Lesley Klaff is Senior Lecturer in Law at Sheffield Hallam University. She is associate editor for the Journal for the Study of Antisemitism and serves on both the Academic Advisory Board of the Louis D Brandeis Center for Human Rights under Law and the Berlin International Center for the Study of Antisemitism.
Our Voice of the Fortnight is from the Times of Israel's 'Wartime Diaries' podcast. In the immediate aftermath of October 7th, Shai Davidai – an Assistant Professor at Columbia University – became an unlikely public defender of Israel. And truthfully, even he was surprised by this turn of events: As a committed left-wing Israeli, he had spent years criticizing the government, and often took to the streets to demonstrate against its policies. But the atmosphere he witnessed on college campuses (and specifically on his own campus at Columbia), compelled him to speak up and speak out.