IfNotNow disrupts Shabbat services, blocks University of Texas Chabad entrance

“In addition, they found it appropriate to engage with young children—children who couldn’t understand why fellow Jews would have a problem with them,” he continued.

Johnson’s 4-year-old daughter saw the protesters and asked her father, as recalled by Johnson, “What are those people doing outside? They just asked me to leave Chabad and come sing with them Daddy.”

The IfNotNow chapter said on Facebook that Mangel was using the trauma from the Holocaust “to justify the oppression of Palestinian people.”

Mangel, however, happens to know quite a bit about the Holocaust. He is the son of a Chabad rabbi and the grandson of Nissim Mangel, who was just 10 years old when he entered Auschwitz. He ultimately survived the Nazi selections and final death march before being liberated in 1945.

The elder Mangel, who lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., speaks often to student and adult audiences at universities throughout North America about his experiences in multiple concentration camps.

In the end, Mangel gave his speech as scheduled.

“They did not stick around to hear my speech and engage in debate or discussion,” Mangel told JNS. “My presence alone was enough.”