Over the past year and a half, conversations with fellow Jewish Columbia alumni have been characterized by anger and sadness over the deterioration of a university that we once loved, intermingled with concern for the students there and a deeper fear for our loved ones in Israel.
However, the shock that many others experienced at the protests that hit universities has been absent. Instead, we agree: We saw it coming.
Jewish life flourished when we were at Columbia, but anti-Israel animus flourished more. The pro-terror protests that immediately followed the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel only exposed what had long been a prevailing ethos.
For decades, Columbia was a beacon for Jews, continuously admitting enough Jewish students of multiple observance levels to maintain a thriving community. The Kraft Center for Jewish Life hosted events, from daily prayer services to social events and community service opportunities. Yeshiva University partnered on a program for engineering students. The Jewish Theological Seminary has maintained a joint undergraduate program with the university since 1953.
But even when I was an undergraduate, there were disturbing signs of what was to come.
In Spring 2004, the semester before I arrived at Columbia, a film created by the Israel advocacy organization The David Project, Columbia Unbecoming, documented certain professors mistreating Jewish and Israeli students and reducing their grades. The allegations sparked an internal investigation and external condemnation. An Israel studies position was added to the Middle Eastern Studies department, but one of the accused professors was also granted tenure.
As pro-Israel students in the ensuing years, we distanced ourselves from public criticism, seeking instead to prove we were part of the fabric of the university.
We reveled in courses taught by visiting Israeli professors. Still, we were dismayed to be assigned Edward Said’s Orientalism – a foundation of anti-Israel and anti-Western academic discourse – in classes where it wasn’t remotely relevant, such as freshman writing. The ethos was pervasive.
We rolled our eyes as students set up tents in the middle of campus (this, in 2007) to protest a range of issues from the university’s planned expansion to – of course – the State of Israel.
But we took it more seriously when anti-Israel groups on campus piloted a new anti-normalization policy in which they vowed not to engage in conversation or programming with Zionists. These policies swiftly curtailed any opportunity for dialogue and for seeing fellow students with different beliefs as equally legitimate, and were quickly adopted by campus anti-Israel groups nationwide.
Universities must shift away from ideological bias
Fast forward two decades, and this refusal to engage, mixed with the wholesale adoption of academic narrowness, has created a culture where some students protest armed with Hamas terrorist symbols and propaganda, violently take over buildings, harass and intimidate Jewish students, and expect no consequences for their actions.
Some professors and administrators work to shield them, believing they have their obligations as anti-Israel activists.
No number of Jewish students or Israel studies professors could curb the hatred that had been growing for so long, not only at Columbia, but at universities around the country that had similarly admitted Jewish students while ignoring activist antisemitism disguised as academics.
The core factors that enable undercurrents of antisemitic sentiment on campus are clear. They include the role of tenure committees in enforcing ideological purity; recruitment and selection choices of both faculty and students; a culture of blunt classification that separates the world into the “privileged” and “marginalized” regardless of circumstance; biased activity by faculty members and academic associations; the role of national anti-Israel organizations; and the influence of foreign funds.
Many of the fixes for these have been suggested time and again over the last year, in recommendations by university antisemitism taskforces and in demands the Trump administration issued to Columbia.
Universities must shift away from ideological bias by hiring scholars with diverse viewpoints, including Israeli faculty and antisemitism studies faculty, and create centers around those subjects to expand academic discourse where possible.
Tenure processes must be made more transparent to stop ideological litmus tests from interfering with the advancement of good scholarship and intellectual diversity. Foreign funding in universities must be regulated to ensure it does not distort academic integrity.
Universities must commit to listening to Jewish students when they report antisemitism and ensure that narratives around Jewish and Israeli experience are informed by mainstream Jewish and Israeli voices, rather than by an unrepresentative, tokenized fringe. For too long, Columbia and other universities rode the coattails of strong and thriving Jewish campus life to successfully avoid them.
But positive acceptance rates and weekly Shabbat dinners can no longer blur the fact that, according to recent polling by Hillel International and the Anti-Defamation League, less than half of Jewish students surveyed in the fall of 2024 were “very” or “extremely” comfortable with others on campus knowing their Jewish identity. There is no question: These deep, systemic changes are necessary.
Jewish Federations across the country are advocating against antisemitism and supporting Jewish students, faculty, and staff at universities in their areas, making sure that our community’s voices are heard. In our weekly national leadership calls focused on trends and best practices, we maintain the importance of basic security and enforcement measures, which many universities have worked to adopt, and develop lasting partnerships and change.
In recent weeks, the Trump administration has threatened universities with massive cuts in funding over allegations that they have not sufficiently addressed issues of antisemitism.
Congress is also acting, with the House recently advancing the Deterrent Act – a bill that would lower universities’ foreign disclosure threshold, close loopholes universities have used to conceal foreign adversary donations, and increase federal penalties for colleges that refuse to cooperate. I’ve been fortunate to watch as my colleagues at Jewish Federations of North America work behind the scenes to move the bill through the legislative process.
Even as the storm clouds gathered, I personally thrived at Columbia. Many of my fellow alumni and I agree with that. I’m hopeful that in implementing change, Columbia and other colleges can become places where Jewish life and full-hearted academic discourse and engagement thrive once again.
The writer is the manager of K-12, Campus Initiatives for Jewish Federations of North America.