Dozens of professors from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem today (Wednesday, May 26) joined some 800 students in a protest march from the university to the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. The crowd protested against the entrance of Jewish settlers into the neighborhood, and the eviction of Arab families from their homes. Among the protestors a former lecturer at Tel-Aviv University, the member of the Knesset, Dov Khenin, a leading Communist Party of Israel member.

 During the rally, students and professors called out slogans such as “We won’t sit in class while rights are being trampled” and “We won’t learn civil rights with racism in Sheikh Jarrah.” The protestors waived signs that read “No sanctity in an occupied city”.

Weekly Friday afternoon demonstrations there continuing to draw large crowds, Wednesday’s march signified the first “academic protest” in the east Jerusalem neighborhood. Although the march was in no way endorsed by the university, students and professors alike said that the it would be followed by additional such efforts.

Professor Ze’ev Sternhell, who heads Hebrew University’s Political Science Department, addressed the crowd after it came to a halt at a park inside the neighborhood. He told journalists that the march was a “new step” for the protest movement in Sheikh Jarrah, and that because of the student-professor cooperation, it marked an evolution historically unseen at peace demonstrations in Israel.

“I can’t remember when there was ever something like it in Israel”, told Sternhell. “And I’m very happy to see it.”

“I think the fact that we’re seeing so many people here today, also shows that we’ve reached a point of crisis in Palestinian Sheikh Jarrah and that dangerous things are happening here that need to stop.” Next Friday Sternhell will participate at the annual Marx Forum in Tel-Aviv, held by “Hagada Hasmalit Cultural Center” – an alternative cultural center and radical website supported by the Communist Party.