Students at a pro-Israel protest at Columbia University on Thursday, Oct. 12, hold up photos of Israelis kidnapped by Hamas. Photo by Camillo Barone

By Camillo Barone October 14, 2023

Prosecutors have brought hate crime charges against the teen accused of assaulting a Columbia University student as he hung up posters of Israelis kidnapped by Hamas.

Maxwell Friedman, 19, was charged with assault in the second and third degrees as a hate crime, as well as harassment and weapons possession, according to a complaint filed with the New York County District Attorney’s office.

Friedman, who uses she/her pronouns, was granted supervised release during her arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court Thursday.

The complaint accuses Friedman of attacking a 24-year-old Israeli student in Columbia’s School of General Studies who was hanging the posters on Wednesday with a stick, cutting him and fracturing his finger. It also says Friedman shouted obscenities at the Israeli student and his companions.

“F–k you. F–k all of you prick crackers,” the complaint quotes Friedman as having yelled.

She is scheduled to appear in court on Nov. 29. Calls to her attorney were not immediately returned.

A friend of the Israeli student told the Columbia Spectator, the student newspaper, that Friedman had at first joined the group as they were putting up posters of kidnapped Israelis on Wednesday morning, saying that she is Jewish.

Late in the afternoon, the Spectator article said, the group noticed her outside the university’s Butler Library, a bandana covering her face, as she tore down posters of the kidnapped. They approached her, and that is when the attack occurred, the victim’s friend told the Spectator.

Columbia’s response

Tensions have run high at Columbia and other college campuses since Hamas attacked Israel last weekend, killing more than 1,300 people, mostly civilians, and taking some 150 hostages. Israel has since been bombarding the Gaza Strip with airstrikes, killing an estimated 2,000 Palestinians, and is preparing for a ground war.

Responding to “the ongoing crisis in Israel and Gaza and recent incidents on campus,” Columbia administrators wrote to students on Thursday about how the conflict in the Middle East has spilled onto campus.

“Community members are observing and experiencing disturbing anti-semitic and islamophobic acts, including intimidation and outright violence — as was experienced on campus outside Butler Library late yesterday afternoon — with some students being targeted based on their religious identity or political speech,” they wrote.

While the Columbia officials affirmed intellectual freedom, they also wrote that they “reject and will not tolerate hate speech, violence, or the threat or any acts of violence in our community.”

Columbia took pains on Thursday to keep dueling pro-Palestinian and a pro-Israel rallies on campus peaceful, allowing only those with university IDs on campus and separating the demonstrators with about 30 police officers. No injuries were reported.

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