In the aftermath of the New School student government’s vote to defund and sever ties with Hillel, Jewish leaders are warning that the latest front in campus anti-Israel activity is designed  to delegitimize the world’s largest Jewish campus organization.

“Hillel is a space of Jewish belonging on campus. It is a place Jewish students need, and particularly need right now. For anyone to call into question a place that Jewish students go for their needs is beyond the pale. This absolutely crosses a red line,” Laura Shaw Frank, vice president of the American Jewish Committee Center for Education Advocacy, told Jewish Insider. 

Last week, the New School’s student senate approved a resolution to strip funding and cease collaboration with Hillel, alleging that Hillel violated international law by running programming in Israel, including Birthright trips and volunteer opportunities with the Israel Defense Forces. 

While the New School’s administration rejected the vote, the move marked the first time a student government has moved to officially cut ties with the organization that acts as a hub of campus life for Jewish students — although many have called on their universities to end partnerships with Hillel, particularly after the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks in Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza.  

Now some in the Jewish community believe that student governments on other campuses will imitate the behavior.  

“We’re very heartened by the New School making clear this is not going to happen and we’re pretty confident other university leaders would do the same,” said Shaw Frank. “At the same time, it has to be made clear that Hillel is one of the key places on campus that Jewish students go for support, Jewish identity and celebration, and this kind of message is that their community spaces are conditional, that their identity is suspect and that their safety and belonging is up to the vote of their fellow students.” 

“None of those things are acceptable, so we will be doing everything in our power to ensure that any kind of trend in this direction is shut down. It’s completely unacceptable and antisemitic.” 

Shira Goodman, the Anti-Defamation League’s vice president of advocacy, labeled the incident at the New School “an escalation,” voicing concern that campus organizations are targeted solely for supporting Israel. 

“We’ve seen in the last two years calls to dissociate from Hillel; that was among some of the encampment demands and there have been protests blocking access to Hillel and Chabad events,” Goodman told JI. “We hadn’t seen a campus resolution like that so we’re certainly worried that it will become a bigger trend.”

Those concerns come as campus antisemitism and anti-Israel activity — which reached historic levels during Israel’s war with Hamas and has quieted down since a ceasefire was reached in the fall — appears to be ramping up again as the end of the academic year approaches.  

The outgoing chair of University of Michigan’s faculty senate, who has a history of anti-Israel advocacy, attacked Israel at a commencement ceremony on Saturday in comments that deviated from his prepared remarks. The university apologized for his behavior. 

Last month, UCLA’s student government condemned a campus event featuring former Israeli hostage Omer Shem Tov, labeling the speaker selection as “selective platforming of narratives that obscure the broader reality of ongoing state violence” and “a troubling disregard for Palestinian life.” UCLA said it stood by Hillel for hosting the event. 

On Monday, the ADL sent a letter to around 150 campuses expressing concern about the resurgence of antisemitic harassment, including the recent reestablishment of encampments at Occidental College and Smith College. (Both were quickly dismantled.)    

Goodman was skeptical that resolutions aimed at shutting down Hillel will be successful or that they could replace campus Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions efforts. While BDS initiatives had largely disappeared prior to Oct. 7, the months following the Hamas attack and the start of the war in Gaza sparked a resurgence in efforts to enact them on various campuses. 

“Given that most of those resolutions have been unsuccessful in getting campuses to divest — although some have led to being able to present to investment committees — I think these will also be unsuccessful,” she said.  

Still, both types of resolutions lead to a hostile campus climate for Jewish students, she said. 

“These student government bodies are supposed to be places that deal with student organizations, funding, policies that impact students and they’re spending a lot of time on these issues that don’t impact students daily lives and are becoming increasingly hostile to the Jewish students on campus.” 

Shaw Frank and Goodman both said that a silver lining of recent campus turmoil is that institutions are now better equipped to handle antisemitism than they were in 2024, when anti-Israel encampments first roiled campuses nationwide and university administrators floundered in shutting them down and negotiating with student protesters. 

“I think with respect to the demonstrations that took place in 2024, it was very clear to campus administrators that their campuses were being shut down and they were unable to continue their work as institutions of learning,” said Shaw Frank. “Employing time, place and manner restrictions as we and other Jewish organizations called for largely solved the problem.” 

She added that the current situation “is much smaller” than it was two years ago. “Most students are no longer active in this space on campus, even in places that were hotbeds of protests in 2024. The protests are much more anemic now. We know that students who see themselves as activists tend to choose places like student government. A small number of students have a disproportionately powerful impact,” said Shaw Frank.

Jewish leaders are looking to university administrations to take decisive action in protecting Jewish students.

“We want to make sure that they use the policies that they enacted, or decided to enforce, after 2024 and that they continue to do that, they continue to be clear that there are consequences for violating university policies and that all students can access their educational and extracurricular activities equally,” said Goodman. 

Shaw Frank added, “This is a moment when university leadership must not only speak out very clearly to state this is unacceptable, but also ensure that their codes of conduct and guidelines are up to date and their departments of student life are educated about antisemitism. 

“We urge universities to ensure that it is very clear to their student governments and student bodies what types of resolutions are OK and what are not OK.”   

The New School rejected a student government vote on Saturday to defund and sever ties with the private New York City university’s Hillel chapter, a vote that prompted condemnation from local lawmakers and Jewish groups, while drawing praise from a controversial Muslim advocacy organization.  

On Friday, the New School’s student senate approved a resolution to strip funding and cease collaboration with Hillel, the world’s largest Jewish student organization. In a 38-page report, the student organization alleged that Hillel violated international law by running programming in Israel, including Birthright trips and volunteer opportunities with the Israel Defense Forces. 

The move marked the first time a student government has voted to cut ties with the organization that acts as a hub of campus life for Jewish students — although many have called on their universities to end partnerships with Hillel, particularly after the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks in Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza . 

The New School Hillel called the vote “a deeply painful and antisemitic act, one that attempts to isolate Jewish students from a global community they have every right to belong to.” 

Local elected officials also condemned the vote in statements on Saturday.

Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) called “the attack on Hillel … an ominous sign of the times we live in.”  

“This is hateful and vile antisemitism, plain and simple,” said Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY). Meanwhile, CAIR-NY’s executive director, Afaf Nasher, applauded the move, saying in a statement Saturday, “We welcome The New School’s decision to suspend funding for Hillel as a necessary step toward accountability and adherence to international human rights principles.”

The New School resoundingly rejected the student senate’s vote, saying on Saturday that it “does not have the authority to determine the recognition, funding, eligibility, or official status of registered student organizations.” 

The university also said it would take “immediate steps” to address the student senate’s action “and ensure it acts within its actual purview” going forward. 

The Jewish Community Relations Council of New York said it “appreciate[s] the New School administration for swiftly rejecting the unauthorized student government vote targeting Hillel” and called the vote a crossing of “every red line.” 

“We have been in direct contact with the local Hillel chapter to express our full support and unwavering solidarity,” the JCRC said in a statement. “We are also grateful for the partnership and leadership of our community allies at UJA-Federation of New York and appreciate the immediate outreach and strong solidarity expressed by Speaker Julie Menin. 

“For many Jewish students, Hillel is the primary space on campus where they practice their faith, celebrate their culture, express their identity, build community, and feel safe at a time of skyrocketing antisemitism. Efforts to isolate or remove Hillel from campus life are direct attacks on Jewish identity and Jewish student life. That crosses every red line. No other community would accept being targeted or excluded in this way, and neither will the Jewish community.”

UCLA’s student government condemned a recent campus event featuring former Israeli hostage Omer Shem Tov, labeling the speaker selection as “selective platforming of narratives that obscure the broader reality of ongoing state violence” and “a troubling disregard for Palestinian life.”    

In an undated letter to UCLA administration, as well as the organizers of the event — UCLA Hillel and the UCLA Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies — and “affiliated campus stakeholders,” the UCLA Undergraduate Students Association Council wrote that it “condemns” the April 14 event, held on Yom HaShoah, which was titled “505 Days in Captivity: Omer Shem Tov’s Testimony of Resilience.” 

The council represents over 29,000 undergraduates at UCLA. 

“While we affirm the humanity of all people impacted by violence, we reject the selective platforming of narratives that obscure the broader reality of ongoing state violence. Israel is currently continuing to carry out what has been widely identified by human rights advocates as a genocide in Gaza, while also expanding its illegal military campaign into Lebanon. In this context, elevating a single narrative, absent of critical political and humanitarian framing, serves to legitimize and normalize these ongoing atrocities,” the letter states.

“Institutional sponsorship of this event reflects a troubling disregard for Palestinian life … Universities must not be complicit in the production or amplification of one-sided narratives that erase systems of oppression and occupation,” the letter continued. “USAC calls on UCLA to immediately reconsider its role in sponsoring future programming that advances incomplete and harmful representations of ongoing violence.” 

“Hillel at UCLA would like to apologize for absolutely nothing,” the group’s executive director, Daniel Gold, told Jewish Insider. 

“Members of UCLA student government have once again shown they are anti-dialogue, anti-learning, anti-truth, anti-student, and anti-Jewish in condemning our beautiful event last week with Omer Shem Tov,” Gold said.

Shem Tov was kidnapped by Hamas from the Nova Music Festival on Oct. 7, 2023, and held captive in Gaza for 505 days. 

A spokesperson for UCLA told JI, “The event’s message was one of resilience and respect for human rights and dignity — a message we support. We stand by UCLA Hillel, UCLA Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies and the UCLA Chapter of Students Supporting Israel’s invitation to have this very important dialogue.” 

“We will review the process by which this letter was issued. The condemnation of such a peaceful event to share a story of resilience in the face of extreme suffering is antithetical to the values of our Bruin community,” the spokesperson said.

UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk spoke at the event, introducing Shem Tov.

The federal government has been in a monthslong legal battle with UCLA, including a February lawsuit alleging that the campus failed to protect Jewish and Israeli faculty and staff in accordance with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination. 

The University of Maryland, College Park student government unanimously passed two resolutions hostile towards Israel on Wednesday night, including one that called for the school to ban members of the Israel Defense Forces from speaking on campus. 

The resolution, targeting Israelis, called for the university to prohibit people who are “committing war crimes” and “genocide” from speaking on campus. 

It came as a response to an event hosted by the campus chapter of Students Supporting Israel on Oct. 21 featuring former IDF soldiers who spoke to students about their experiences serving during Israel’s war with Hamas. 

During the event, protesters packed the outside hallway shouting “baby killers” and “IOF [Israel “Occupation” Forces] off our campus,” while several others protested from outside of the building with chants comparing the IDF to the Ku Klux Klan, the university’s student-run Jewish newspaper, The Mitzpeh, reported. 

The second resolution called on the university to issue an apology to students who faced disciplinary action for protesting that event. The resolution stated that “two student journalists were wrongfully detained by the University of Maryland Police Department for over an hour while attempting to document the event.” At the time, UMPD said in a statement that the student journalists refused to provide identification or credentials. 

Both resolutions passed 25-0, with one abstention. 

UMD has one of the largest Jewish student populations in the country — nearly 20% of the College Park undergraduate student body of more than 30,000 students is Jewish, according to Hillel International. But there are “very few” Jewish students remaining in student government, junior criminology and criminal justice major Meirav Solomon told Jewish Insider.

Solomon was removed as a student government member in 2023 after being put on a “blacklist” of students who she said were accused of “not believing in human rights.” She told The Mitzpeh at the time that the list profiled candidates with “Jewish-sounding names,” and most students denounced by the document had never voiced a public opinion on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The current student government is mostly composed of Students for Justice in Palestine members, or people who support the group, Solomon said. 

The latest resolutions follow the passing of a separate resolution — voted on at the start of Yom Kippur — calling on the university and its charitable foundation to implement a boycott of companies and academic institutions with ties to “Israel’s regime of apartheid and occupation.”

“Jewish students on campus are already feeling very unsafe,” said Solomon. “But these resolutions have the most shocking language I’ve seen. This is extreme language and doubles down on making Jewish students feel that they don’t have a voice in student government.”

When the BDS vote was announced in October, UMD President Darryll Pines told the university’s newspaper, The Diamondback, that the university supports SGA’s right to debate the issue. But he added that the university wants to ensure the process is “open and fair and has dialogue from all parties of our broad student body.” 

“Resolutions voted on by the Student Government Association are student-led and reflect perspectives of voting members of the SGA,” a university spokesperson told JI at the time of the BDS resolution vote. “They have no bearing on university policy or practice.” 

This story was updated on Thursday to reflect the outcome of the vote.