UBC building defaced with anti-Israel graffiti, RCMP investigating

A University of British Columbia employee and members of the Jewish community are speaking out following a protest that targeted a campus event featuring guest speakers with ties to Israel.

On the morning of Oct. 16, protesters sprayed anti-Israel and pro-Palestine messages on the Green College Coach House, which is a more than 100-year-old heritage building, after a medieval studies workshop featuring guest speakers with ties to Israel was scheduled to take place there.

“None of the papers (presented at the workshop) were broaching topics to the deal with current politics, the modern Middle East,” event organizer and UBC history sessional lecturer Josh Timmermann told CTV News in an interview. “It’s purely incidental that two of the people or three of the people if you count a moderator of one session (had links to Israel).”

Timmermann added the event featured presenters from nine different countries, saying none of them are involved with what he described as “hot button contemporary issues.”

The protesters didn’t stop with the Green College Coach House.

When the workshop was relocated to a room at the Allard School of Law, Timmermann says roughly a dozen masked people came in with a megaphone and shouted at various participants.

At one point, he says, “you have blood on your hands” was shouted.

“There were people, and I’m not thinking of myself here, in some ways the least of it, traumatized by something that went on,” Timmermann said. “And to me, that’s not acceptable protest. That’s intimidation. That’s harassment.”

Timmermann recalls one Israeli woman at the event shaking in horror, with this happening almost exactly a year after Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas carried out a terror attack which killed more than 1,200 people and took more than 240 hostages.

The attack, and the Israeli military’s response in Gaza—which has left more than 40,000 people dead according to the health ministry in that territory—have prompted major tensions on university campuses including UBC.

“I feel really bad, for this event that I put together, that there were people who felt unsafe, felt unwelcome,” Timmermann said. “I’m not the president of the university, but I invited people to come to this event, you know, and that someone would come to this event that I put together, and for 17 to 20 minutes feel trauma to the point that they’re shaking, or they’re accused of grotesque things.”

Timmermann says he fears for his future employment at the university, and was pressured by members of faculty in his department to drop Israeli-linked participants from the event, which he refused. He has felt so uncomfortable about the situation that he requested CTV conduct our interview off campus.

Local Jewish academics are speaking up, saying the community doesn’t feel safe.

“On the whole, the university, though, thinks it’s doing a good job. And I can tell you, on the whole, it’s not,” said David Silver, chair in business and professional ethics at the Sauder School of Business at UBC, and part of the Jewish Academic Alliance of B.C. “And we feel it’s really incumbent on the university and our senior leaders, including our president, to speak up and to say there’s room for legitimate protest, there’s room for strong feelings, we understand that, we appreciate that, but there’s not room for saying people cannot be part of our academic community and serve in standard academic roles because of who we are and what our connections are.”

UBC declined an interview request, but says it is investigating the incident, along with the RCMP and campus security.

“Any incident targeting the Jewish community is not tolerated and UBC remains committed to addressing these incidents while balancing individuals’ rights to freedom of expression, in line with university policies and the law,” said Matthew Ramsey with UBC media relations in a statement. “The university is actively working with campus security and RCMP to investigate and ensure the safety of all individuals and groups on campus.”

The Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, Allied Voices for Israel, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs and other Jewish organizations have put out a statement on the situation, calling for stronger action from UBC.

“We appreciate that certain steps have been taken to address our community’s concerns,” read a joint statement. “However, we believe stronger, more decisive action is urgently needed to address the rising tide of hate, intimidation, and harassment on campus.”