Jewish Students at Brown Face Possible Discipline for Sleeping in Religious Structure

Administrators at Brown University are determining whether to discipline 17 Jewish students who were found sleeping in a temporary structure as a part of a Jewish holiday on campus during the early hours of Oct. 22.

The students, who are members of an unofficial campus group called Jews for Ceasefire Now, say their religion commands them to sleep in the structure, called a sukkah, during Sukkot. They say the school is unfairly cracking down on them because of their anti-Zionist stance. But the school says it has strict and long-standing policies about students sleeping on university green spaces.

The university had informed students at the start of the holiday that they were allowed to construct the sukkah but could not sleep in it.

According to a rabbi affiliated with the school’s office of chaplains and religious life, Lex Rofeberg, it is commanded in the Torah to dwell in sukkahs during Sukkot in honor of the Israelites wandering through the desert after escaping from Egypt.

In an email, Brown spokesperson Brian Clark said that the unity has a decade-old policy about not sleeping on campus green spaces.

“Students have erected a sukkah in many other years, but the University has provided no exceptions for sleeping in those cases or any other,” Clark said.

This story was reported by The Public’s Radio. You can read the entire story here.