The biggest story on campus isn’t protest or politics. It’s a quiet Jewish comeback.
A recent study from the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) found that nearly a third of American Jews have become more engaged in Jewish life since October 7. That headline has drawn attention, but it risks missing the most important detail buried within the data: young adults, the study found, are actively seeking nonpolitical, inclusive communities.
That change may seem unexpected in a year highlighted by a contentious election and colleges being politically scrutinized. But if you’ve spent any time on college campuses lately, it makes perfect sense.
Something subtle but significant is happening: Jewish students, and many of their peers, aren’t retreating. They’re seeking – not slogans, not ideologies, but meaning. Rootedness.
Something quieter and more lasting than the next headline.
In today’s climate, where nearly everything is immediately pulled into the vortex of politics, the decision to seek out apolitical spaces is a quiet form of rebellion. For many people, it’s also a way to find more purpose in their everyday lives.
Chabad on Campus offers a comforting presence
This is something we’ve seen firsthand at Chabad on Campus. Across more than 950 universities, students have been showing up in growing numbers: not just to pray or to eat (though both happen a lot), but to feel, ask questions, remember who they are, and figure out what being Jewish actually means to them, outside of politics, headlines, and hashtags.
We’ve seen a student at Columbia walk 30 blocks every Friday just to make it to Shabbat dinner, another at Penn who walked into a sukkah for the first time and cried, and a freshman in Michigan who shared, “I’m not religious, but being here feels like coming home.”
Hundreds of others have chosen to mark Jewish holidays this year for the first time, not as a statement of protest or pride, but simply because it felt right to them in the current moment.
These moments are small, quiet, and incredibly powerful.
Why is this happening? I think it’s because students today are exhausted. Exhausted by outrage. Exhausted by being told what side they’re supposed to be on. Exhausted by the partisan tensions online and on campus. So they look for a space that asks nothing of them except that they show up and connect with what’s really important.
That’s what Chabad on Campus offers. Not a platform, but a presence. Not a cause, but a connection. In a world of polarization, we offer a pause. A moment to reflect on who you are and why we’re here.
It’s rooted in something very old. The Chabad philosophy teaches that every Jew has a divine soul, a spark of the infinite, that remains untouched by circumstance or affiliation. No matter how far someone feels, that spark is always there, ready to be reignited.
And when you’re surrounded by so much noise, sometimes what you need most is silence: a candle lit with a blessing, a song around a crowded table, a conversation that has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with purpose.
We don’t think of this as a “strategy” for engaging students. It’s really about getting back to the truth and who people actually are, away from all the politics and distractions.
Helping people become better versions of themselves, encouraging acts of kindness, and creating spaces where people can disagree but still feel connected. That’s not revolutionary, but it turns out it’s what a lot of students are craving.
October 7 changed many things, but it also revealed something many young Jews hadn’t fully seen before: how deeply their Jewish identity matters to them. Their sense of peoplehood is not abstract. They want to feel part of something larger and more enduring than their online profile or their politics.
Jewish life is growing. Not always loudly, but steadily. And it’s being shaped not by institutions or influencers, but by students who are asking: Who am I? What do I believe? And how do I live that with integrity?
If we want to support this growth, we have to offer more than responses to antisemitism. We need to offer something to live for, not just something to fight against.
The writer, a rabbi, is CEO of Chabad on Campus International.