- Elise Fisher, Clara Brownstein
- Oct 18, 2024 (DailyCal.org)
- Comments
At approximately 6 a.m. this morning, UC Berkeley Facilities Services employees tore down a sukkah which was set up at Sather Gate Thursday, citing violations of campus Time, Place and Manner policies.
The sukkah, created by campus organization Jewish Voice for Peace, or JVP, included a banner reading “sukkot means … respect the land, respect the people, free Palestine.” JVP called the sukkah a “Gaza Solidarity Sukkah,” and said on Instagram they planned to educate about the Jewish holiday sukkot as it relates to the “environmental devastation by the Israeli government.”
Several police officers, campus facilities workers and members of the campus administration, including Vice Chancellor Marc Fisher and Associate Vice Chancellor and Dean of Students Sunny Lee, were present this morning at the sukkah and demanded that JVP members take it down in adherence with campus “Time, Place, and Manner” policies, according to JVP member Valerian Weinzweig.
When JVP members did not dismantle the structure, campus employees did, destroying the structure and seizing the materials from JVP.
The sukkah was established at about 11 a.m. Thursday morning for the week-long Jewish holiday Sukkot, Weinzweig said. Sukkot celebrates land and harvest and is centered around the structure of the sukkah, huts in which practitioners are encouraged to spend time, eat meals and sleep.
About 45 minutes after the sukkah was established, members of the campus administration requested it be moved. JVP members asked for more specific reasoning, at which point Fisher arrived and said the sukkah was blocking the way for vehicles moving through, according to Weinzweig.
Elements of the sukkah blew away due to heavy winds, which campus facilities began putting in a dumpster before JVP members recovered the elements and rebuilt the sukkah on one side of the gate. Weinzweig said the sukkah remained there until this morning.
Throughout the night, religious discussions took place and people were consistently present monitoring the sukkah, Weinzweig noted.
Weinzweig alleged that campus representatives, including Fisher, did not cite the specific policy the construction of the sukkah violated until this morning.
Campus Time, Place, and Manner policies prohibit erecting structures and attaching anything to campus structures, as well as blocking roadways and walkways.
These guidelines have previously been violated — including during a pro-Palestinian demonstration Wednesday and the months-long Sather Gate blockade last semester. However, UC President Michael Drake issued explicit instructions Aug. 19 for UC campuses to standardize and enforce bans on “unauthorized structures.”
On Wednesday at noon, a pro-Palestinian demonstration blocked Sather Gate with fold-out tables, banners and tents. Campus spokesperson Dan Mogulof said in an email that this demonstration similarly violated the time, place and manner rules by blocking the roadway for emergency vehicles and attaching signs and other items to the gate.
Organizers were informed of these violations by campus, and no further action was taken because demonstrations ended within an hour, Mogulof said.
Regarding the sukkah, Mogulof said in the email that JVP members “disregarded clearly conveyed notification that they were violating the rule and that the violation needed to cease.”
He noted that moving forward, campus will continue to enforce these policies in adherence with Drake’s guidance.
JVP is planning to hold more events at the gate, including a shabbat service tonight. Weinzweig noted that the groupmembers are unsure if they will reconstruct the sukkah, given that they no longer have the materials to do so.
“We’re going to have our Shabbos service, we’re going to have some programming at the gate which we had originally planned, but we’re not entirely sure what we’re going to do about Sukkot without a sukkah,” Weinzweig said.
Elise Fisher
News Deputy Editor
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Clara Brownstein
Senior Staff
