Ahead of Oct. 7 anniversary, college students in Colorado plan both vigils and protests

As the anniversary of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attacks on Israel approaches, students around the state are holding vigils and protests on their respective university campuses.

The attacks killed more than 1,200 people in Israel, and 100 Israelis are still Hamas hostages, according to the Israeli government. Over the last year, Israel has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians during the conflict, according to the United Nations, and has injured more than 96,000 others. Both sides have drawn passionate support abroad, including in the United States.

Earlier this year, protests broke out on college campuses across the country with students demanding that institutions denounce the Israeli government and terminate contracts with companies operating in the country. At the same time, Jewish students have said they face a worsening climate of antisemitism and that they feel less safe on campus.

“It was a difficult year for many [Jewish] students with anti-Zionism all over the place, and even some anti-Semitism,” Daniel Bennet, the statewide director of Hillel of Colorado, told CPR News.

According to Bennet, Hillel of Colorado has seen “record numbers of student enrollment” on all of the college campuses across the state. Bennet said more Jewish students are seeking out communities to “have comradery together and to feel strength in numbers.”

“We’ve never been strangers to anti-Semitism,” Bennet said. “And that's not anything that the students are surprised by, although it's horrible. But they are surprised when their friends … who they had marched with together, for LGBTQ rights or for Black Lives Matters, tell them that we can't help you as Jews unless you denounce the right of Israel to exist and call Israel an apartheid state and a genocidal state and a colonial state.”

But some pro-Palestinian student protesters argue that their target isn’t other Jewish students — it’s their university administrations.

“My opposition is the university administration who continue to invest in an occupation and apartheid and the genocide. Our enemy, our opposition, is not the Jewish people,” said Khalid Hamu, a third-year student at the University of Colorado Denver and a student leader with Students for a Democratic Society, the main student-run group leading campus protests in the city.

Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite

Some of those anti-war protesters — many of whom are Auraria campus students who attend the University of Colorado Denver, Metropolitan State University of Denver or the Community College of Denver — are now due in court for charges of trespassing. Hamu said that pressure won’t deter the Students for a Democratic Society from protesting.  

In addition to pro-Palestinian student organizations holding rallies in front of administration buildings to demand a cease-fire, Jewish student groups will be hosting vigils and remembrance events on their respective campuses to mourn those killed on Oct. 7.

What Denver can expect

Pro-Palestinian students from Auraria plan to join other anti-war protesters for an International Day of Action protest on Saturday, Oct. 5. Organizers said protesters will begin rallying at James N. Manley Park in Denver at noon.

Additionally, on Monday, Oct. 7, Auraria student protesters plan on “answering the call” from the National Students for a Democratic Society. They intend to walk out of class at noon and march to Union Station alongside members of the Colorado Palestine Coalition. 

Hamu said the student protesters will again demand that the university administration stand with Palestinians and “cut ties with Israel and the genocide.”

Meanwhile, Jewish Auraria students will be hosting a commemoration and remembrance event on Sunday, Oct. 6. According to the University of Denver’s Hillel group, the event will include a “Q&A conversation, grief processing, and artistic expression.” There will be another commemoration on the Auraria campus on Monday, Oct. 7. 

What Boulder can expect

CPR News reached out to several CU Boulder organizations for details on events marking the anniversary of the Hamas attacks, but none of those groups have responded so far. 

“CU Boulder supports our students, faculty and staff who wish to host events and activities, so long as those activities do not violate campus policy, regent law and policy, state law or federal law,” the university said in a statement.

According to a Buffs for Palestine Instagram post, the pro-Palestinian student organization will be hosting a “Week of Rage,” starting Monday, Oct. 7, but the group has not released any further details. The Week of Rage is being held by Students for Justice in Palestine groups on college campuses nationwide.    

The Boulder Jewish Community Center will also be holding a remembrance on Monday, Oct. 7 “to support each other with reflection, song, poetry, and prayer.”

What Fort Collins can expect

Students for Justice in Palestine at Colorado State University plan to create a 9-mile-long art installation around Fort Collins on Sunday, Oct. 6. Protesters will carry hand-made paper kites along the route. The kites will feature pictures of Palestinians killed during the fighting. 

According to Ella Smith, a third-year student at CSU and organizer with Students for Justice in Palestine, the protesters devised the installation because “art is inherently political … and inherently liberatory.”

Courtesy of Ella Smith, a student organizer at CSU

“Our members feel that through creating and engaging with art, they can not only put a lot of their grief, emotions, their anger, their sadness, all of that onto the art piece onto the pages,” said Smith, who is Jewish. “But art is something that can be displayed for a long period of time in remembrance, and so it's not just a protest which will end.”

Smith told CPR News that protesters will also have the opportunity to create chalk art along the 9-mile stretch.

Jewish students at CSU plan to host a commemoration event on campus on Sunday, Oct. 6. Din Tesler, a survivor of the original Oct. 7 assault, will be the guest speaker at the event. Tesler was working as a security guard at the Nova Festival when Hamas attacked.

Despite some of the student organizers being worried about pushback from protesters, Kiara Gleiser, the president of Chabad — a student-run Jewish organization at CSU — said Tesler “actually wants to have people that aren't in the [Jewish] community to come, he wants to teach people a lot.”

The Jewish community at CSU will also be holding a vigil on Monday, Oct. 7 to give “strength and support to one another and our brothers and sisters in Israel.”

This story may be updated.