As close to 1,000 pro-Israel students from around the country gather in the nation’s capital for the Israel on Campus Coalition’s annual National Leadership Summit, they’ll do so against a backdrop of seemingly quieter campus antisemitism than in the years immediately following the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks in Israel. But students are still seeking tools to navigate a campus climate they’ve come to see as permanently changed. 

“My main concern [on campus today] is every time I sit down with a classmate I have to wonder whether the person next to me was at the [anti-Israel] encampment,” Noah Lederman, an incoming senior at Columbia University majoring in philosophy and Jewish ethics, told Jewish Insider. In February 2024, Lederman said he was shoved and pinned against a wall by an anti-Israel protester as he donned a shirt with an Israeli flag on it during a pro-Israel demonstration right outside of the Morningside Heights campus.  

More than two years later, Lederman still feels wary on campus. “Did the person sitting next to me siege Hamilton Hall?” he said, referring to the April 2024 occupation of the academic building at Columbia by anti-Israel student demonstrators, who barricaded the doors. “Because those students have yet to receive consequences or be identified because they wore masks to cover their faces. Are they the person who pushed me up against a wall?” he said. 

“Campus is not better, it’s just different,” said Lederman. “The assumption is that it’s better by virtue of there being no encampments right now, there’s no buildings being sieged. But that being the bar is ridiculous. What we saw my freshman year was so beyond the pale that people are inclined to say campus is better just because we don’t have people storming buildings, disrupting classes and Jewish students being told to go home because campus isn’t safe.”

He views the ICC conference as a place to help “further my skills in having civil dialogue” before returning to Columbia in the coming weeks. 

The program spans a wide range of topics, from making sense of Middle East tensions to addressing antisemitism at home.

The summit opened Sunday with a moderated conversation featuring former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant about the future of the region. It was followed by a security update by IDF Col. (ret.) Miri Eisin; former Knesset member Ruth Wasserman Lande and Jonathan Schanzer, executive director of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. The panel was moderated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss. 

Last year’s conference came at the height of the Trump administration’s pressure campaign on universities to crack down on antisemitism, which has included federal funding cuts from dozens of schools. 

Monday’s opening session will address the implications of those cuts, when Noah Pollak, a senior advisor at the Education Department, and Jonathan Rauch, a senior fellow of the Brookings Institution, debate whether the federal government’s campus crackdown is good for America.  

Other speakers scheduled to address the gathering throughout the three-day conference include Rachel Goldberg-Polin and Jon Polin, parents of the late Israeli hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin; former hostage Omer Shem Tov; Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA); Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY); and Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for civil rights at the Department of Justice. 

“With respect to [campus] antisemitism, we’ve seen improvements over the last year,” Ken Marcus, founder and chairman of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and a former Education Department official, told JI. “[That is] thanks, in part, to the efforts of many different organizations and government agencies.”

“But we’re still seeing a level of challenge that is near historic levels,” said Marcus. “In other words, we don’t have encampments and similar problems to the extent of previous semesters, but we are receiving intake calls that are significantly higher in number and severity than we had in all the worst of the last few years.” The Brandeis Center has filed numerous lawsuits and federal complaints against universities on behalf of Jewish students alleging a failure to address antisemitism since Oct. 7.   

“There’s no sugarcoating what Jewish students are living through,” Jacob Baime, CEO of ICC, told JI. “Campus life has grown more hostile, and the antisemitism more brazen, than at any point in memory: it’s on the quad, in the classroom, and online. But something profound is happening at the same time. This generation refuses to hide. They are prouder, better organized and more determined than any pro-Israel student cohort in history.” 

The goal of the conference, Baime said, is “to train them, connect them and send them back to school ready to stand tall and proud.”

One of the most profound changes since Oct. 7, Lederman said, is a shift in how professors behave. Before the attacks, he said, “antisemitism was subtle and professors were afraid.”

“Now they are brazenly antisemitic under the guise of anti-Zionism,” he continued. The biggest difference, Lederman added, is that professors “are no longer afraid to incite Jew hatred in their classes.”

Lederman said he expects the conference to give students tools to deal with that shift. “We are not going to run away and hide,” he said. “[ICC] teaches students to be unashamedly Zionist and Jewish. They teach them how to advocate for Israel, while also thinking for themselves.” 

Cornell University agreed to conduct “annual surveys to evaluate the campus climate for students, including the climate for students with shared Jewish ancestry” as part of an agreement it reached with the Trump administration on Friday. 

The settlement will restore more than $250 million in federal funding that was cut from the Ivy League school earlier this year, over allegations that it failed to address campus antisemitism. The annual surveys will “ask students whether they feel welcome at Cornell; whether they feel safe reporting antisemitism at Cornell; and whether they believe the changes Cornell has made since October 2023 have benefited the Cornell community.” 

The federal government concluded that Cornell is not in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and has closed the relevant investigations.

“I am pleased that our good faith discussions with the White House, Department of Justice, and Department of Education have concluded with an agreement that acknowledges the government’s commitment to enforce existing anti-discrimination law, while protecting our academic freedom and institutional independence,” Cornell President Michael Kotlikoff told Jewish Insider on Friday. “These discussions have now yielded a result that will enable us to return to our teaching and research in restored partnership with federal agencies.”

Under the terms of the settlement, in which Cornell agreed to pay $60 million — half to the government and the other $30 million toward research that will support U.S. farmers — the university must also ensure it is in compliance with government civil rights laws and provide admissions data to the government to ensure race is not considered a factor in admissions. 

The settlement includes a provision stating that the university and government both “affirm the importance of and their support for academic freedom.” It also said that no part of the settlement could be “construed as giving the United States authority to dictate the content of academic speech or curricula.”

Menachem Rosensaft, an adjunct professor of law at Cornell Law School who teaches about antisemitism in the courts, called the settlement a “significant victory for Cornell.”

“It is proof that the Cornell administration under President Kotlikoff has in fact been doing — and is doing — everything in its power, and everything that is appropriate within the restraints posed by academic freedom, to protect its Jewish students, faculty and staff against any type of antisemitic discrimination, just as it is protecting all members of the Cornell community from Title VI or Title IX based discrimination,” Rosensaft told JI. 

“Of course there remains work to be done to fight against antisemitic manifestations at Cornell, just as there is at virtually every university and college in this country. But the settlement is proof that Kotlikoff and his administration are fully invested and engaged in this fight.”

The six-page agreement comes weeks after a similar one was signed by the University of Virginia; however, the Charlottesville campus’ settlement did not explicitly address Jewish students. Columbia University, Brown University and the University of Pennsylvania also cut deals with the government earlier this year. The Trump administration is still reportedly in talks to reach agreements with Harvard University and the University of California. 

The move from Cornell comes as its graduate student union is considering a BDS resolution that accuses Jewish students of “weaponizing antisemitism” and blames labor disputes on “Zionist interests” — where, unlike many other unions, dues are mandatory.

In the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks in Israel, Cornell made headlines for several high-profile incidents. Those included a student’s online threats to shoot Jewish students at the kosher dining hall — and, following a leave of absence, the return to campus earlier this year of Russell Rickford, an associate professor of history who called Oct. 7 “exhilarating” and “energizing.”

Cornell’s former president, Martha Pollack, issued a set of recommendations aimed at countering antisemitism in May 2024. Pollack resigned in July 2024, citing “enormous, unexpected challenges” on campus amid the Israel-Hamas war. 

WASHINGTON — When hundreds of pro-Israel college students from around the country gathered in the nation’s capital earlier this week for the Israel on Campus Coalition’s three-day annual national leadership summit, the rise of antisemitism on campuses sparked by the aftermath of the Oct. 7th terrorist attacks nearly two years ago was still a topic of conversation throughout panels and hallways. 

This year, however, some students also said that antisemitism is lessening — though they offered mixed views about what is leading to the improved campus climate. 

Some attributed it to the Trump administration’s ongoing pressure campaign on universities to crack down on antisemitic behavior, which has included federal funding cuts from dozens of schools. Others said their campuses started to take a serious approach to antisemitism, before President Donald Trump was reelected, in the fall semester following the wave of anti-Israel encampments from the previous spring. 

But many student leaders from universities that have been targeted by the Trump administration — facing billions of dollars in slashed funds — said that if their school enters into negotiations to restore the money, they would like a deal to include structural reforms, unlike the one made last week between the federal government and Columbia University. 

The penalties under that deal were largely financial, with Columbia agreeing to pay a $200 million settlement over three years to the government.

Harvard University has signaled a willingness to settle next, The New York Times reported this week, which could see the school agree to the Trump administration’s demand for as much as $500 million to end its clash.

“If there is a settlement in the coming days, I don’t think that Harvard paying a fine would be helpful,” Kyra Esrig, an incoming sophomore at Harvard, told Jewish Insider at the ICC summit. Instead, Esrig hopes to see “more of a focus on antisemitism itself without this maneuvering to get it to be a DEI incentive that every time they talk about antisemitism they have to add that they’re not anti-Muslim as well.”

“I want to see something specific in writing — [outlining] the steps the university will take to change antisemitism. I want to see an action-specific type of agreement. If the university treads more carefully around the issue, if the university is at least a little more responsive to people’s concerns around antisemitism, I think that will be a good thing.” 

Esrig does not believe antisemitism has improved on campus since the Trump administration slashed $2.6 billion in funding from the university in the spring.  

“It’s not like the Trump administration came into power and then there was sweeping change. For Harvard to change its culture, that’s an incredibly difficult thing to do and I don’t know that the Trump administration can go about issuing that.” 

“I’m not entirely sure what the Trump administration is trying to gain,” Ezra Galperin, an incoming junior at the Ithaca, N.Y. school, told JI. “I think Cornell’s administration has been pretty effective in combating antisemitism — before there were threats from the Trump administration — with President Kotlikoff coming on. [Kotlikoff] makes a point of listening to Jewish students.”

Rather, “a lot of the positive changes are coming from the original backlash after Oct. 7,” she said, pointing to the university expanding its kosher lunch options in August 2024. 

“That’s a result of the powerful force of Jewish students at Harvard saying that we need certain resources,” Esrig said. 

Cornell University faced a $1 billion funding cut in April from the federal government amid a civil rights investigation into its handling of antisemitism. Ezra Galperin, an incoming junior at the Ithaca, N.Y., school studying government, noted an improvement in campus antisemitism this year compared to last.

But he attributes the shift to the university’s new president, Michael Kotlikoff, who stepped into the role in March. 

“I’m not entirely sure what the Trump administration is trying to gain,” Galperin told JI. “I think Cornell’s administration has been pretty effective in combating antisemitism — before there were threats from the Trump administration — with President Kotlikoff coming on. [Kotlikoff] makes a point of listening to Jewish students.”

“There’s progress to be made, but I don’t think it warrants a millions of dollars fine,” Galperin said.

If Cornell does enter into a settlement with the government, there are two reforms Galperin hopes to see. “I want to make sure organizations like Students for Justice in Palestine that stir things up on campus are held accountable,” he said. “I want to see accountability for the grad students union who is seemingly selective in the students they choose to represent, alienating those who are pro-Israel. That’s my main hope for the year.”  (Cornell SJP was suspended in March for disrupting the “Pathways to Peace” event where former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro and former Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad spoke.)

“What I would like to see, in light of the cuts, is a deal to be made which would include a mask ban imposed and enforced, for regulations to be actually written down more clearly and then enforced and then for punishments to be enforced on those who have breached the regulations that are made,” said Maximillian Meyer, a rising junior at Princeton University and student president of the campus group Princeton’s Tigers for Israel.

“If a deal is to be struck, I do hope it’s something tangible,” Galperin continued. “There is a sense that the Columbia deal was insufficient and a bit of a ploy.” 

Maximillian Meyer, a rising junior at Princeton University and student president of the campus group Princeton’s Tigers for Israel, said he is taking a wait-and-see approach to the government’s crackdown on his campus, which also faced a funding freeze in April. 

“I would be in support of a settlement — but not just any settlement,” Meyer told JI.

“What I would hope the Trump administration’s cuts would do, at a minimum, is to compel the university administration to enforce its own regulations. Even since the Trump administration made its cuts, the Princeton administration has not enforced its policies on time, place and manner restrictions.

“What I would like to see, in light of the cuts, is a deal to be made which would include a mask ban imposed and enforced, for regulations to be actually written down more clearly and then enforced and then for punishments to be enforced on those who have breached the regulations that are made,” Meyer continued, pointing to anti-Israel demonstrators repeatedly disrupting former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s speech at the university — including pulling a fire alarm — just days after the Trump administration slashed funding. 

“The university should have been prepared for disruptions, but was undeterred by Trump’s funding cuts,” Meyer said. He called on Princeton to “work with the Trump administration to do something about [antisemitism]” rather than “the university’s current posture which is fighting against the administration.” 

But Uriel Alvin, a student at City College of the City University of New York,  expressed concern that any government intervention does more harm than good on campus. 

“After the [Gaza solidarity] encampments [in spring 2024], we saw protests afterwards because of NYPD’s involvement shutting down the encampments,” said Uriel Alvin, a student at City College of the City University of New York. “I think having intervention causes more problems — adds to the flame more than it puts it out.  I don’t think it was helpful for Columbia either.”  

Alvin said he has worried about wearing a kippah on campus since Oct. 7, and that he “hasn’t felt any better this year.” 

Earlier this month, Félix Matos Rodríguez, chancellor of CUNY, was called to testify during a House Committee on Education and Workforce hearing over his alleged failure to address campus antisemitism. That hearing, or any approach that involves the government, “wouldn’t help things,” Alvin said. 

“After the [Gaza solidarity] encampments [in spring 2024], we saw protests afterwards because of NYPD’s involvement shutting down the encampments,” he said.  

“I think having intervention causes more problems — adds to the flame more than it puts it out.  I don’t think it was helpful for Columbia either.”