Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV), representing over 2,500 traditional, Orthodox rabbis in American public policy, today strongly rejected a U.S. District Judge’s decision requiring the University of Maryland to permit a hateful anti-Israel rally to take place on Monday, October 7. The decision by Judge Peter Messitte claims that permitting anti-Jewish incitement at the University of Maryland is simply a matter of “free speech.”

CJV President Rabbi Yoel Schonfeld issued the following statement:

While the First Amendment requires that even the most repugnant voices have a chance to be heard, the first obligation of a university is to provide a safe environment in which students can learn. The judge simply ignored the fact that the rally will, like similar events at schools across the country, descend into not just glorification of hatred but actual harassment and threats to the safety of Jewish students—the reason the University correctly decided to prohibit the event in the first place.

We commend Governor Moore for the correct tenor of his response, recognizing that incitement to violence is unacceptable, and that October 7 should be remembered for the “heinous terrorist attack on Israel that took innocent lives.” Instead, thanks to distortion of law by a federal judge, that day will see students and others march across the UMD campus in support of bigotry and hate, couched in the obscene claim that it is somehow “genocidal” to halt the effort of the genocidal Hamas terror organization to murder innocent Jews.

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