A group of CUNY faculty has formed the CUNY Alliance for Inclusion (CAFI) to fight what they describe as rising antisemitism and anti-Zionist activity at the university, claiming the group’s public advocacy contributed to Governor Hochul halting a 2025 Hunter College faculty search that drew objections from Jewish faculty members. The account comes from a July 1 opinion piece in Queens Jewish Link by Dr. Fred Naider, a distinguished emeritus professor of biochemistry and chemistry at CUNY and an original CAFI member. All facts, characterizations, and claims in this article come from Naider’s op-ed; Bushwick Daily has not independently verified them.
CAFI was established by Distinguished Professor Azi Genack, according to Naider. The group’s mission statement, as Naider quotes it, is to “foster an environment of academic integrity, moral clarity, and open dialogue at CUNY.” Naider describes CAFI as opposing antisemitic and anti-Zionist resolutions passed by faculty groups and student governments, and sponsoring seminars that it says present a balanced view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Naider points to two specific moments where he says CAFI mobilized successfully. In 2021, when the Professional Staff Congress (PSC), the union representing CUNY faculty and staff, passed a resolution condemning Israel and calling for support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, CAFI organized a counter-petition that gathered more than 3,000 signatures. Naider writes that union leadership was made aware that many faculty wanted the PSC focused on “job-related issues and not the Middle East.”
In 2025, Hunter College posted a job listing for a Palestinian studies position seeking a candidate who, per the posting as Naider quotes it, “takes a critical lens to issues pertaining to Palestine, including but not limited to settler-colonialism, genocide, human rights, apartheid, etc.” CAFI members drew attention to the posting, Naider writes, and Governor Hochul ultimately nullified the search. A new search was launched with what Naider describes as “modified language that would be less offensive to Jews.” Naider acknowledges that many faculty view Hochul’s intervention as a violation of academic freedom.
Naider says this started more than a decade ago. He writes that anti-Israel protests at CUNY turned physical and threatening around 2015, with swastikas and antisemitic slogans appearing on buildings at John Jay College. After the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, an encampment at City College that Naider says interfered with student access was cleared by the NYPD. The Graduate School student organization and the PSC each passed anti-Israel resolutions after October 7, actions Naider characterizes as attempts to “isolate and marginalize Jews at CUNY.”
Naider also describes two CUNY School of Law graduation speeches he found objectionable: Nerdeen Kiswani’s 2022 address and Fatima Mousa Mohammed’s 2023 address, both of which he says were used to criticize Israel. At the College of Staten Island, where Naider served as provost from 2012 to 2015, he writes that he witnessed Palestinian students decline to speak with Jewish students at the campus Hillel.
Naider taught at CUNY for nearly 50 years, wearing a kippah srugah throughout his lectures. He left in 2020 at age 75 and relocated to Rehovot, Israel, to be near family. His stated position on CAFI’s intent: the group is “not anti-anyone or anti-any people” and does not seek to suppress criticism of Israel, but opposes what he calls attempts to “homogenize the intellectual analysis of complex issues and eliminate critical discussion.” CAFI shares information among Jewish faculty to keep them connected and aware of university developments, Naider writes, alongside non-Jewish colleagues who are, in his words, “unwilling to succumb to the rising antisemitism in academia.”
Featured image: Bushwick Daily image
