University antisemitism task forces feature much talk, minimal action so far

In the aftermath of a surge in antisemitism that erupted following the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks in Israel, top universities including Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania and Northwestern announced the creation of new bodies tasked with studying antisemitism on campus and identifying how to address it. Their impending work is framed with urgency, and the bodies are generally discussed using language about the importance of inclusivity on campus. 

But nearly five months after the environment for Jewish students on these campuses began to rapidly deteriorate, questions remain over the efficacy and mandate of such groups. They will also face the thorny issue of campus free speech as they delve into questions about what, exactly, constitutes antisemitism on campus. 

The question over the credibility of these antisemitism task forces was underscored this week at Harvard, following the resignation of business school professor Raffaella Sadun, the co-chair of the presidential task force, reportedly because she felt university leaders weren’t willing to act on the committee’s recommendations. 

“They’ve utterly failed to protect Jewish and Israeli students. It’s shameful,” a Jewish faculty member at Harvard told Jewish Insider. They requested anonymity to speak candidly about interactions with students and administrators in recent months. The professor has seen numerous Israeli students kicked out of WhatsApp groups unrelated to politics because they are Israeli. The professor also described widespread opposition, among many students, to topics having to do with Israel — and a corresponding reluctance to act from administrators, who fear pushback from far-left students. 

“If you’re an administrator, and you care about your own personal well-being, and you want to keep Harvard out of the news or off social media, you basically try not to engage with these people in a way that will provoke them,” the professor said. “In the end this backfired on Harvard, because their failure to take care of Jewish students contributed to the accusations of institutional antisemitism, the lawsuit, the congressional investigation.”

Harvard announced the creation of an antisemitism task force in January, which immediately faced criticism due to comments made by its other co-chair, historian Derek Penslar, suggesting that antisemitism is not a major problem at Harvard. The body’s full membership has now been announced, but the scope and timeline of its work remains unclear. 

Interim Harvard President Alan Garber said in a Monday email that he expects the work of Harvard’s antisemitism task force to “take several months to complete,” but he asked the co-chairs “to send recommendations to the deans and me on a rolling basis.” It is not clear if the university will provide updates along the way; or if Harvard’s leadership will accept the task force’s recommendations.

At universities that already had antisemitism task forces prior to Oct. 7, those that achieved the most success generally have a budget to pursue actual work, a clear timeline for their work and strong buy-in from administrators, who must be willing to actually implement the groups’ recommendations, according to Miriam Elman, executive director of the Academic Engagement Network, which works to fight anti-Israel sentiment and antisemitism at U.S. universities. 

It’s not yet clear if the newly created task forces — especially those at private universities, which don’t have the same obligation for transparency as public universities — will achieve the needed support from leaders.

“I think if the mandate is not clear, if there’s not enough resources, if the council doesn’t have committees and jobs, it’s just going to be window dressing,” said Elman. “It’s not going to be able to do the work that needs to be done.”

At Columbia University, Shai Davidai, an assistant professor in the business school, said he doesn’t have confidence that a newly created antisemitism task force can succeed unless the faculty on the committee changes to include more Zionist and Israeli voices. 

“At universities, if you want to make sure something doesn’t happen, you set up a task force,” Davidai continued. “The task force at Columbia has done absolutely nothing. They just talk.” 

At Stanford University, an antisemitism task force created in the wake of Oct. 7 has, like Harvard’s, been mired in conversations and controversy over its membership. Faculty co-chair Ari Kelman, an associate professor in Stanford’s Graduate School of Education and Religious Studies, had a record of downplaying the threat of campus antisemitism along with recent alliances with anti-Israel groups. He resigned, citing the controversy, and was replaced with Larry Diamond, a pro-Israel professor in Stanford’s political science department. Under its new leadership, the committee also expanded its name and scope in January to include anti-Israel bias. 

Despite the updates, Kevin Feigelis, a doctoral student in the Stanford physics department, who on Thursday testified at a House Education Committee roundtable with Jewish students, said that “the task force has still accomplished nothing and it’s not clear that they have the power to accomplish anything.” 

In January, Feigelis worked with the campus antisemitism task force to plan an on-campus forum meant to combat antisemitism. The symposium was disrupted by a pro-Palestinian protest that included threats to Jewish attendees.

The task force “was instituted just to appease people,” Feigelis said. “Stanford is aware of exactly what is going on, and if they cared they would have done something over the last five months. The university places people on these committees in one of two ways: either it places people who they think are going to be most sympathetic to the university or they go straight to Hillel and ask them. These are both troubling.” 

Feigelis expressed belief that the task force could accomplish more if it consisted of lawyers and more Israeli faculty. 

“If [the administration cared] the committee would not be made of political scientists and a biologist… lawyers should be the ones staffing a committee that determines what constitutes antisemitism. Instead they picked people who have no idea what constitutes free speech or what the code of conduct actually is.” 

He continued, “The task force is currently holding listening sessions, but it’s just not clear what will come of that.” 

After Northwestern University announced in November that it would create an antisemitism task force, 163 faculty and staff members at the university wrote a letter to President Michael Schill saying they were “seriously dismayed and concerned” by the announcement, raising concerns that the task force’s work would challenge “rigorous, open debate.” Three of the signatories of that letter — including Jessica Winegar, a Middle Eastern studies professor and vocal proponent of boycotts of Israel — were then named to the task force, which will also focus on addressing Islamophobia. 

“If you really want to fix the problem, why conflate it with other issues that are going to prolong trying to find a solution to it?” Mike Teplitsky, a Northwestern alum and the president of the Coalition Against Antisemitism at Northwestern, said of the task force’s attempt to also focus on Islamophobia and other forms of hate. “I would call it a bureaucratic distraction from trying to fix the problem.” 

Mark Rotenberg, Hillel International’s vice president for university initiatives and the group’s general counsel, argued that antisemitism has proven to be so severe as to warrant its own mechanisms. The inclusion of Islamophobia “and other hateful behavior” in the group’s mandate would be like if a campus Title IX office, focused on gender-based inequality, was also required to focus on racism.

“Antiracism may be a very important thing, but merging it with the problem of violence in frat houses is not going to signal the women on that campus that they are really taking that problem seriously,” said Rotenberg, who works with administrators at campuses across the U.S. on antisemitism-related issues. “That’s our point about antisemitism.”

Lily Cohen, a Northwestern senior who is a member of the task force, came face to face with antisemitism on campus a year before the Oct. 7 attacks. After writing an op-ed in the campus newspaper decrying antisemitism and speaking out about her support for Zionism, she was called a terrorist and faced an onslaught of hate — including a large banner that was printed with her article, covered by “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” in red paint. 

“I think it comes from the top,” said Cohen, who noted that, after the op-ed incident, “no strong actions were taken to stand up for Jewish students or protect Jewish students, or even just express that that wasn’t OK. It fostered an environment where antisemitism is tolerated at Northwestern as long as it stays just subtle enough that you’re not saying Jews.”

Afterward, she met with university administrators to talk about what happened to her. “At the end of the day, listening is not enough,” she said. “I don’t think in any of the meetings I had with any administrators, that they actually referred to what happened to me as antisemitism. I think that that’s a huge problem here, is how easy it is to say, ‘We are not antisemitic, we’re just anti-Zionist,’ or ‘We don’t hate Jews, we just hate Zionists. We just hate Israel.’”

The group started meeting in January, and it was asked by the president to finish its work by June, which Cohen worries is not enough time, especially given its broad scope. Administrators at the school have not instilled much confidence in her in the past, but she is choosing to be hopeful.

“Being on the committee, I have to be optimistic that we’re going to do something and that the president will take our recommendations seriously, and will put them into action,” she said. “Because if not, what was it all for?”

Gabby Deutch is Jewish Insider’s senior national correspondent; Haley Cohen is eJewishPhilanthropy’s news reporter.

‘This is that time’: Hillel Int’l CEO calls for Jewish students to lean in on Israel

ATLANTA – Among the more than 800 North American college students who gathered in Atlanta this week for an Israel-focused conference organized by Hillel International, the mood was lighthearted and joyful, even as the students shared story after story of the antisemitism and demonization they have faced on their campuses since Oct. 7. 

That students are able to come together to share their pride in being Jewish and caring for Israel at a time when hostility toward Israel has become ingrained at many schools is a point of pride for Hillel International CEO Adam Lehman, who told Jewish Insider in an interview at the conference that the organization’s “core commitment” to Zionism has never been more important. 

“If there has ever been a moment in modern Jewish history when Zionist organizations need to be clear about our commitments, and make sure that we are there for Jewish students who share these beliefs — and in ways that meaningfully support the Jewish and democratic State of Israel — this is that time,” said Lehman. 

Hillel’s strong and straightforward embrace of Zionism — and its delineation of clear ground rules for how campus Hillels should handle anti-Zionism — stands in contrast to some Jewish institutions, such as Reform and Conservative rabbinical schools, where the topic of Israel is largely avoided because it is viewed as divisive even among some Jews. 

Hillel International does not have ownership or control over campus Hillels, but it provides crucial logistical and financial support. By reaping the benefits of the umbrella organization, campus Hillels largely opt in to the group’s approach to Israel. 

“There’s an enormous pressure on all Jewish organizations, including Hillel, to downgrade commitments to Israel and to step back from core values as it relates to Zionism. Jewish students, like Jewish organizations in the diaspora, are swimming in an ocean of extreme demonization of Israel,” said Lehman. “We have taken that demonization, that external pressure, and actually used it to strengthen our commitments.” 

This position has not been embraced by everyone. Over the past decade, Hillel has had to contend with some left-wing Jews leaving the Hillel umbrella to create their own Jewish institutions that are more hospitable to anti-Zionism. On many campuses, Hillel professionals have to find a way to manage students who may have competing views on Israel and try to create space for them to coexist. But Lehman said that while Hillel would never give a platform to people opposed to the Jewish state, the movement’s core goal is supporting all Jewish students.

“We truly are committed to creating space for every student, regardless of their political views as it relates to Israel, the United States or anyplace else,” Lehman said. “However, at the same time, we don’t want to compromise or sacrifice our core commitments and beliefs as a Zionist organization.” One priority for Hillel International, Lehman explained, is promoting dialogue within the Jewish community. The organization will be sending facilitators to several schools this spring to help jump-start those conversations. 

Lehman contrasted that commitment to dialogue and inclusivity with the ethos of Students for Justice in Palestine, an anti-Israel group that on many campuses describes its work as “anti-normalization” and prohibits interactions with Zionists. 

“We are committed to outreach from Hillel and Jewish student communities to other communities on campus, including Muslim student associations and Palestinian student groups,” Lehman explained. “Our objective is to promote dialogue and understanding as part of nurturing strong Jewish life overall. For other organizations, their objective is to poison the campus climate and specifically poison it for Jewish and pro-Israel students, as part of a very clearly stated global Intifada.” 

The degree of well-organized animosity to Israel that erupted even a day after the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks, revealed that the Jewish community was unprepared for such an onslaught of hate, Lehman said. This happened even after Hillel and a whole cottage industry of campus pro-Israel groups spent more than a decade exerting untold millions of dollars on actions like fighting Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) resolutions and organizing pro-Israel students. 

“I do think that as a Jewish community, and as Jewish organizations supporting campuses, we’ve woken up post-October 7 to the unfortunate reality that the level of organization, resourcing and synchronicity of groups dedicated to the destruction of the Jewish and democratic state of Israel has surpassed what we as a community have organized to respond and address,” Lehman said. There is a need, he continued, to “better align across many organizations that are addressing pieces of the puzzle but not in a comprehensive enough way.” 

Hillel has in recent years made a concerted effort to educate and work with college administrators, and Lehman pointed to this as one arena where the Jewish community has seen some success. But he pointed to two other areas where he thinks the Jewish community should focus its energy — university faculty and social media.

“Faculty are the permanent residents of campus and feel unaccountable, really, to anyone other than themselves, and have across entire disciplines of academia become uniform in their demonization of Israel,” Lehman said.

As to social media, Lehman noted that “students live and swim in an ocean of social media that has become the largest cesspool of antisemitism in the history of the world. We need to both better analyze how that has come to be, but also, as a community, take seriously how to address that cesspool.” It’s a code no one has yet been able to crack. 

During the conference, students shared stories that painted a picture of what Lehman described as “an ambient level of Israel demonization on campus that all of us just take for granted because it’s everywhere.” While anti-Israel sentiment existed and even thrived on some campuses prior to Oct. 7, its ubiquity and ferocity is new. Students were resigned to this new reality, even as they also sought to find ways to refute the hate they see.

“My message to Jewish students and pro-Israel students,” said Lehman, “is that’s not OK.”