An administrator at Cooper Union has been slammed for backing a vigil for Palestinian “martyrs” — held on the anniversary of Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
Athena Abadilla, the director of residential life and community development at the Manhattan university, commented on an Instagram post by the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) advertising a “Vigil for the Martyrs” on Monday.
“The 777’s of it all ❤️ glory to all the martyrs, every single person k!lled since ’48 🫂,” the comment read.
The flyer advertising the vigil referred to the Oct. 7 anniversary of Hamas’ brutal attack on Israel as “one year of resistance,” and categorized the Jewish state’s war inside Gaza as “one year of genocide.”
The phrase used in Abadilla’s comment, “Glory to our Martyrs,” has been associated with pro-Hamas sentiment previously.
“We are called a nation of martyrs … we are proud to sacrifice martyrs,” top Hamas official Ghazi Hamad has said.
The Instagram account has Abadilla’s name and picture attached to it, and her Facebook links back to it. Abadilla’s LinkedIn, and a page on the school website, says she is the director of residential life at Cooper Union — which grants degrees in art, architecture and engineering, according to its website. The woman’s Facebook links to the Instagram account
Her comment and the “vigil” came in the wake of highly publicized antisemitic incidents at the school in the year following Hamas’ barbaric attacks.
On Oct. 25, 2023, a mob of anti-Israel zealots forced Jewish students to barricade themselves in a Cooper Union library as they banged on the doors.
“It is deeply troubling to see the Cooper Union Director of Residence Life use language that glorifies acts of terror,” said Ziporah Reich, director of litigation at the Lawfare Project, which is representing the victims of last year’s library incident in a lawsuit against the school, along with law firm Arnold & Porter Kaye Schole.
“By not putting a stop to such inflammatory rhetoric, Cooper Union is sending a dangerous message that antisemitism and support for violence against Jews are acceptable on campus,” Reich said.
SJP, the group that organized the vigil, is no stranger to controversy.
It has been banned from the Florida university system and was suspended by Columbia University after the school was roiled by anti-Israel demonstrations that many accused of engaging in antisemitism. SJP’s Brown University chapter called the Oct. 7 Hamas attack a “historic act of resistance.”
The group has also gone after the college’s Jewish organization Hillel, claiming it is a “reactionary presence on campus,” and accuses it of engaging in “financial investment in racist practices” but did not give specifics.
Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) called the SJP’s vigil “demonic” in a post on X.
“Memorializing the murderers rather than the murdered is a little like prosecuting the rape victims rather than the rapists. It is victim-blaming and terrorism worship at its most demonic,” the congressman wrote over a picture of the flyer advertising the event.
The group’s Cooper Union branch’s Instagram states that it is “in–not–of” the school.
Cooper Union, Cooper Union Students for Justice in Palestine, and Abadailla did not respond to The Post’s repeated requests for comment.
More than 300 alumni threatened to withhold donations to the college over its handling of the library incident.
The handful of Jewish students who were forced to barricade themselves — as a pro-Palestinian mob held anti-Israel signs against the windows and allegedly hurled antisemitic invective — said they feared for their lives.
“When they started banging on the door, my heart started pounding. I was crying. I think if the doors weren’t locked — I don’t know what would have happened,” a student, who asked to remain anonymous, told The Post at the time.
Additional reporting by Carly Ortiz-Lytle