August 29, 2024

Pollster Frank Luntz held a focus group of 23 Jewish students via Zoom on Aug. 25, from major schools all over the country including UCLA, Columbia University, Harvard University, Tulane University, Rutgers University, UC Berkeley and the University of Washington. When he asked where any of the students go when they don’t feel safe, their answers included Hillel and Chabad; one student said the Louis Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law because of the action they take against universities. But none of the students mentioned the university administrators, which Luntz said “is really significant.” He asked them why.

“They have not done their job to protect us,” Kayla, a student at USC, replied. “And any matter that comes up, it takes forever to hear any sort of response. And as little as, ‘Oh, we’re on it,’ or ‘We’re investigating.’ You’ll never hear from USC. So people have stopped reporting to them, and have lost hope with reporting with them.” Harvard student Ariel said that he “lost faith” in the university when his friend, an Israeli student, was physically assaulted by a residential advisor (RA) and the school did nothing about it. He “decided from that point on I would only go to Chabad.” Other students gave similar answers.

Luntz also asked the students if it was going to be worse this year; around six or seven students said yes. Alex, a student at UC Irvine, told him that at his campus, where there is “a minuscule Jewish population and a very high Middle Eastern population,” the encampment was built after the semester had “pretty much ended.” He thinks they’re “going to have a faster time getting it off the ground” when the new year begins. Michael, a Drexel University student, said “I think that the hate has become normalized. There’s people I knew last year that have been learning new things on social media that made them anti-Jewish, anti-Zionist. That really came over the summer. People changed a lot over the summer for the worst. And I think the encampments last year excused a lot of actions and I think more people are willing to do those extreme acts.”

“I think that the hate has become normalized. There’s people I knew last year that have been learning new things on social media that made them anti-Jewish, anti-Zionist. That really came over the summer. People changed a lot over the summer for the worst.”
–  Michael, a Drexel University student

Only three students raised their hands when Luntz asked if they felt completely safe on campus.

The Luntz focus group highlights the unease in the Jewish community regarding the likely coming wave of antisemitism on campuses when school starts again. Jewish groups have begun releasing recommendations for universities to take action. On July 31, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), American Jewish Committee (AJC), Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Hillel International and the Jewish Federations of North America released recommendations for universities to counter antisemitism on their respective campuses. It is broken down into three parts: communicating university policies on campus protests, supporting Jewish students and ensuring campus safety. The section on supporting Jewish students is the longest item. It urges universities to prevent Jewish students from being discriminated against, condemn instances in which Jewish student organizations are targeted, denounce the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and require students to partake in antisemitism education and training. Most importantly, it warns universities that there may be disruptions on the anniversary of the Oct. 7 massacre and schools should prepare themselves for that.

It’s not the only list put out by Jewish groups in anticipation of a likely wave of antisemitism on campuses when school starts again. StandWithUs has 10 recommended strategies for Jewish students on their campuses, including “finding or building a solid foundation of peers who care about Israel and the Jewish people like you do,” forging relationships with university administrators, journalists and elected officials and knowing your campus legal rights. Rabbi Noah Farkas, president CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, released an open letter highlighting the organization’s plan to protect Jewish students on campuses, which includes uniting the Jewish community across all Los Angeles campuses and ensuring that universities enforce their codes of conduct consistently.  The Federation has also released a back-to-school guide for students and held a sold-out seminar earlier in the month for incoming first-year college students. 

The Israeli-American Council (IAC) published a guide for students on how to handle antisemitism on campus, suggesting that students read through their schools’ codes of conduct and explaining how students can file a complaint to the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights if a “faculty member has made public remarks against Israel, Judaism, Israel’s right to exist, or Hamas as a ‘resistance’ movement, which has led students at your university to feel discomfort.” Further, the IAC’s guide encourages students to be “proactive,” hold pro-Israel and tabling events and build bridges with non-Jewish allies. 

Combating campus antisemitism has long been a focus for the Jewish community, but these lists of recommendation highlight the increased concern from Jewish groups following Oct. 7. Which begs the question that Luntz asked during his focus group session: Will it be worse on the campuses this year?

Farkas is optimistic that things will be better, pointing to the preliminary injunction requiring UCLA to protect Jewish students from being excluded from campus spaces; the university withdrew its appeal against the injunction on Aug. 23. He also pointed to UC President Michael Drake’s new directive banning encampments, face masks concealing identities and the blocking of university pathways; a similar policy has been announced for the CSU system.

“The encampments, the protests, all of that, it caught the administrators by surprise, and a lot of their argumentation about what’s happening on campus is that they weren’t prepared, they didn’t know … and there’s that none of that now,” Farkas said. “No one can be naïve to think that more protests won’t happen … so they can’t claim that anymore, so they have done some planning.”

“The encampments, the protests, all of that, it caught the administrators by surprise, and a lot of their argumentation about what’s happening on campus is that they weren’t prepared, they didn’t know … and there’s that none of that now … Anyone who is a university official, they are responsible to the public and we’re not afraid of using our public voice to hold them accountable.” – Noah Farkas

UCLA Professor Kira Stein told The Journal, “We’re really pleased to see that the University of California has publicly committed to a zero-tolerance policy for encampments, masking, and blocking paths on campus.” The founder and chair of the Jewish Faculty Resilience Group (JFrg) at UCLA added, “This progress is the result of months of hard work and persistent advocacy by Jewish and non-Jewish faculty and staff of the JFrg, who have been on the front lines dealing with antisemitism at UCLA. We’ve taken risks with our reputations and careers, sacrificed countless hours away from family and friends, gathering testimonies, writing letters, and presenting our concerns to the UC Regents and even to Congress. It’s encouraging that our efforts, along with recent legal action by students, are finally paying off.”

“We’re really pleased to see that the University of California has publicly committed to a zero-tolerance policy for encampments, masking, and blocking paths on campus.” – Prof. Kira Stein

Ben Stern, a rising sophomore at Rutgers University-New Brunswick and a CAMERA on Campus fellow, also thinks that the campus climate will be better. “A lot of students after Oct. 7, they really stepped up what they’re willing and able to do for pro-Israel organizations and advocacy on campus,” he said, adding that he went to the recent Israel on Campus Coalition (ICC) conference and 10 other Rutgers students were there. “It was really nice to see that there are so many people ready to be real leaders on our campus.”

“A lot of students are concerned about the conflict, particularly Israel’s operations in Gaza to uproot Hamas. They don’t understand that it’s not one side against the other. They don’t understand that it’s not Israelis vs. Palestinians; rather, it’s the survival of the Jewish state against the radical Islamist terrorist organization that seeks its destruction.
– Douglas Sandoval 

Stern, who is the social media chair of his campus’s Students Supporting Israel (SSI) chapter, also pointed out that the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter at their campus has been suspended until July 2025, “so we’re going to be facing, hopefully, a lot less organized resistance to our event organizing.”

Some universities are taking action. New York University (NYU) updated its Non-Discrimination and Anti-Harassment Policy and Procedures for Students (NDAH) to state that “for many Jewish people, Zionism is a part of their Jewish identity.  Speech and conduct that would violate the NDAH if targeting Jewish or Israeli people can also violate the NDAH if directed toward Zionists.”  The policy cites “excluding Zionists from an open event” and “calling for the death of Zionists” as some of the examples that would violate the NDAH. UC Berkeley, according to The College Fix, will be “expanding its antisemitism education this fall, including in its Golden Bear Orientation” as well as a more extensive look into the matter in the university’s resident assistants program.

Others aren’t so sure that things will be better. Columbia University Professor Shai Davidai posted a lengthy thread on X explaining why he believes the campus climate will be even worse this year, even with the resignation of President Minouche Shafik. He noted that none of the students involved in occupying a campus building and holding three janitors hostage will be expelled and that Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) activists disrupted move-in day for students at Barnard College. Eden Yadegar, president of the Columbia chapter of Students Supporting Israel, noted on X that “every incident referred to the Rules Committee was absolved & the students were put back in good standing — considering multiple faculty that participated in the encampment SIT ON THE RULES COMMITTEE, there’s no surprise at the lack of accountability here. The corruption at @Columbia runs deep.”

“I’m nervous,” Shira Goodman, vice president of advocacy at the ADL, told The Journal. “We’re hearing about plans for ramped up protests. We’re seeing that there was summer school by SJP and things like that, and we definitely see an escalation in tactics. On the other hand, we’re seeing universities come out with new policies related to protests, time, place and manner restrictions, claiming that they are going to enforce their rules, so if they communicate clearly to the campus community about everybody’s responsibility to ensure access to all parts of the university … and they talk about everyone’s responsibility for creating that kind of community … it could be better.

“But we saw in the spring universities make policies, say they were going to do things, and then not enforce their policies, renege on threats of discipline, on due discipline, and so I want to be optimistic, but I’m concerned. I want to see a change but I’m not exactly sure what to expect. We’re preparing for the worst but hoping for it to be better.”

UCLA Hillel Executive Director Dan Gold told The Journal that they expect the campus climate to be “pretty similar” to what it was last year. “The activism that we’ve seen around the country has continued over the summer, and we know that the groups that were disrupting our campus will likely intend to do so in the fall,” he said. 

UC San Diego student Ellia T., co-vice president of Tritons for Israel (TFI) and a CAMERA on Campus fellow, told The Journal that after the anti-Israel encampment on campus was dismantled, “a bunch of students came out of the woodworks to speak about their support of the encampment because of the way it was handled. So we saw a major uptick at the end of the year who didn’t really care before or weren’t aware and were all of a sudden supporting this antisemitic pro-Hamas movement.” She wasn’t sure how that would translate into activity this coming year.

But Douglas Sandoval, managing director for CAMERA on Campus, told The Journal that he thinks it will be “far worse” on the campuses this year. “We’re seeing so much organizing on the part of SJP and their affiliates like the Young Democratic Socialists of America,” he said. “They’re incessantly pushing the narrative that Israel is committing human rights violations, that Israel is targeting innocent civilians … this victimhood narrative, we believe, is something they’re going to carry over into the academic year. They’re going to want to organize and rally against Israel as fervent as they did this spring with the encampments, if not worse.” 

Caleb Loewengart, external vice president of Students Supporting Israel (SSI) and the 2024-25 StandWithUs Emerson Fellow at the University of Colorado Boulder, told The Journal, “I think that we’re going to see more activity on campus compared to last year. I think it would be naive to assume that we’re the only students preparing events and programming for the upcoming semester. At the beginning of the summer, the University of Colorado Board of Regents passed a resolution condemning a Denver student group that organized protests outside multiple board members’ houses, sparking outrage across the CU school system. It wouldn’t surprise me if this attempt to take a stance on antisemitic rhetoric is taken as an escalation and we see their response build in the first couple months of the new year.”

And the anti-Israel groups certainly have been preparing for action. The ADL noted in a June 28 blog post that National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) has been holding summer school sessions, as has SUNY BDS and San Francisco State University Professor Rabab Abdulhadi. The Free Press reported that the Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) are planning to hold a nationwide “Student Strike for Palestine” to “disrupt campus life.” George Mason University Professor David Bernstein posted on X that a residential advisors (RA) session at “a top 10 university at Hillel” featured six RAs donning keffiyehs. UCLA student Kian Kohanteb, co-president of Bruins for Israel Public Affairs Committee (BIPAC), told The Journal that there have been “whispers of another encampment” but they don’t know for sure. Farkas said that he had gotten word that some “anti-war protesters are starting to organize at USC at the beginning of the semester” but hasn’t heard anything more than that. The citizen journalist who goes by “@thestustustudio” on X reported on Aug. 22 that “student activists at George Washington University are already protesting on the first day of school and ushering in their ‘Year of Struggle’ and that the night before, the campus was vandalized with “Disclose Divest Now” graffiti. 

“These organizations were doing classes to train students about protest tactics … about how to escalate tactics … they’re preparing to continue their disruptive activities,” the ADL’s Goodman said. “Universities and other students who kind of want to have a different experience also need to be prepared to know that it’s coming.” 

She added that the one-year anniversary of Oct. 7 will likely feature “competing efforts to have protest activity and have vigils and memorials … universities need to be clear what their rules are, how they’re going to maintain distance between those events, how they’re going to keep everybody safe, and let everybody have their right to engage in activity.”

StandWithUs CEO and Co-Founder Roz Rothstein told The Journal that StandWithUs believes that anti-Israel groups “will continue to build on last year’s unlawful and discriminatory encampments. This could include attempts to reestablish encampments, calls for campus-wide referenda, often in the form of manipulative ‘push polls’ designed to elicit opposition to Israel, and even student strikes/walk-outs. Given that many university administrations opted to compromise with anti-Israel agitators during last year’s encampments instead of enforcing their own policies and state laws, the anti-Israel actors may feel incentivized to escalate their actions on those campuses. Currently, we are monitoring over 25 campuses that made such compromises, in addition to monitoring all campuses for possible illegal disruptions.”

“Given that many university administrations opted to compromise with anti-Israel agitators during last year’s encampments instead of enforcing their own policies and state laws, the anti-Israel actors may feel incentivized to escalate their actions on those campuses. Currently, we are monitoring over 25 campuses that made such compromises, in addition to monitoring all campuses for possible illegal disruptions.”  -Roz Rothstein

Sandoval believes the anti-Israel groups will be utilizing “faculty to push their agenda as much as possible … They’ve realized that students are vulnerable, student groups are held to a moral standard, to stringent standards and moral codes and faculty members, particularly tenured faculty, have a lot more protection to carry out a lot of the horrendous ‘activism’ — the libels, the misinformation, spreading propaganda — these faculty members can operate in ways student groups cannot,” he said. As an example, Sandoval pointed to how even though SJP is banned at Rutgers, “all these faculty members that teach there, starting with Noura Erakat and others at Rutgers, continue to promote an anti-Israel narrative with very little in the way of — if not any — repercussions at all. I think that’s a sneak peek into what we’re going to see more in the fall, we’re going to see the rise of Faculty for Justice in Palestine … it may not be students leading the encampments, you may have a contingency of radicalized faculty that are at the core, the nucleus. It may not be students that are leading widespread protests and chaos, it may be more faculty and outside organizers than what we saw this spring. So that’s our biggest concern: the role of Faculty for Justice in Palestine in continuing the work of SJP chapters and taking the hostility toward Jews suspected of being Zionists to places we’ve never seen before.”

Stern acknowledged that the faculty at Rutgers “is pretty concerning” and recalled having a professor who assigned the class to read and comment on an essay he wrote that “gave away his political positions” and “undermined some arguments that some pro-Israel advocate might try to make.” However, Stern also had a philosophy professor, who generally kept his politics out of the classroom, “acknowledging the seriousness of the events that had occurred” on Oct. 7 and “that it’s something to be sad about.” The professor did subsequently get in trouble with clubs where he was a faculty advisor and had some difficulty defending his remarks, according to Stern. “But all I saw was, wow a professor that’s willing to stand up for … not even standing up for Israel, standing up for just some objectivity, which is a lot to ask for at Rutgers unfortunately,” Stern said. “That made me pretty optimistic … I would advise people against being too pessimistic.” 

University administrators “have learned many painful lessons from last year’s encampments and their consequences.  It is clear that the neglect of the encampments and of the anti-Jewish bigotry, as well as all the broken campus rules, only served to encourage the bad behavior to fester and grow,” Rothstein said. “Many administrators turned a blind eye to the violation of campus rules and blatant discriminatory behavior, hoping that it would all ‘blow over.’  That did not serve campuses well, and instead encouraged more bad behavior and negative consequences for the campus community.  There is also concern that some universities that did act to penalize the perpetrators are reneging on suspensions/disciplinary measures against encampment leaders and other perpetrators, which may serve to escalate the situation on those campuses.  

 “In spite of lessons learned and our hope that university administrators will not tolerate new beginnings of encampments and blatant discrimination against Jewish students, this hope must be balanced with the threats we hear from anti-Israel groups to ‘escalate’ the disruptions on campuses in the coming year. Our legal and campus departments have spent the summer preparing, organizing and mobilizing. If universities fail to intervene in the early stages of illegal actions by anti-Israel student groups, including by professors and/or outside agitators, we are ready to work with our students, faculty and campus partners to protect the rights of our community.” 

The Jewish community is ready to take on the coming wave of antisemitism. Goodman said that after the ADL released their campus antisemitism report card in May, the Jewish group held webinars with universities on the report card as well as their campus partners like Chabad and Hillel and campus law enforcement. Further, the ADL has a “Best Practices Toolkit” page on their website highlighting best practices from universities, such as Brandeis University announcing in Nov. 2023 that they no longer recognize the SJP chapter on campus after it was determined that the chapter was not aligned with the university’s values and New York University’s (NYU) Bias Response Line that provides a response within 48 hours after a form is submitted.

Goodman believes “that every campus has the power to do this, it’s an issue of will … we’re going to keep leaning into that advocacy while also providing the resources,” adding that “the ADL will use all tools at our disposal, from direct advocacy to universities, to the Campus Report Card, to advocacy to elected officials with oversight powers, to litigation, to hold colleges and universities accountable for their responsibility to provide a safe learning environment for all students.  We encourage students to continue to report incidents to ADL and other partners like Hillel, Chabad, and SCN [Secure Community Network], who are working to prioritize Jewish student safety and well-being.”

“The ADL will use all tools at our disposal, from direct advocacy to universities, to the Campus Report Card, to advocacy to elected officials with oversight powers, to litigation, to hold colleges and universities accountable for their responsibility to provide a safe learning environment for all students.“ – Shira Goodman

Rothstein said that StandWithUs “has spent the summer evaluating and adding to our strategies and resources. We have prepared hundreds of student leaders on campus with a variety of strategic approaches to begin the academic year.  StandWithUs is helping students work proactively and strategically to build their base of peer communities on campus, to host events that educate students with inspiring and accurate information about Israel, and to develop relationships with other student groups, administration and local elected officials.  We have prepared our student leaders to respond to antisemitism immediately, and not allow it to fester.  When in doubt, we guide them to reach out to our campus managers and/or our legal team for help.  In addition, we will soon be sharing resources to keep students safer physically as well.” 

Alyza Lewin, president of the Louis Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, told The Journal that the organization is ramping up the lawsuits against universities as well as increasing the numbers of their law students in their training programs on anti-discrimination law, the First Amendment and academic freedom so they can be “effective ambassadors” on their campus and mentor undergraduates on the matter so they “can stand up and push back.”

Alyza Lewin, president of the Louis Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, told The Journal that the organization is ramping up the lawsuits against universities as well as increasing the numbers of their law students in their training programs.

Farkas, who stressed the Federation does not engage in litigation, said that the organization will be holding universities accountable through “the court of public opinion,” as the Federation’s community engagement arm “has relationships with elected officials, with UC Regents, etc. and we’ll definitely make our voices heard in that space … politicians, anyone who is a university official, they are responsible to the public and we’re not afraid of using our public voice to hold them accountable.” And if students don’t feel safe on campus, Farkas recommended that they go to their campus Hillel or Chabad; Farkas said the Federation is working to help the Hillels “have a more robust security standpoint” and is “looking into additional funding opportunities, making grants for these Hillels to be better service providers to the Jewish community.”

Davidai told The Journal that there is an initiative by the grassroots organization EndJewHatred to ban masking in protests. “In addition, we plan to counterprotest every hateful protest, to make it clear to the school that we will not be intimidated out of public spaces on campus,” Davidai said.

Gold said that an issue last year was that the campus Hillel’s planning over the summer had to be changed “on the fly” after Oct. 7 happened. Now, they’re able to better prioritize their outreach to Jewish students.

As for JFrg, Stein said that “one of the big things we’re working on is our documentation effort against anti-Zionism and anti-Jew hate on campus. We have a fantastic team of volunteers who are scouring the Internet and carefully reviewing the responses we receive to our JFrg at UCLA Antisemitism Incident Report Questionnaire (AIR). Every single incident reported to us is investigated and documented in detail. This is a crucial part of what we do, and we’re even exploring the possibility of setting up a hotline and a mobile app to make it easier for people to report incidents. With these tools, we can efficiently collect, organize, and use statistical data to respond quickly and present solid evidence when needed. 

JFrg is also starting the Project Anti-Terrorism and Hate (PATH) Initiative that “is all about creating a comprehensive playbook to counter the strategies used by groups like Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP) and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP),” Stein said. “The playbook will cover everything from civil rights and safety to decision trees for navigating threatening scenarios on campus. We’re thinking outside the box, exploring creative and innovative ways to advocate for our community and ensure that we remain visible, dignified, and unapologetic on campus. And we’re not stopping there. On Sunday, Sept. 15, we’re having a major event, generously co-sponsored by Stephen S. Wise Temple and with the endorsement of several community organizations: ‘Back to School Amid the Israel-Hamas War.’ This event will shine a spotlight on the challenges students and faculty are facing at Los Angeles universities right now, and we’ll explore how the broader Los Angeles Jewish community can step up and make an impact.”

The JFrg is looking to expand to other Los Angeles campuses but “we need the Los Angeles Jewish community to come together and help fund us,” Stein said. “Our faculty and staff volunteers are doing incredible work, but they have day jobs and we we’re looking to fund the development of our rapid response team, a more extensive film and interview team, a hotline and mobile app, as well as expand our weekly support groups for faculty and students who have been marginalized, boycotted, or even suspended due to their experiences with antisemitism. Once we get this formula right, we want to expand it to other Los Angeles area colleges. Already, we are inviting California faculty and staff to our support groups and other events so we can help them strengthen their groups, too. It’s all hands on deck. We need to help each other out.”

For CAMERA on Campus, one of the focuses will be educating students. “A lot of students are concerned about the conflict, particularly Israel’s operations in Gaza to uproot Hamas,” Sandoval said. “They don’t understand that it’s not one side against the other. They don’t understand that it’s not Israelis vs. Palestinians; rather, it’s the survival of the Jewish state against the radical Islamist terrorist organization that seeks its destruction. The same way that in the West Bank — or Judea and Samaria — you have radical groups including Fatah, which is considered ‘moderate,’ toeing the same radical anti-Israel line that Israel should not exist as a country. As elementary as that sounds, CAMERA on Campus is giving students a history lesson, waking them up to the reality of Israel’s precarious geopolitical situation. We’re helping them understand the ideological battle between democracy, freedom of speech, the right to live life according to your own course, vs. the opposite: autocracy, religious extremism and fundamentalism, the chilling of speech, the silencing of any dissident voices. This goes beyond Israel … we work tirelessly to give students as much information as possible so they can be effective as possible in their activism on campus.” Such examples of activism include holding rallies, bringing speakers to campus and publishing op-eds. 

“The power behind doing anything effective on campus is the truth, so CAMERA on Campus believes that we have to give them access to the truth before they can be effective in addressing any of the issues they’re facing on campus,” Sandoval said. 

Gold struck a note of optimism, saying “we have more students in leadership positions with Hillel, with the sub-groups of Hillel, than we’ve ever had. It just shows that students saw what happened last year and were motivated to get involved.” 

Jewish students are looking to go more on offense this year and building coalitions. Kohanteb told The Journal that “a lot of last year was reactionary, the other side would do something and we would have to react to it. This year, we’re trying to be more proactive, make some events in order for the community to understand what’s happening and be prepared for what is happening.” BIPAC will also prioritize reaching “out to communities and see if we can do coalition-building.”

 “I think that the majority of Israel’s supporters are focused on top-down intervention and have given up hope on changing peoples minds, when in reality the true battle is on the ground and solving antisemitism at its root is the only way to have a lasting impact,” Mikael Rochman, president of Columbia’s SSI chapter, told The Journal. “Of course we will continue to do what we can to work with the administration, but we have learned throughout Jewish history and were reminded last semester that we cannot expect those in power to protect us when mobs rise against us, as they will almost always do what is in their interest rather than what is morally correct. By not constantly narrating our own story, we allow others to hijack it and tell it for us and that is exactly what anti-Israel groups have done for years.” Rochman said that his SSI chapter’s “goal this year is to gain control over our own narrative, attacking the antisemitism at its root, build coalitions with other student groups, expose the bad actors who wish to divide Israelis and Palestinians and unite us so that we may change the status quo for the better. Without getting into too much detail those four things will be the focus of all of our activity, from events, tabling, rallies, social media, visual displays, and countering.”

Ellia T. said that TFI is planning an Oct. 7 remembrance event in a public area “so that we can show people the pain we went through on that day and demonstrate that this event that happened was extremely hurtful to us and that we are also mourning the loss of our people.” She added that TFI has been in contact with the administration to make sure security is there to protect it from disruptions.

Stern, the Rutgers University student, added that “a lot of people are doing fellowships, so people are getting ready to organize events” and students involved with groups like StandWithUs, CAMERA on Campus, Hillel and Chabad are talking amongst each other to put on “big events with a lot of numbers” to show that “there’s a strong” Jewish and pro-Israel presence on campus.

He also highlighted the importance of building coalitions on campus with non-Jewish allies, though he acknowledged that it would be “a very big uphill battle” at Rutgers “because something SJP has been doing for years is building coalitions, they have a lot of members who are members of other clubs, they have a lot of outreach and a lot of influence on a lot of other clubs at Rutgers. We are playing catch-up on that, but we’re hoping for a really good, big semester.” Additionally, Stern contended that many pro-Israel students are in their first and second years at Rutgers, “so we’re hoping that they can make new friends and build relationships with other clubs and people while, maybe optimistically, that the relationships and networks that SJP has will be graduating soon.”

UCLA student Eli Sánchez, president of Bruins for Israel (BFI), told The Journal: “In the wake of Oct. 7, UCLA’s Jewish community grew stronger and more tightly-knit, but we also found ourselves increasingly isolated from other groups on campus. This year, BFI will prioritize building bridges beyond political divides by showcasing Israel’s vibrant and diverse culture. We aim to find common ground and establish meaningful connections with other cultural groups on campus, while maintaining our commitment to providing a community space for Zionists and equipping students with the tools to report and combat antisemitism. We believe that by building these bridges, we can help ensure that the Jewish and pro-Israel community is less isolated, safer, better understood, and more integrated into the UCLA community.”

Rothstein said that they have been “witnessing unprecedented motivation and dedication from Jewish, Israeli, and Zionist students.  We had more applicants for our Emerson leadership Fellowship than ever before.  Students are determined to return to campus to claim their space, grow and enrich their communities, fight against anti-Jewish bigotry, and fight for their rights and the rights of others. StandWithUs will be there to support them every step of the way.”

Farkas pointed out that at both the Republican and Democratic National Conventions “Jews are highlighted as a positive force in this country … I refuse to believe that the fringe militant antisemites on the right or the left are really the story of this city and the story of these colleges and the story of America. Because it seems to be that a different story is finally starting to be told in a way we all should take heart in.”