Pro-Palestine sentiment is not new to many of these campuses, but the deadly Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israeli civilians and the ensuing war in Gaza have sparked far more frequent and zealous demonstrations.
For Ethan Melman, a born-and-raised Chicagoan attending the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, that issue came to a head last fall when he, a Jewish student, attended one of the pro-Palestine protests to investigate.
Once there, Melman pulled out his phone to record, but he soon became the focus of the protest.
