last week and expressed support.

“We all feel it – it’s heartbreaking,” said E.Y.

“My phone has been blowing up non-stop with messages saying ‘I’m afraid to go to class – how do I tell my professor?’ or ‘I’m afraid to be seen on campus – how do I tell my non-Jewish friends?’”

The students were also quick to point out that their concerns are not meant to single out their Palestinian or Muslim peers.

“The loss of human life anywhere is a tragedy, period – Palestinian, Israeli, Jewish, non-Jewish,” E.Y. said. 

“I hope it doesn’t take another physical attack for them to wake up to that.”

Columbia is not the only university facing tensions over the Israel-Hamas conflict, which began on Saturday when scores of Hamas terrorists stormed the Gaza border fence and attacked Israel by land, air and water.

Harvard University came under fire earlier this week when over 30 student organizations signed a letter holding Israel “entirely responsible” for Hamas’ actions.

At least a dozen business leaders subsequently heeded billionaire Bill Ackman’s call to bar members of the student groups from careers on Wall Street.

Seventeen other organizations and around 500 faculty and 3,000 others also signed a counter-statement blasting the initial release as “deeply offensive.”