JTA — An event at the University of California, Los Angeles featuring the freed Israeli hostage Omer Shem Tov has become the latest flashpoint in campus dialogue over Israel, after the university’s student government issued a statement condemning the talk.

The event itself went off without disruption. But the school’s Undergraduate Students Associated Council issued a letter the same day declaring that bringing Shem Tov to campus was an example of “selective platforming of narratives that obscure the broader reality of ongoing state violence.”

The statement ignited a firestorm. The student government has drawn ire from a sitting University of California regent, the campus Hillel, and its own president, who accused a faction of student leaders of passing the resolution with underhanded methods.

The controversy comes as UCLA continues to face scrutiny under the Trump administration’s campus antisemitism push, much of it tied to student protester actions after the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel. UCLA is currently facing a lawsuit from the Justice Department over what the administration said was the fostering of a hostile work environment when protesters took over sections of campus and sought to bar “Zionists” from entering; the school has also settled a $6.13 million lawsuit with Jewish groups over the same instances.

“I am disgusted and appalled by the Council’s recent statement condemning an on-campus event featuring former Israeli hostage Omer Shem Tov,” Jewish UC regent Jay Sures, a leading Hollywood talent agent, wrote in a lengthy open letter published earlier this week. “Talk about a missed opportunity.”

UCLA’s Hillel, together with the campus’s Israel Studies center and its Student Supporting Israel club, hosted Shem Tov for an event earlier this month coinciding with Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. The school’s Jewish chancellor Julio Frenk, who has been outspoken about his commitment to combat antisemitism on UCLA’s campus, attended........

© The Times of Israel