Sophia Steinert-Evoy
Overview
Sophia Steinert-Evoy is a junior at Vassar College (Vassar), majoring in American Studies. She is a member of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at Vassar (SJP Vassar) and avidly supports the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.Defending Terrorists
On October 6, 2015, following a month of spiraling violence against Israeli civilians, Steinert-Evoy Liked a Facebook post where SJP Vassar misrepresented Palestinian terrorist Fadi Aloon as an innocent civilian who was shot while “run[ning] from a racist mob.” In reality, Aloon was shot by Israeli security forces after he tried to stab to death a 15-year old Israeli civilian. Several hours before the stabbing, Aloon posted “Either martyrdom or victory” on his Facebook page.Steinert-Evoy is a member of the Facebook group - International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) which purports to “struggle against Zionism” and falsely accuses Israel of ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.”
The group photos on IJAN’s Facebook page from January 2016 include a poster supporting unrepentant terrorist-murderer Rasmea Odeh. Odeh was a key military operative with the terrorist group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). In 1969 the PFLP bombed a Jerusalem supermarket, killing two South African students. Odeh also attempted to bomb the British consulate. Odeh confessed, in a highly detailed account, the day following her arrest. One of Odeh’s co-conspirators also directly implicated Odeh as the mastermind, in a 2004 documentary.
Odeh was tried and convicted for her involvement in both bombings and sentenced to life imprisonment by an Israeli court. After being released in a prisoner swap, she emigrated to the U.S.
Odeh was convicted by a Michigan federal jury in November 2014 for immigration fraud, having omitted details of her prior conviction and life sentence, of which she served 10 years. Odeh was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison, fined and ordered to be deported following her prison term. In February of 2106, Odeh’s immigration fraud case was sent back to the district court, to examine whether trauma-related, repressed memories, contributed to Odeh’s failure to disclose her prior conviction.
Promoting BDS at Vassar
On February 1, 2016, Steinert-Evoy changed her Facebook profile picture to a poster reading Vassar College BDS, Vote Yes on the VSA Resolution March 6th.On February 1, 2016 Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) at Vassar (JVP Vassar) and SJP Vassar partnered to form the Vassar Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (VBDS) Coalition, aiming to pass a resolution that would be considered by the Vassar Student Association (VSA) on March 6, 2016.
The resolution demanded that Vassar “boycott and divest from the main colonizing force in Israel/Palestine, Zionism," and listed eleven companies “complicit in the occupation” (at 38:15). The resolution also aimed to prohibit using student funds to purchase Ben & Jerry’s ice cream — because it is sold in “settlements” — as well as in supermarkets where “settlers” and Palestinian Arabs regularly work and shop together, despite the tense situation. VBDS organized over a month and a half of anti-Israel events, culminating in Israeli Apartheid Week, to advocate for the divestment resolution’s passage.
On February 10, 2016, Steinert-Evoy told the Miscellany News, “As an org, we’ve been trying to build connections and coalitions with other orgs this semester, primarily through the BDS resolution.”
In September 2015, JVP Vassar and SJP Vassar launched a boycott campaign against the sale of Sabra, an Israeli-owned hummus brand, in Vassar’s dining hall. Although the dining hall initially agreed to stop stocking Sabra, the decision was quickly overturned. Steinert-Evoy endorsed the campaign — ‘liking” the SJP Facebook post that announced “Victory,” in celebration of the dining hall’s ceasing to sell Sabra Hummus.
VBDS’ Promoting Hate-Speech
On February 3, 2016, VBDS’ promoted an event sponsored by Vassar's American Studies Program and co-sponsored by seven other academic departments and programs that featured Rutgers Associate Professor — and hate speech purveyor — Jasbir Puar, speaking on “Inhumanist Biopolitics: How Palestine Matters.” Puar began her speech by calling for an armed struggle against Israel. She then went on to thoroughly demonize Israel. Puar suggested that Israelis harvest the organs of dead Palestinians and claimed that Israel is maiming and “stunting” Palestinians by food restrictions — despite Gaza having one of the highest obesity rates in the world. Puar concluded that the reason Israeli Jews have not killed Palestinians is “[t]hey need the Palestinians alive in order to keep the kind of rationalization for their victimhood and their militarized economy.”Slandering Israel
On October 7, 2015, Steinert-Evoy attended an SJP event titled “International Day of Action - Solidarity with Palestine.” The event was initiated by SJP co-founder Hatem Bazian, SJP UC Berkeley and JVP. At the event, students brandished signs falsely accusing Israel of apartheid and war crimes.SJP Vassar Spreading Hate and Incitement
SJP Vassar was created in September 2013 and describes itself as striving “for the full decolonization of Palestinian lands” — a call to eradicate the state of Israel.The month after its creation, SJP Vassar disseminated Palestinian Press propaganda that Israel “threatened” to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque. That “threat” has been a traditional pretext for Arab attacks on Jews well before the existence of Israel. Similar propaganda was the excuse for an upsurge in violence by Palestinian Arabs that flared in the fall of 2015. Hamas called on Palestinians to violently “rise up and defend Al-Aqsa.” Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas also praised those willing to “martyr” themselves for Al-Aqsa and declared that Jews would not be allowed to “desecrate” Al Aqsa with their “filthy feet.”
In January 18, 2016, SJP Vassar posted an “urgent call” that its followers “to fight for” their “comrade” Ezra Nawi. In 2015 Nawi was filmed bragging about his entrapping and handing over Palestinians who sold their property to Jews — to be tortured and executed.
SJP Vassar Standing with Terror
In February 2016, SJP Vassar announced that they would be selling “sweet fucking antiZionist gear” at their future events, such as a T-shirt featuringLeila Khaled, a leading member of the Popular front for the Liberation of Pales tinian (PFLP) and a convicted airline hijacker. In a 2014 interview, Khaled opined that the Palestinian Intifada of 2000 failed because it was not violent enough.PFLP is recognized as a terrorist organization by theEuropean Union as well as the United States and Canada. Khaled participated in the hijacking of TWA Flight 840 in 1969 and El Al Flight 219 in 1970.
As of 2015, Khaled sits on the PFLP Central Committee. The PFLP claimed responsibility for the 2001 assassination of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze'evi, the 2011 butchering of the Fogel Family (including a three month old infant, a four year old and an eleven year old) and the 2014 Har Nof Massacre - where Jews were slaughtered at prayer.
SJP Vassar also advertised the sale of “Existence is Resistance” T-shirts, which include various designs featuring the words “Straight Outta Fuck Israel” a picture of a masked gunman, as well as the Leila Khaled T-shirt. The gunman wears a headband emblazoned with the words “Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade” — a terrorist group.
On October 6, 2015, following a month of spiraling violence against Israeli civilians, SJP Vassar misrepresented Palestinian terrorist Fadi Aloon as an innocent civilian who was shot while “run[ning] from a racist mob.” In reality, Aloon was shot by Israeli security forces after he tried to stab to death a 15-year old Israeli civilian. Several hours before the stabbing, Aloon posted “Either martyrdom or victory” on his Facebook page.
On November 18, 2015, SJP Vassar promised a continuation of violence, posting that “Violence ends only when occupation ends.”
SJP Vassar Harassing and Intimidating
In late February 2014, SJP Vassar staged a rage-filled protest, with racial overtones, against a proposed class trip to Israel — just outside the classroom of the professor leading the trip. The belligerent behavior of the SJP Vassar members left the professor and her students feeling harassed and intimidated.On March 3rd, Vassar held an open forum to discuss the “ethics” of the class trip to Israel. SJP Vassar members turned out to picket the event. Reports from attendees were that “Jewish kids who spoke were heckled” and drowned out with a finger-snapping noise and loudly laughed at” and that “rage against Israel was the theme.”
The event was attended by Mondoweiss editor and usually extreme Israel-critic, Philip Weiss. Even he was shaken by the incident, describing on his blog how he felt it was “too raw,” “truly unsettling,” and that there was “a racial element to the division.”
In February 2014, SJP Vassar shared a video called “This Divestment Hurts my Feelings.”
On March 4, 2014, SJP Vassar mocked pro-Israel students that felt “attacked” and “vulnerable” after receiving fake eviction notices in their student door rooms.
In April 2014, the group posted a cartoon ridiculing pro-Israel college students for feeling attacked and unsafe.
In May 2014, SJP Vassar was forced to issue an apology for posting a Nazi-style, anti-Semitic cartoon on its Tumblr account. Vassar’s President, Catharine Hill, announced a review of SJP Vassar’s status as a student group, and said that Vassar would probe use of the image “as a bias incident under college regulations.”
SJP Vassar Honoring Human Shields
In November 2014, SJP Vassar co-sponsored a play with JVP Vassar honoring the memory of International Solidarity Movement (ISM) activist Rachel Corrie. The ISM, founded in 2001, is a movement is ostensibly “committed to resisting the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land using nonviolent, direct-action methods and principles.” However, the group has been accused of supporting terrorism and it encourages its foreign volunteers to act “as human shields in cities, towns and refugee camps.”ISM has encouraged activists to break curfew and disregard Israeli directives prohibiting access to concerning closed military zones. That policy resulted in the death of Rachel Corrie, who was accidentally killed while interfering with an Israeli military operation in 2003. A wrongful death suit brought by Corrie’s family was dismissed, because the judge ruled that Corrie unreasonably chose to put her own life in danger. SJP Vassar called Corrie “a hero” and a “martyr.”
Demonizing Israel
In February 2014, SJP Vassar brought Israeli Apartheid Week to Vassar’s campus. SJP Vassar erected a mock separation barrier, which the group called the “Wall of Apartheid,” which willfully mischaracterized Israel’s security fence.
On March 27, 2014 SJP Vassar doubled down, likening Israel’s security fence to the Berlin Wall. In May 2014, the Vassar Conservative-Libertarian Union erected a “Wall of Truth” to counter SJP Vassar’s disinformation; this wall was immediately defaced with profanities and defamatory allegations against Israel.
SJP
SJP is a student organization engaged in anti-Israel activity on North American college and university campuses.
The first chapter of SJP was founded in 2001 at the University of California at Berkeley by Professor Hatem Bazian. Bazian has spread classic anti-Semitism, reportedly promoted religious anti-Semitism and defended the Hamas terror group. In 2004, Bazian called for “intifada” in America.
SJP organizes anti-Israel campaigns, including running annual Israel Apartheid Weeks, often in collaboration with Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Muslim Students Association (MSA) campus chapters.
SJP has been a major force in pushing the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement on campuses. Chapters have initiated dozens of BDS resolutions in student governments, which have been proposed on or around Jewish holidays, a time when many Jewish students are off-campus.
SJP activists have reportedly physically assaulted, intimidated and harassed Jewish students, disrupted pro-Israel campus events and demonized pro-Israel campus organizations.
Chapters have often endorsed and campaigned for numerous terrorists and whitewashed terrorism.
BDS
The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement was founded by Omar Barghouti in 2005 to challenge “international support for Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism.” BDS is an allegedly “Palestinian-led movement,” although leading BDS activists have admitted [00:01:01] this is not true.
One of the demands of BDS includes [point 3] what is generally known as the “right of return,” a demand discredited as a way to eliminate Israel. Barghouti said the “right of return” is a means to “end Israel’s existence as a Jewish state.”
Barghouti has said that BDS “aims to turn Israel into a pariah state, as South Africa once was.”
In his activism, Barghouti has also said [00:05:55] regarding Israel: “Definitely, most definitely, we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine. No…rational Palestinian, not a sellout Palestinian, will ever accept a Jewish state in Palestine.”
The movement has been linked to numerous terrorist organizations and received a public endorsement from Hamas in 2017.
BDS initiatives include calling on institutions and individuals to divest from Israeli-affiliated companies, promoting academic and cultural boycotts of Israel, and organizing anti-Israel rallies, protests and campaigns.
The movement’s most notable achievement has been the infiltration of university campuses through lobbying for “BDS resolutions.” In these cases, student governments and student groups, backed by their own anti-Israel members and affiliates, have proposed resolutions on some form of boycott of, or divestment from, Israel and Israeli-affiliated entities.
Boycott resolutions, although non-binding, have been passed by student governments on numerous North American campuses.
BDS activity is often aggressive and disruptive. It has been noted that universities that pass BDS resolutions see a marked increase in anti-Semitic incidents on campus. On one campus, when the student government debated a BDS resolution, reports emerged of violent threats against those opposing it.
Social Media and Weblinks:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sofawulff
- Status:
- Student
- University:
- Vassar
- Organizations:
- BDS,
- SJP
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- Last Modified:
- 06/23/2025
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