Introducing Gatecrashers
A podcast about the hidden history of Jews and the Ivy League, from Unorthodox co-host Mark Oppenheimer
What topic is more controversial, sensational, and endlessly captivating than college admissions? It’s a billion-dollar industry. It sends celebrities to jail. The Supreme Court is weighing in on who gets in and why. We might think we have read all there is to read on the issue, and heard all there is to hear. But if you want to understand everything that’s going on with college admissions today—not just the battles over diversity, but the very existence of college applications, the essays and interviews and standardized tests—you have to look at the first group that tried to diversify elite schools. You have to look at the Jews.
Gatecrashers, an eight-part podcast series launching Sept. 13, 2022, tells the story of how Jews fought for acceptance at elite schools, and how the Jewish experience in the Ivy League shaped American higher education, and shaped America at large.
GatecrashersEp. 8: Harvard and the End of the Jewish Ivy LeagueDeclining Jewish student numbers, the changing face of the American university, and what happens in the generations after the gates are crashedOctober 25, 2022- GatecrashersEp. 7: Penn and the Great Sorority Coup of 1987Jewish Greek life, stereotypes, and what it means to represent Jewish womanhoodOctober 18, 2022
- GatecrashersEp. 6: Cornell and Its Off-Campus, Off-Kilter Jewish CommuneThe Cornell Havurah, a countercultural ‘anti-establishment establishment’ that brought Jewish students togetherOctober 11, 2022
- GatecrashersEp. 5: Brown University and Mrs. Smith’s Kosher KitchenThe Providence, Rhode Island, family that fed observant Jewish students and the 1960s push for on-campus kosher dining optionsOctober 4, 2022
- GatecrashersEp. 4: Yale and the Slow Death of QuotasThe truth about historical caps on Jewish enrollment in the Ivy LeagueSeptember 23, 2022
- GatecrashersEp. 3: Dartmouth and the Jews Who Loved ItHow a laid-back college in the mountains became an unlikely oasis for midcentury JewsSeptember 20, 2022
- GatecrashersEp. 2: Princeton and the Dirty Bicker of 1958The curious social scandal that left Jews out of—and nearly upended—the school’s exclusive eating clubsSeptember 13, 2022
- GatecrashersEp. 1: Columbia and Its Forgotten Jewish CampusWhat was Seth Low Junior College, and why did the brilliant Jewish writer Isaac Asimov get sent there?September 13, 2022
- GatecrashersIntroducing GatecrashersA podcast about the hidden history of Jews and the Ivy League, from Unorthodox co-host Mark OppenheimerSeptember 6, 2022