Central Connecticut State University students organized a rally in support of Palestine and held a vigil to mourn the deaths of thousands of Palestinians since Oct. 7.

CCSU’s Students for Justice in Palestine and the CCSU Intersectional Justice Coalition, along with the support of other clubs, helped organize the event.

Club leaders and New Britain residents gave speeches in front of dozens of students and encouraged the crowd to follow their chants. Students shouted, “Free Palestine” and “From the river to the sea,” two notable pro-Palestinian rally cries, while marching through campus.

Students carried their protest signs and wore their Palestinian keffiyehs around campus. Many signs highlighted the ever-growing death toll of Palestinians. According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, nearly 34,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli attacks and war crimes in Gaza since Oct. 7.

“Are we expected to consider the acceptance and complacency of genocide?” SJP President Janize Hernandez said in one of her speeches. “Should we entertain discussions of how one side seeks the total annihilation of indigenous Palestinians in historic Palestine through systems of settler colonialism, apartheid, and military occupations?”

Although the rally was in support of Palestine, Hernandez said that they were also seeking to condemn and bring attention to CCSU’s complicity and lack of action.

Lily Mercado, the president of ICJ, said that CCSU administration and President Zulma R. Toro have perpetuated harmful narratives, implying that solidarity with Palestine is congruent to antisemitism, citing Toro’s email from Oct. 10.

Although some pro-Palestinian messages have been wrongly conflated with antisemitism, Jewish residents and students still attended the rally to show their support.

Elizabeth Aaronsohn, an 87-year-old former CCSU professor of teacher education, was one of the few outspoken Jewish voices at the rally.

“I think it’s really important to have a Jewish voice here,” she said. “The assumption is that Jews are all pro-Israeli, and I’m not.”

Aaronsohn was one of several people who spoke in front of the crowd.

“I was born 12 years before Israel [as a country] existed, so I was a Jew before there was an Israel … and that was fine,” she said. “So now we’re being told that without Israel we can’t be a Jew. Well, that’s nonsense.”

Frank O’Gorman, a former student from the graduating class of 1988, was also in attendance.

O’Gorman, a New Britain resident of Irish descent, said his solidarity with Palestine can be traced to his Irish roots.

“We are kindred cousins in our struggle for justice, struggle for self-determination, struggle for freedom and liberation in our own land,” he said. “We are people for whom faith and land means everything to … We identify with them [Palestinians] on all those different levels.”

Club leaders from the CCSU Black Student Union, CCSU Sustainability Club, and local community organizations were also at the rally, adding to an already diverse crowd, but action from more students is what is also needed, Mercado said.

SPJ has been encouraging students to organize more frequently in light of weak vocal support for Palestine from students on campus.

“There is a genocide going on, and we need to speak on it … it’s of crucial importance,” Mercado said. “We’re trying our best to not just stand around and watch everything happen … we’re trying to do something about it.”

Originally planned to be a walkout, the rally was postponed after it was met with resistance by CCSU administration, mainly Toro.

“SJP decided to postpone the event due to threats from the administration,” Mercado said. “They canceled the vigil that we had planned officially through SALD [Student Activities & Leadership Development] and SJP was scared to hold the rally and vigil with that in mind.”

Mercado said that they are still waiting for a follow-up from the administration regarding supposed club violations that initially caused Toro to cancel the event.

“We did try to meet with administration to understand, exactly, what policy we violated and how, but they honestly couldn’t elaborate on what policy we violated,” Mercado said.

Students marched back to the Student Center circle for the vigil, where various club leaders read the names of Palestinian victims. Students from SPJ and IJC created a banner honoring the lives that were lost.

“Being here today, on these terms, is not something that any of us wanted to do, but it’s something that we have to do to acknowledge the lives that have been stolen …” Hernandez said.