A postdoctoral research scholar at Arizona State University has been placed on leave while the university looks into his interaction with a woman wearing a headscarf, which was caught on camera, the university announced on Tuesday.
The altercation took place on Sunday at a pro-Israel demonstration that was held right outside Tempe’s campus. A widely shared cellphone video depicts the scholar Jonathan Yudelman and an unidentified man approaching the hijab-wearing woman.
Although it’s unclear what transpired before Yudelman and the woman squared off on camera, he can be heard saying, “I’m literally in your face— that’s right.”
Yudelman repeatedly moves forward, sometimes with his hands raised, and gets just inches away from the woman before she retreats.
The woman responds, “You’re disrespecting my religious boundaries.”
Yudelman responds, “You insult my sense of humanity, b—-.”
The Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Arizona chapter issued a statement denouncing the incident and urging “law enforcement to take into custody Arizona State University (ASU) professor Jonathan Yudelman for purportedly harassing and assaulting a Muslim woman in a hijab throughout his participation in a pro-Israel protest near campus.”
“This conduct is not just biased; it also goes against the core values of academic honesty and tolerance for differences that educators ought to maintain both within and beyond the classroom,” stated Azza Abuseif, the chapter’s executive director, who demanded that ASU fire Yudelman.
The university addressed the video and Yudelman’s criticism on Tuesday.
In a statement, ASU stated that it “is aware of the accusations against Jonathan Yudelman as well as is investigating them.” “Dr. Yudelman is on leave and will stay so pending the result of the investigation.”
Requests for comment sent to Yudelman’s email address at ASU and through contacts at other universities he has recently been associated with went unanswered.
Prior to the altercation, Yudelman was interviewed by Phoenix-based NBC affiliate KPNX. Pro-Palestinian demonstrations at American universities were characterized by him as “campuses having been taken over by supporters of terrorism,” and he denounced the intimidation of “Jewish students.”
“It was essential to come out and make an appeal for the community,” he stated.
A request for comment from the campus rabbi, who spoke at the pro-Israel rally and provided advice to the students who organized it, was not immediately answered. Chabad at ASU, one of the student organizations that planned the event on Sunday, did not reply either.
A request for comment was not immediately answered by the university’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine.
At ASU’s School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership, Yudelman is a scholar. His teaching assignments at the university were “Great Debates in American Politics” as well as “Great Ideas of Politics and Ethics.”
In addition, his biography from the University of Austin states that he has held postdoctoral positions at Princeton, Harvard, and Baylor in addition to his current position as an assistant professor of political theory in the intellectual foundation.
“His current research includes early modern political theory, the concept of progress, the sources of political authority, and the relationship of politics and religion,” it states.
Yudelman is listed as a faculty member of the Tikvah Fund, a New York City nonprofit that advocates for Jewish ideas and bills itself as “economically free-market oriented, culturally traditional, politically Zionist, and theologically open-minded.”
About one hundred people showed up for the pro-Israel rally on Sunday, according to an Arizona State spokesperson. This was in contrast to international demonstrations and campus encampments against Israel’s military actions in neighboring Gaza after Hamas militants unexpectedly attacked Israel on October 7.
A spokeswoman said that during a “pro-Palestine” rally the weekend before, one non-student was detained and charged with spray painting university property.