THE JEWISH WORLD
What’s it really like being a Jewish college student in the US post October 7? Students from Harvard, Cornell, Columbia, Hunter and the University of Chicago share their stories.
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I GIDEON ASKOWITZ
am a Jew.
It’s funny how that simple phrase perfectly summarizes how many of us students have felt these past few months. As of this writing in December, we are struggling to fnd concrete ways to contend with the growing antisemitism on campus. Some of us think, “I am not Ben Shapiro, and so no one will hear my epic monologue. My actions have no power to sway the national conversation around antisemitism.” I believe this thought process is mistaken, and to demonstrate why, I will share my story.
Last year, I transitioned from being a full-time learner at Yeshivat Shaalvim to being a student at Macaulay Honors College at Hunter College. Te transition was fraught with many challenges, the least of which were academic. Te social environment of a secular university was entirely foreign to me. As time went on, I grew accustomed to standing out as a visibly Orthodox Jewish person in a non-religious environment. I went about my classes as any serious student would and did not think being religious would cause signifcant obstacles in my academic path. I was mistaken.
Various advisors at my school urged me to apply for a particular fellowship. Tis program partners primarily with City University of New York (CUNY) campuses and places a select group of fellows into three summer internships at prestigious government, non-proft and for-proft enterprises. I had reservations about applying because the fellowship included several events during the academic calendar that fell on Shabbos. Hunter College assured me that the program would accommodate me and nominated me for the fellowship.
During my interview with the fellowship team, I shared that I would not be able to attend a few events for religious reasons but would make up any missed material and be a fully contributing member. Tey told me it was “my choice” to be religious. Te interview ended with a rather palpable silence.
A few days later, the head of Hunter College’s scholarship ofce informed me that members of the fellowship team had called him and expressed astonishment that Hunter would even nominate a student who could not fully participate in
all of its programming.
Outraged by the blatant discrimination, I obtained help from the Brandeis Center and the ADL, and afer months of negotiations, the fellowship agreed to change its policy (there are no longer events that fall on Shabbos), and I became a sitting member on the chancellor of CUNY’s Advisory Council on Jewish life. Tis position allowed me to infuence the school when various CUNY campuses went down the rabbit hole of antisemitism post–October 7.
Afer the dean of Macaulay CUNY sent out a statement about the massacre that propagated a false moral equivalency between Israel and Hamas, I sent an email to the chancellor of CUNY explaining why the equivalency was fallacious and included uncensored images of the massacre. “As a member of the Advisory Council on Jewish Life, I make nothing short of a demand that you rescind this letter and send a condemnation solely of the violence against Israel . . .” I wrote.
Te chancellor responded by issuing a statement condemning Hamas’s acts of terrorism and emailing it to every CUNY student.
While I felt the statement was an improvement, the whole situation felt absurd; why had it required so much efort to get the chancellor to issue the condemnation?
Te very next day in Hunter, I felt like I had stepped into an alternate reality. I knew that the Hunter Palestinian Student Alliance and other similar groups were planning a large protest that day, but it felt like it came out of nowhere. I arrived at Hunter afer spending my morning uptown at Yeshiva University learning, so I was dressed like a yeshivah guy: kippah, tzitzis, button-down shirt. I could feel students’ eyes on me as I walked through the hallways. Te school felt eerily calm.
Afer class ended, realizing something was going to happen, I ofered to walk a Jewish student to her next class. Tension was thick. We stepped into the hallway and immediately noticed kefyehs everywhere, anti-Israel signs and students clustered by the windows looking down at the swelling protest, which could be heard from inside the building.
My heart was in my throat.
As I dropped my fellow Jewish student of at her class, I could still hear the calls to “Globalize the Intifada.”
I sat down in my next class as the professor started her lecture, but I could not pay attention. I could still hear the chants from our mostly soundproof classroom. Te anger was building inside me, and suddenly, I thought of my pregnant greatgrandmother who fed Germany afer a Nazi ofcer told her she could not sit on the park bench because the “sun should not shine on a Jew.” I thought to myself: How would I tell my grandchildren that while my classmates called for their death, I attended an econometrics lecture?
I lef the class and walked toward the mob, taking out an Israeli fag while I did so. A police ofcer came and said, “Sir, you cannot stand here; the pro-Israel side is over there.”
When Fox National News came to Hunter College to interview students during the October 12 pro-Palestinian protest, Gideon Askowitz spoke up. He subsequently appeared on Fox News programs to discuss the surge of antisemitism being experienced by Jewish students on university campuses.
Excited that I would not be alone in opposing this madness, I walked around to where he told me to go.
Only no one was there.
Te New York Police Department had blocked of a large area just to the side of where hundreds of students were gathering screaming for the death of Jews, and the area was empty. So I stepped inside this pen and held the fag, facing the new Hitler youth. A TA (teaching assistant) walked past me and ripped the fag out of my hands. A police ofcer immediately arrested him (the TA is, of course, still working at Hunter).
Afer some time, a handful of Jewish students came out to show support. Many told me they were watching from inside the school and were so glad someone had stood up. Tey were all intimidated by the group of Hamas supporters and did not think that going out to counterprotest would make any diference. Many of them were crying. When Fox National News came down to interview students at this contentious protest, none of the Jewish students spoke up. I interviewed, schmoozed with the Fox team, and then pitched a program idea to them. Since then, I have been able to appear on many Fox programs and other media events.
We stepped into the hallway and immediately noticed kefyehs everywhere, anti-Israel signs and students clustered by the windows looking down at the swelling protest . . .
Tere have been many rallies at Hunter since that frst one, and yet, there are usually very few individuals
counterprotesting (some of those counter protesters are not even students). Students plaster “Zionism=Terrorism” stickers throughout the school. Te school simply has a hostile environment. For a period, a friend of mine, who is not visibly Jewish, stopped attending one of his classes; another student told me that her professor forced a discussion of “Palestine” into an unrelated course. While I always wanted to be involved in media and politics, I had not anticipated that antisemitism on my campus would be its impetus or that I would be involved in politics so soon. I thought I would get involved in those areas afer I had a career as a constitutional litigator; I wanted to establish myself before venturing out into the public eye. Tat is clearly no longer possible. My parents and I had a couple of frank discussions about what the consequences of speaking out would mean for my future. I may no longer be able to attend the best law schools or be accepted to prestigious scholarships. I may be denied an interview at a frm because of my advocacy. But when I am older, I will be able to answer my grandchildren when they ask me what I did when people in our country called for their blood.
I have no regrets.
Gideon Askowitz grew up in White Plains, New York, and attended SAR High School. He subsequently spent a year in Yeshivat Shaalvim. Currently, he is a sophomore in Macaulay Honors College at Hunter College and lives near Yeshiva University.
S REBECCA MASSEL
ince October 7, everything I thought I knew about Columbia University has changed.
I chose Columbia for its robust Jewish community within a broad and diverse campus life. I now serve on the Student Executive Board of Columbia/Barnard Hillel (CBHillel) and am a senior writer for the Columbia Daily Spectator. Being openly Jewish on campus was never a question.
Yet since the Israel-Hamas War began, in my reporting for the Spectator, I learned that an Israeli student's phone number was leaked and she received aggressive and explicit text messages and phone calls for weeks; while walking through a protest to campus, a Jewish student’s Magen David necklace was grabbed by a protester; and a kippah-wearing student was approached in the kosher dining hall by another student, who looked at him and said, “[expletive] the Jews,” and then walked out.
October 7 attacks on Israel. Dozens of students experienced antisemitic incidents, both in person and online. Many students chose to protect themselves by hiding their identities—staying in their rooms for a number of days, avoiding speaking Hebrew when walking to class, tucking in their Magen David necklaces, covering their kippot with baseball caps. Each story was a painful reminder of how challenging it has become to navigate the Columbia campus.
Amidst all this, the entire Jewish community on campus—Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and secular— demonstrated inspiring achdut.
The Jewish connection on campus has never been stronger.
Jewish students expressed fear of a professor’s article that applauded Hamas and of student speeches referencing the “creativity, determination and combined strength” of the
On October 11, I received a text message that an Israeli Jewish student was assaulted, and I broke the national news on one of the frst acts of antisemitic violence on college campuses since the war began. It became clear that college campuses are not as safe as we would have liked to believe. My article was based on interviews with the New York Police Department, the Israeli student and his friend. I reviewed videos of the incident to check the veracity of the claims. Te next day, the Spectator was bombarded by emails, and hundreds of posts on social media claimed that our reporting was racist and defamatory. To me, the most glaring posts were the ones that asserted that my reporting was inaccurate or had a “religious agenda” because I’m a Jew. Columbia’s Public Safety Ofce assessed whether any of the
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posts or emails constituted a tangible threat against me, and I lef campus for the night until I could speak to a Public Safety investigator. Tese experiences shook me deeply as a Jew in the broader Columbia community.
Amidst all this, the entire Jewish community on campus— Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and secular—demonstrated inspiring achdut. Te Jewish connection on campus has never been stronger. Before October 7, approximately 1,200 Jewish undergraduate students were afliated with the Jewish community on campus and, of those, 250 were part of the Orthodox community, according to Hillel’s records. Since then, close to a hundred Jewish students attended a Hillel event for the frst time.
We lean on each other. We cry together. And we hold each other up. While some Jewish students are wary about showing their identity, other men who never wore a kippah daily now proudly wear one to embrace their Jewishness and to stand together with their kippah-wearing friends. As the months since October 7 have passed, women proudly display their Magen David necklaces. Columbia’s OU-JLIC (Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus) couple, Rabbi Elie and Dr. Tamar Buechler, have been supporting the Orthodox community with shiurim addressing the tragedies in Israel, communal Tehillim and chesed opportunities to help displaced families in Israel; afer a rabbinic mission to Israel, Rav Elie shared his experiences with the community. Rav Elie and Tamar have both worked consistently to comfort students on a communal and personal level. In December, CBHillel hosted a Shabbat dinner for nearly 1,000 Jews from diferent religious backgrounds, the largest Shabbat dinner ever held at Columbia.
I have danced and sung songs of hope along with my community at a Matisyahu concert hosted by CBHillel and the Israel on Campus Coalition and an Ishay Ribo concert hosted by CBHillel and Bnei Akiva US and Canada. Instead of hiding, Jews of all kinds have come together and embraced their Jewishness.
On October 7, Simchat Torah, the Jewish community cried and sang Am Yisrael Chai in the middle of the campus afer hearing the news from people on campus. It was our expression of connection. And as the war unfolded and our campus community faced unprecedented antisemitism, we repeated those same words on Chanukah. When we lit the Chabad Columbia menorah, in the middle of campus, those words meant so much more. Not only were they a prayer for our family and friends in Israel and for the hostages, they were also chizuk for our community. While life at Columbia continues to present signifcant challenges, the Jewish community on campus has grown in numbers, strength and pride.
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Rebecca Massel is a sophomore at Columbia University. She grew up in Manhattan and graduated from Ramaz Upper School in 2021.
I ADIN MOSKOWITZ
blink through the fashing red-and-blue police lights as I join the crowd of Jewish students dancing, arms interlinked around a sefer Torah on Simchat Torah night. A police car idles on the curb to oversee the hakafot as if to shield us from the world. I am visiting my brother at the University of Maryland.
Troughout the day, we had slowly flled with dread as we heard snippets of information about the unfolding situation in Israel. I glance up and catch a glimpse of an Israeli fag jutting up from the crowd, then another and another. As I watch the headlights from the police car refect of the fags, I feel a stab of pain in my chest, fresh from the news of infltration into Israel. On October 7, Hamas didn’t just wage war against Israel; they threatened our pride, our home and our hearts.
Back at Cornell University, as I walk to class later that week, I hear a mufed noise cutting through the music of my earbuds. I stop and pull out an AirPod, tilting my ear toward the sound. “. . . River to the sea . . .” I hear with a sinking feeling; it grows louder and louder. A few hundred students pour through the campus streets, waving pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel signs as I duck into my class, not even noticing that my professor is speaking. I see students playing dead on the foor inside campus buildings,* thrusting anti-Israel signs into people’s faces and spray-painting hate across campus. Te complete lack of basic human compassion stings, as my “peers” deny my right to a home, to my identity.
Te next day I adjust an Israeli fag over my shoulders in the fading light as over 500 Jews and supporters of Israel gather to hold a vigil for those who perished in
the massacre. I look around and see tears in the eyes of the crowd of strangers, gathering in solidarity amid the darkness. Arms interlock and I feel a measure of comfort as we sing Hatikvah as one.
A few nights later, my roommate and I settle down in our room, when I hear a buzz. I turn over my phone and read the message staring back at me. Our kosher dining hall, 104 West!, the home where Jewish students unwind and reconnect with friends, has been threatened. All across a Greek-life social media platform popular among Cornell students are antisemitic messages singling out the dining hall, with horrendous and graphic death threats directed toward Jewish students. How could this happen in our time? Is this serious or some sick joke? Tere is no way to know. With our doors securely bolted, Jews across campus anxiously wait out the night, sheltered but trapped; ofcials send police to guard the dining hall and the Hillel warns students to stay away from the dining hall. During the lockdown, our OU-JLIC couple, Rav Itamar and Michal Applebaum, deliver homemade soup to our dorm rooms. A couple of days later, we learn that Patrick Dai, a junior at Cornell, was arrested for making online threats about Jewish students. But the stares, the side glances and the chanting across campus persist.
Focusing on college is challenging in the weeks following the outbreak of war in Israel. I am too preoccupied and fnd it difcult to pay attention to math and the physics of fying objects while hearing about my family and friends seeking refuge in shelters in Israel. But there is a point where I realize that life has to move forward. Our strongest lines of defense are to continue striving for our dreams and to stand strong in support of the Jewish people.
When I return to campus, the antisemitism is still there, but I have gained a newfound resilience, the knowledge that wherever I go, my people stand by my side.
Later that week, as I head to 104 West! I hear the beat of Jewish music from afar. As I near the building, I fnd a bustling crowd, and in the center, a group of Orthodox Jewish men from Monsey, New York, busy grilling, preparing tray afer tray of steaming barbecued meat. For the frst time in a while, Jewish students feel joy and warmth in the air. In the very place that was recently threatened, we eat, sing, and grieve our brethren in Israel together. In that moment, I gain a greater appreciation for the Jewish people, for those who dedicate their time and efort to comforting their family of strangers in distress. Tis is what Am Yisrael is all about, I refect, as I watch friends smiling once again.
As soon as I think the semester might return to normal, I fnd myself on a bus whisking me and my friends toward Washington, DC, at 5 am. Seven hours later I stand among a sea of strangers, with whom I feel a deep connection. No one fghts or shouts. It is the most peaceful protest I have ever seen. It is the Jewish people standing up for each other with dignity and pride. When I return to campus, the antisemitism is still there, but I have gained a newfound resilience, the knowledge that wherever I go, my people stand by my side.
*Students for Justice in Palestine held “die-ins” to protest the number of Palestinians killed in the confict.
Adin Moskowitz is a frst year student at Cornell University studying engineering. He grew up in West Hempstead, New York, and attended Yeshivat Orayta in Israel following Hebrew Academy of Nassau County (HANC).
9 am - 5 pm EST Fri 9 am - 1 pm (2:30 DST)
and late evenings during Pesach season
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U EITAN FISCHER
Chicago SJP Stands in Full Solidarity with Palestinian Liberation.”
For the frst few days afer the October 7 massacre, the Palestinian groups on the University of Chicago’s campus were silent. But on Friday, October 13, six days afer the massacre, SJPUChicago, the university-recognized club that seeks justice in Palestine, released the above statement. Tey were supporting the murder of Jews. Tey were supporting the potential murder of my parents and siblings, who live in Ra’anana, only a thirty-minute drive from Gaza. Tey were supporting the same antisemitic motives that led to the Holocaust.
Afer reading that initial statement just as I was heading out of my dorm room for Kabbalat Shabbat, I was in a state of shock. I had never seen antisemitism in this raw form before. I didn’t know what to do.
Unfortunately, this was just the beginning. On Motzaei Shabbat, I checked SJP’s [Students for Justice in Palestine] social media again:
“URGENT CALL FOR STUDENT MOBILIZATION ON THE QUAD—EVERY DAY, 10AM–3PM, UNTIL THE GENOCIDE ENDS.”
And it continued from there. On Monday, when the mobilization started, the antisemites on campus became active and things began to get intense. I woke up to a text from a friend saying his mezuzah was on the ground outside of his dorm room. As the day went on, reports went around the Jewish community on campus that posters we had put up for the hostages in Gaza were vandalized and taken down. In my friend’s humanities class, the teacher (a grad student) expressed her support for SJP and bashed the legitimacy of Israel, referring to the land “from the river to the sea” as “occupied Palestine.”
Horrifed at what was taking place, I walked over to the Quad to see SJP assembling. Te sign reading “IDF TERRORISTS OFF OUR CAMPUS” hit me the hardest. On the morning of October 8, my close friend on campus received a call from his commander in the IDF telling him to fy back to Israel immediately. He had served in the IDF for four years before coming to UChicago in September. Despite not even knowing how to get to all of his classes
yet, he packed his bags without hesitation. “It’s either stay here and study but neglect my country, or fght and push of academics for a bit. . . . Tere is only one right answer,” he said. He showed me videos of his unit getting ready to fght, and all he kept repeating was, “My team needs me, my family needs me, my nation needs me. I need to go do my duty.”
Before he lef, he asked one thing of me: “While I’m out there fghting, it’s on you to keep the support for Israel here.” He didn’t want to come back to an institution that sees him as a criminal. I assured him that wouldn’t happen and that I’d do everything I could. And I felt confdent it wouldn’t be a difcult task.
Te University of Chicago tends to be more conservative than the average elite university, and the majority of the student body supports Israel. Moreover, the Jewish community on campus is stronger than most. About 10 percent of the student body is Jewish (around 800 students), and around a quarter of those attend Shabbat meals at either OU-JLIC/Hillel or Chabad on a weekly basis. Jews at the University of Chicago tend to be proud to be Jewish, and our non-Jewish friends support us.
Since the war, we’ve been forced to come even closer together. Te OU-JLIC rabbi who also heads the Hillel, Rabbi Yehudah Auerbach, received a call from his IDF commander afer Simchat Torah and was on a fight to Israel the next morning. Having such a strong representative of our campus on the ground in Israel has only given us more reason to fght here.
On October 10, I set up a table on the main Quad of UChicago’s campus to raise money for much-needed emergency equipment in Israel. It felt great. Everyone will condemn terrorism, right? I was naïve to have ever believed that.
As of this writing in December, SJP has kept up the mobilization every day without fail. Every single day in my math class, I hear the chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” I’m ashamed to be in the same institution as these people.
Te entire Jewish community on campus is hurting.
Groups like Maroons for Israel, Kehillah, Chabad and OUJLIC/Hillel have held multiple vigils, gathered together for rallies and set up installations for the hostages on the main Quad. Despite feeling united as a Jewish community, we are pained by the antisemitism on our campus.
What makes it worse is the lack of action taken by the administration. Despite SJP breaking school rules and calling for violence, the school has done nothing to stop them. Te university clearly prioritizes the upholding of freedom of speech over having an antisemitism-free campus. It’s rather unfortunate, to say the least.
Jewish students at UChicago are remaining hopeful by reminding ourselves that SJP represents only a small
I ISAAC OHRENSTEIN
n early December, I walked into one of Harvard’s libraries to study, as many students do in the run-up to fnals. It was later in the evening, and I was wearing a kippah, which I prefer not to do at night. But classes were fnished, and for whatever reason, I didn’t feel like changing. Most of the tables in the library were taken, but I saw two people leaving and moved toward them as they gathered their things. One was a man with braids wearing a kefyeh and a white sweatshirt that said “Free Palestine.” I wasn’t surprised to see him dressed like this. Many students around campus wear articles of clothing in support of the Palestinian people. I was thrown, though, when he looked me in the eyes, chuckled, and said, “It looks like we’re getting displaced again.”
proportion of the student body. Tey are loud, they are defnitely loud, but they are not nearly a majority—they have only between 100 and 200 members.
Te unity among the Jewish students and our non-Jewish friends gives us the strength to continue to stand strong and united. It gives me hope that I can one day keep my friend’s promise. It gives me hope that the turbulent times we are living in will not yield to the same fate as that of my ancestors.
Eitan Fischer is a frst-year at the University of Chicago studying economics and philosophy. He was born in New York, grew up in Hong Kong and spent high school in Ra’anana, Israel.
Harvard graduate students converged on the steps of Widener Library at Harvard University for a pro-Palestinian rally. Photo: Rick Friedman/Alamy
Although only one of my classes is related to Israel or Jewish history, almost all of my professors said something afer October 7. Most were vague and nondescript, referencing the “complicated” events in the Middle East. One said something along the lines of “violence is never the answer,” which I found to be the most sympathetic of them all. None could bring themselves to name Hamas. Evidently there is strong antiIsrael bias among the faculty. Look no further than the current director of the Center for Jewish Studies, whose research
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centers around Israel as a colonial enterprise. Te teaching assistant for his class took the opportunity to bash Benjamin Netanyahu afer October 7, saying nothing about the murdered Israeli civilians. Other members of the faculty have made statements that I feel are deeply misleading. Teaching about the 1940s in Mandatory Palestine, a highly respected professor claimed a war “erupted” in 1948. No mention was made of the fact that Arab forces declared war on the newly established Jewish state afer the Palestinians rejected the frst of many partition plans.
Among the Jewish students, there are classes and lecturers we know to avoid because of anti-Jewish bias. It’s not worth the risk, because grading in humanities classes is subjective. On a personal level, I am deeply interested in Middle Eastern economies and geopolitics. Before coming to Harvard, I hoped I would take classes on Arab society and interact with classmates from the region, but I can’t bring myself to do so. I don’t want to be harassed for traveling to Israel, or targeted by my professors for taking time of for the High Holidays. It’s a shame because real opportunities to build mutual understanding are being squandered. I would argue that on our campus, there is a mix of antisemitism and ignorance relating to Jews, Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian confict. Some students genuinely don’t know what they’re talking about, having taken a passionate stance on one of the world’s most enduring conficts afer reading a few news articles. Te vast majority of my peers have not set foot in Israel or the Palestinian territories, and they completely fail to grasp the reality on the ground. Others fundamentally believe Israel is a colonial, apartheid and white-supremacist state and all Jews are complicit in its actions. Tese are the people tearing down pictures of hostages in Harvard Square and chanting “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” in the Science Center. I don’t feel that Harvard is a particularly welcoming place for Jewish students right now. Tere have been many hateful posts on Sidechat, an anonymous chat platform that is only accessible to students with a Harvard login. It is disheartening to see anti-Jewish and anti-Israel posts, ofen drawing on antisemitic tropes, receive hundreds of likes. In the beginning of December, I posted a poll on Sidechat asking, “Do you think antisemitism is an issue on campus?” Fify-two percent of respondents said “no,” which amounted to 165 people. One comment asked for another option, “not as much as it is portrayed,” which received 41 likes. Clearly, Harvard students do not understand or recognize that antisemitism is thriving on our campus. Te administration must fundamentally consider how Jewish students can be made to feel more comfortable at Harvard. Tey should be reaching out to provide meaningful support
at this difcult time, especially because our community is small. It’s estimated that just over 5 percent of the student body is Jewish, down from 20 percent or 25 percent a few decades ago. Within this population, there are between twenty and thirty Orthodox students. We rely heavily on the local community for minyan and unfortunately do not have an OU-JLIC couple on campus. Some in the Hillel community are thinking of transferring to other Ivy League campuses with more Jewish infrastructure. Tese places undoubtedly have problems with antisemitism, but there is more support for religious students who feel marginalized.
I’m not sure what the future holds for Jewish and Orthodox life at Harvard. Much will lie in the hands of the university.
I’m not sure what the future holds for Jewish and Orthodox life at Harvard. Much will lie in the hands of the university. When the football team needs a new kicker or the orchestra a cellist, the admissions ofce will make space for them on campus. Maintaining a minyan at Hillel is not a priority in the same way. Every year, the university admits a handful of Orthodox Jews, just enough to keep the community alive. We desperately need more religious students in our community. A silver lining of this experience has been the level of support I’ve received from Jewish Harvard alumni. Tere are thousands of them who care about our experience on campus. Every few weeks, I’ll receive a text ofering to speak with me about the situation, or explaining how they’re putting pressure on the administration. Tere wasn’t a Jewish alumni association before October 7, but now there is an ofcial forum where they can congregate and connect with the university. Te power of alumni, especially those involved in university afairs, is invaluable in this situation.
I care deeply about Orthodox life on Ivy League campuses. I believe that many of America’s best and brightest minds are educated here, including students who will be leaders in government, science, fnance and academia. It is important for them to meet and build relationships with Jewish students. I’m not convinced the situation will improve much during my time on campus, but strategic players with long-term horizons must make targeted investments in Jewish life on campus. In my opinion, the future of American Jewry appears uncertain if Jewish life diminishes in the Ivy League.
Isaac Ohrenstein is a sophomore at Harvard University, with a concentration in social studies and a secondary in European history, politics and societies. In his spare time, he writes for the Harvard International Review and serves as a Lauder Fellow at the World Jewish Congress. An avid traveler, Isaac has visited over ffy countries and holds American, British and Austrian citizenship.