Julio Frenk was sitting at a Miami Hurricanes football game on Oct. 7, 2023, when he learned the details of the terror attacks in Israel that killed 1,200 people and saw over 250 taken hostage. Frenk, a public health scholar and sociologist who was then the president of the University of Miami, knew immediately that he had to weigh in with an unequivocal condemnation of the violence. 

“I had no question that I had to respond and say something. It’s very personal for me,” Frenk, whose family settled in Mexico City after fleeing Nazi Germany in the 1930s, told Jewish Insider in an interview this week. His wife’s father survived Nazi concentration camps but lost nearly his entire family in the Holocaust. “I think it was one of the first messages by a university president, and it was unambiguous.” 

In an email sent to university affiliates two days after Oct. 7, he touted UM’s “deep ties” to Israel. “We stand in solidarity with the people of Israel, with all those impacted by the violence and with all who seek peace,” wrote Frenk. 

It was an unusually bold statement from a university president at a time when many other leaders of elite universities seemed afraid of issuing similar clear-eyed denunciations. He followed the email with straightforward guidance about the university’s rules around protesting, harassment and violence, and continued disavowals of antisemitism. There was no anti-Israel encampment at UM in the spring of 2024. 

But that was in Florida, a conservative-minded state where Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and other political officials have made clear that violent anti-Israel protest activity would be punished — bolstered by the leadership of Frenk at the University of Miami, Ben Sasse at the University of Florida and other academic leaders. 

Now, Frenk, who is 71, is attempting to bring some Florida to deep-blue California as he wraps up his first semester as chancellor of the University of California, Los Angeles, a position he started in January. Both schools have among the largest Jewish student populations in the country.

Westwood, where UCLA is located, is a dramatically different environment for Frenk, who was the dean of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health before taking over in Coral Gables. UCLA, the top-rated public university in the country, has a budget double the size of Miami’s. It’s also a public university, which means greater free speech protections than at UM. But for Frenk, the core issue has nothing to do with infringing on students’ freedom of expression. It’s about teaching them what’s right and what’s wrong. 

“When we engage with each other, we do that respectfully and without — obviously no hatred, no harassment, no incitement to violence, but also no expressions that are deeply offensive to the other side,” Frenk said to JI. He specified that he was referring specifically to the anti-Israel slogan “From the river to the sea” as one such expression. “That’s the same message here. It’s not a legalistic issue. It’s part of educating young people.” 

During UCLA’s large anti-Israel encampment last spring, Jewish students were barred from accessing parts of campus by the protest organizers. The tents popped up just days after Frenk had accepted the offer from Michael Drake, president of the University of California system.

“I had already said yes, and he said, ‘Are you going to change your mind?’ And I said, ‘No, I’m not going to change my mind. I think this is a very important challenge to face and fix if I can, and I’m going to give it my all,’” Frenk recalled. “What drew me here is just the reputation, the standing, and I know that that spring, the images of UCLA going to the world were not very enticing. But to be honest, facing that challenge was something that attracted me.”

“My position has been that, with all transparency and humility, we need to acknowledge that we have an antisemitism problem in universities. Denying it would be dishonest,” Frenk added. “What we are telling the Department of Justice and others is yes, we acknowledge, and we are fixing the problem.”

Frenk took over the chancellorship of UCLA at a precarious time for the entire institution of higher education, which is facing “the greatest challenge in living memory,” he said in a speech to a Jewish communal advocacy day in Sacramento this month. 

He committed early on to fighting antisemitism, even seeking to work proactively with the Trump administration on protecting Jewish students. 

“We’re trying to respond to the federal government, first of all by saying that I applaud the decision to combat antisemitism, and secondly, that we acknowledge that there had been a problem with, there is a problem with, growing antisemitism. But we are determined to deal with that and eradicate antisemitism.”

But Frenk walks a fine line as he declares President Donald Trump’s goal of combating antisemitism to be laudable while also criticizing some of the administration’s strategies, such as cutting federal funds to Harvard and other institutions — all while the UC schools face the prospect of being sued by the Trump administration. 

“That occupies me at night,” he said of the prospect of losing federal funds. UCLA receives hundreds of millions of dollars from the federal government each year. 

“My position has been that, with all transparency and humility, we need to acknowledge that we have an antisemitism problem in universities. Denying it would be dishonest,” Frenk added. “What we are telling the Department of Justice and others is yes, we acknowledge, and we are fixing the problem.”

He cited a statement that UCLA signed onto, as a member of the American Association of Universities, which “clearly states that we applaud the decision to combat antisemitism, but that certainly withholding research money is not the way to do it,” Frenk explained. “We’re hoping that the administration will reconsider those kinds of measures.”

“My North Star is always to be explicit about the principles,” Frenk said. “[One] thing we said [at Miami], and I’m following the same idea at UCLA, is here are the rules: You cannot occupy space, you can have no encampments, etc., and here are the consequences of violating the rules.” 

Early in his tenure at UCLA, Frenk suspended the undergraduate and graduate chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine after their members vandalized the home of UC Regent Jay Sures. In March, he announced an initiative to combat antisemitism that would implement the recommendations of a task force that studied antisemitism and anti-Israel bias on campus. 

“It has a budget. It’s not just volunteer time. It has a full-time executive director,” said Frenk. “It has administrative support. It is real. It reports to me directly.” Its goals include hiring a Title VI officer to enforce federal civil rights statutes and implementing trainings for students and staff when they return in the fall. That’s in addition, he noted, to a UC-wide revision of rules about campus protests and gatherings that took place last year. 

“My North Star is always to be explicit about the principles,” Frenk said. “[One] thing we said [at Miami], and I’m following the same idea at UCLA, is here are the rules: You cannot occupy space, you can have no encampments, etc., and here are the consequences of violating the rules.” 

It was, he explained, a page out of his pandemic playbook, when Miami reopened in the fall of 2020 with strict precautions in place. He suspended a student soon after for hosting a party in her dorm room. 

“The parents were pleading with me, and I said, ‘Look, I am responsible for protecting this campus. And furthermore, you’re paying us to educate your daughter, and part of their education is to learn that there is something called the rule of law, and that if you don’t follow the law, there are consequences,’” Frenk recalled. “She’s going to graduate into the real world, and is going to find that that’s not the way the rest of the world behaves. I see this as part of my educational duty, and it’s exactly the same principles we’re using in UCLA.” 

So far, Frenk insists he “very much” has buy-in from the relevant stakeholders at UCLA in his quest to ensure that, contrary to last year, the school actually enforces its policies. 

“We do it for our Jewish students, faculty and staff, for the rest of the members of our community and for the university itself,” said Frenk. 

Fighting antisemitism and the impact it has on the entire campus environment will “save the university,” according to Frenk. That’s a lesson he learned from his grandparents, after they fled Germany. 

“It was through antisemitism that German universities, which were the premier universities in the world in the 1920s and early 1930s, declined,” said Frenk. “It destroyed the soul of the university.” 

Antisemitic violence struck at the heart of the nation’s capital on Wednesday evening when an assailant shot and killed two Israeli embassy employees outside an event at the Capital Jewish Museum for young diplomats and Jewish professionals hosted by the American Jewish Committee.

“Two staff members of the Israeli embassy were shot this evening at close range while attending a Jewish event at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington DC,” embassy spokesperson Tal Naim Cohen said in a statement. “We have full faith in law enforcement authorities on both the local and federal levels to apprehend the shooter and protect Israel’s representatives and Jewish communities throughout the United States.”

Officials said there was no ongoing threat to public safety and that a suspect had been arrested.

“American Jewish Committee (AJC) can confirm that we hosted an event at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C. this evening,” AJC CEO Ted Deutch said in a statement. “We are devastated that an unspeakable act of violence took place outside the venue. At this moment, as we await more information from the police about exactly what transpired, our attention and our hearts are solely with those who were harmed and their families.”

President Donald Trump said in a statement, “These horrible D.C. killings, based obviously on antisemitism, must end, NOW! Hatred and Radicalism have no place in the USA.”

D.C. Police Chief Pamela Smith said that a man and woman were killed in the incident. Israeli Ambassador Michael Leiter said that the two victims were a young couple and embassy employees who were planning to get engaged next week in Jerusalem — the man purchased a ring earlier this week.

Eyewitness Paige Siegel, who was a guest at the event, told Jewish Insider that she heard two sets of multiple shots ring out, and then an individual, who police have since identified as suspected shooter Elias Rodriguez, entered the building appearing disoriented and panicked, seconds after the shooting ended. She said security allowed the man in, as well as two other women separately.

Siegel said she spoke to the man, asking him if he had been shot. He appeared panicked and was mumbling and repeatedly told bystanders to call the police. Siegel said that she felt the man was suspicious.

JoJo Drake Kalin, a member of AJC’s DC Young Professional Board and an organizer of the event, also told JI the man appeared disheveled and out of breath when he entered the building. Kalin assumed he had been a bystander to the shooting who needed assistance and she handed him a glass of water.

Siegel said that the man was sitting in the building in a state of distress for approximately 10 to 15 minutes, and she and a friend engaged him in conversation, informing him that he was in the Jewish museum.

After Siegel said that, she said the man started screaming, “I did it, I did it. Free Palestine. I did it for Gaza,” and opened a backpack, withdrawing a red Keffiyeh. She said that an officer, who had already arrived, detained the man and took him outside. She said that she subsequently saw security footage of Rodriguez shooting the female and identified the shooter as the same individual. Kalin said that some attendees stayed for several hours at the museum into the night to be debriefed by police.

A short video obtained by JI showed an individual in the lobby of the museum chanting “Free, free Palestine” being detained by police and removed from the building.

A video obtained by Jewish Insider shows the suspected shooter, identified by police as Elias Rodriguez, in the lobby of the Capital Jewish Museum chanting “free, free Palestine” as he is detained by police and removed from the building.

Full story: https://t.co/ZGZBj9agQx pic.twitter.com/zZUbTvovFm

— Jewish Insider (@J_Insider) May 22, 2025

Smith said in a press conference that the suspect, Rodriguez, a 30-year-old from Chicago, opened fire on a group of four outside the museum, and then entered the building and was detained by event security. Smith said that Rodriguez, once in custody, implied that he carried out the shooting and chanted “free, free Palestine.”

Smith said Rodriguez had been pacing outside the event before the altercation.

Leiter said that he had spoken to President Donald Trump, who vowed that the administration would do everything it can to fight antisemitism and demonization and delegitimization of Israel.

“We’ll stand together tall and firm and confront this moral depravity without fear,” Leiter said.

Smith said that police would coordinate with local Jewish organizations to ensure sufficient security. She said police had not received any intelligence warning of the attack.

Mayor Muriel Bowser said, “we will not tolerate antisemitism,” and said the city would continue to assist Jewish organizations with security grants.

FBI officials and Attorney General Pam Bondi and interim U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro joined the response alongside D.C. police.

“We are a resilient people. The people of Israel are a resilient people. The people of the United States of America are a resilient people. Together, we won’t be afraid. Together we will stand and overcome moral depravity of people who think they’re going to achieve political gains through murder,” Leiter said. 

According to an invitation to the event viewed by JI, the event planned to discuss efforts to respond to humanitarian crises in the Middle East and North Africa, including in Gaza.

Danny Danon, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, described the shooting as a “depraved act of anti-Semitic terrorism.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) told JI, “I’ve been informed of the tragic shooting that occurred outside of the Capitol Jewish Museum tonight in Washington D.C. We are monitoring the situation as more details become known and lifting up the victim’s families in our prayers.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said in a post, “This sickening shooting seems to be another horrific instance of antisemitism which as we know is all too rampant in our society.”

Richard Priem, the CEO of the Community Security Service, told eJewishPhilanthropy that there are still “so many unknowns” about the shooting, namely if it was a sophisticated attack specifically targeting Israeli Embassy staff or an attack more generally against the Jewish event itself. In any case, the organization called for “increased situational awareness” at Jewish institutions going forward, particularly ahead of Shabbat.

“Anytime there’s an attack, certain people get activated and think, ’Now’s the time,’” Priem said. “But we don’t know yet if there might be a direct correlated threat.”

eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross contributed reporting