Bracing Themselves to Go Back to School

Lost friendships. Political fights with professors and administrators. Harassment from fellow students. Fear, isolation, rising antisemitism. And yes, poop tents.

Jewish college students went through a lot during the last academic year. The situation cooled down over the summer, but as school starts up again, will everything simply pick up where it left off? Or will the new year look more like a normal school year?

We asked students what they’re thinking about as they return to campus. Some are wary, others are defiant. And we also talked to new and prospective college students how last year’s events changed where they’re planning to study. All of them were affected by what happened last year; how that translates into their futures as students varies widely.

Einav Tsach
University of Maryland

Einav Tsach is a junior studying journalism and business at the University of Maryland, College Park.

As I look toward the new school year, I’m nervous. Israel and the entire Middle East are tiptoeing around the horrendous possibility of a broader regional conflict. The hostages haven’t yet returned. And a polarizing presidential election is right around the corner.

Meanwhile, on campus, we have yet to see any landmark national policy change that will tangibly affect the lives of Jewish students, while Students for Justice in Palestine shows no signs of stopping its campaign of incitement and antisemitism.

These patterns make me profoundly sad. I wish that in 2024, Jewish students could just live their lives without worry over hate against them. It pains me when friends share that Hillel or Chabad are the only campus spaces where they feel comfortable. I’m worried about future Jewish students, who will deal with challenges even more complex than the ones we do.

I still struggle with processing everything I endured during the last school year, as an Israeli college student, since Oct. 7. Between losing my best friends because I criticized Hamas, dedicating two months of my semester to beating an antisemitic divestment bill in our student government, and having to explain to university administrators that an “intifada revolution” is not just a peaceful protest, I’ve gone through things I never imagined I’d deal with.

The last school year, which felt like a daily fight for my right to exist on campus as a proud Jew, left me exhausted. I was drained by the nonstop strategizing sessions, reports about more cases of antisemitism on campus, and constant push notifications about the war, all while trying to get through my lectures and internship. I breathed a sigh of relief in May when I took off for Tel Aviv, where I spent most of this summer. I realized I’d be happier somewhere I could proudly wear my Magen David necklace (yes, even with the threat of suicide drones and rockets).

In Israel, I reflected on what we had been through as a community of Jewish students at my university. From the immediate reaction of shock, trauma, and panic at the horrors of Oct. 7, we slowly got back up and found our collective power. Random students showed up at the Hillel building, asking how they could help. Parents, faculty, and alums reached out to offer their support. Attendance exploded at events held by the Jewish community.

That’s why, despite everything that makes me nervous about the coming school year, I’m also confident and optimistic. Last year, we found strength in understanding that we were all in this fight together and reminded each other that there was light at the end of the tunnel. As time went on, we only got stronger, constantly correcting past mistakes and becoming more efficient. With our experience and unity, we’ll persevere this year and beyond.

Above all, I still hold on to hope. I hope more people will find the courage to support their Jewish peers. I really hope that our universities and lawmakers will finally hear our voices. And ultimately, I hope Jewish students get the change and justice they deserve.

Jem Hanan
Barnard College

Jem Hanan is a sophomore at Barnard.

When people ask if I am prepared to go back to school, the question bears a significance it didn’t before. Last fall, I was concerned with making friends and registering for classes. One year later, I’m profoundly uncertain about much bigger issues, and what college life will bring as a whole.

Allow me to mourn the loss of the mundane. Allow me to feel bitter, not frightened and not enraged, but bitter about the turn my first year took. Allow me to shrug and say, “it is what it is,” but crumble a little inside at the thought that I may never get my college years back. It is a selfish thought—and the truth.

College, for me, offered the promise of diversity. Yeshivas in the New York area, like the ones I attended, tend to attract a very specific kind of clientele, so I was intent on expanding my circle once I settled on Barnard. On arriving there, however, I quickly realized that there were communities that closely resembled those at yeshivas: tight-knit, predominantly Ashkenazi Jews, who lived, ate, and worked all together. Although I became friendly with individuals within that space, I also sought out other spheres, other people, that I hadn’t encountered prior. Wasn’t that what college was all about?

In my first year, I made new friends, both Jewish and not, floor-mates and classmates and friends of their friends. I became a sister in a non-Jewish sorority, attending formals and frat parties and study hours at the brownstone. Once I recognized my desire to write, I crafted a list of the student publications I planned to contribute to beginning in my sophomore year. After a high school experience plagued with quarantines and surgical masks, I felt that I was finally experiencing a part of adolescence the way I was meant to. Even after Oct. 7, I was determined to maintain my school life; I raised the volume in my headphones and marched right past the swells of more politically inclined students.

Then, on a Tuesday night in April, mere hours after drunken undergrads had traipsed the main green during an impromptu “larty” (lawn party), a different, smaller group of students erected tents across the trodden grass. The encampment served as the catalyst for an entirely new, more frenzied phase of on-campus activism. Chants and drums howled through the night, echoing around the quad and through my bedroom window. I could no longer march right past; hell, I could barely fall asleep. My Instagram was flooded with infographics, sweeping claims, and inflammatory statements. I was suddenly extremely aware of who I had told I was Jewish, cursing myself for sharing such a polarizing part of myself so freely to so many virtual strangers. At the time, all it seemed to be was a fun little tidbit about my background.

Now, it feels as if that tidbit will define the next three years of my college life.

As I prepare to return to school, my overwhelming emotion is that of desperation—desperation for normalcy, the humdrum, the routine. I often ask myself if I’m being naive to picture a pre-Oct. 7 Barnard on my return. There is a world in which I will retreat into the folds of my Jewish peers, pull away from the societies that formerly served to enrich my college experience, because of a forceful or subtle exclusion from them. Or perhaps that exclusion will come from myself, my perceived disconnect from those who don’t have to think twice about sharing where they attended middle school or where their first trip out of the country was.

As of yet, I haven’t personally experienced blatant antisemitism; that is in part because I’ve done my best to avoid it. Can you blame me? I never wanted to be an activist, a student leader, an advocate. However, this coming year, I wonder if I will be forced to become one if I want to remain a part of campus life.

I’m supposed to be dwelling on other things. Simpler things: my dorm crockery, buying new shoes, finalizing my schedule. But when I begin to think of going back, my mind inevitably wanders to the fuzzy image of my future on campus.

Jacob Hornstein
University of Austin

Jacob Hornstein is from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He will join the University of Austin as a freshman this fall.

As someone with strong opinions and right-leaning views—and as a Jew strongly supportive of Israel—I’ve always known that one of the biggest “risks” of a college experience was that I would spend four years ostracized or mute. I had already been attuned to this through my experiences at a small private high school in Durham, North Carolina, where all sorts of topics engendered emotional reactions. But it was while taking a class at a highly regarded local university after Oct. 7 that these fears were magnified by the extremism of fellow students. One example? Shortly after the attack, I participated in a class discussion on the war that ended with a fellow student in tears—not because of the horror of Hamas’ raid, but because they were so shocked that I had defended “colonialist” Israel. Unsure what to do, my professor apologized for broaching the topic and ended class early.

In the months that followed, I joined the world in watching as encampments cropped up on college campuses and university leaders failed to respond. I came to appreciate that there were only a handful of schools where things were likely to be different in the coming year.

So, unlike my friends, I won’t be attending an established college this fall. Instead, I’m joining an experiment, as a founding student at the University of Austin (UATX), a startup university. Although UATX’s founding preceded the recent conflict, it was motivated from the beginning by similar concerns about campus culture and academic freedom. Still, going to an institution without a developed pedigree is risky. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried.

But I’m also excited. At UATX, I’ll have the unique opportunity to help build a new campus culture, rather than fight an uphill battle to reform an old one. My classmates and I will establish norms for future students, and our choices will echo in the success or failure of the school. That’s a level of responsibility unusually placed in the hands of incoming college students.

I’ll take classes with peers similarly interested in carving out a new model of higher education. Conversations with incoming fellow students have left me awestruck at the variety of their knowledge and interests, and I feel confident that I will study alongside others dedicated to learning in the pursuit of truth, rather than a piece of paper.

What interests me most, however, is the opportunity to participate in an educational trial. At UATX, I’ll attend a college that is unabashedly dedicated to unrestricted conversation and open debate. Because UATX has recruited faculty out of a pool self-selected for ideological openness, I know that instead of self-censoring—or worse, being shut out of student life—I’ll be able to freely express myself to open-minded peers. Equally important, I know that they will as well, and that my professors will be dedicated to sharing a range of viewpoints, allowing me both to learn and be challenged over the next four years.

I realize that I can’t be completely sure of what my experience will be like, because there is no modern precedent. But I know that the problems of our university system are deep-rooted, and that any meaningful change is going to have to come from the outside. I’m proud to be playing a role in that transformation, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to do so.

Dan Viderman
University of Michigan

Dan Viderman is a sophomore studying the Mathematics of Finance and Risk Management on a premedical track. He is involved with Hillel, Jewish life on campus, medical clubs, as well as Greek life.

When I got accepted to the University of Michigan in 2023, I was ecstatic. I couldn’t wait to spend the next four years of my life at the birthplace of (national championship-winning) college football, the alma mater of one of the co-founders of Google, and most importantly, one of the most Jewish universities in the country.

Fast forward a year, and my school’s leadership was called to testify before Congress and investigated by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights for its failure in combating antisemitism post Oct. 7.

Unfortunately, that didn’t surprise me in the least.

Throughout my first year on campus, I got nasty looks for wearing my Magen David, was castigated for wearing a shirt that said Michigan in Hebrew, and had “Free Palestine” yelled right in my face by peers. And I wasn’t the only one who was experiencing this.

The Jewish people have been enslaved, assaulted, and slaughtered in genocides. My own family escaped persecution in the Soviet Union. And yet, I have to wake up in the morning and go to class with people who chant for “Globalizing the Student Intifada” and wish death to me just because I’m Jewish.

Michigan has five different organizations dedicated to “freeing” Palestine. These include Students Allied for Freedom and Equality (our chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine) and TAHRIR, a coalition of over 80 different campus organizations—among them, the Student Advisory Board of the University of Michigan Museum of Art—dedicated to boycotting, divesting from, and sanctioning the only Jewish state.

There is one pro-Israel group on campus.

We are outnumbered, but we are united.

Coming back to campus this fall means bracing myself for angry responses to my continued Zionism, but it also means rejoining the battle. It means coming to Shabbat every Friday night and having to verify my identity with the armed security present in the Jewish Resource Center.

But we are united in our struggle.

And we say enough is enough.

Making sure our voice as Jewish students on campus is heard is as important as ever. Wolverine for Israel exists, but we need more. SAFE and TAHRIR rallied every day for two months, spreading antisemitism with their manipulated statistics and fear-mongering strategies.

Now, it is time to combat their fiction with our facts.

I have taken the initiative to start a Students Supporting Israel chapter on our campus, to let SAFE know that, just as SJP claims to have their back, SSI has ours. For every divisive rally SAFE and TAHRIR hold, we call for peace, we call for coexistence. My hope is that SSI serves as a beacon of light, working with Jewish and Zionist campus organizations alike in an effort to show Jewish students on campus that just because they’re being targeted does not mean that they have to be scared. Hillel, Chabad, and the Jewish Resource Center have continued to be pivotal organizations on campus, making sure that Jewish students at Michigan always have a place to turn and feel safe about their identity. But SSI is a place for people who believe that Jewish people all over the world deserve a right to self-determination and a place to feel safe.

For too long, we have stayed silent. We have stayed respectful. Our peers called for our demise.

Now, we tell them: The Jewish people aren’t going anywhere. Your threats do not scare us. From the river to the sea, Israel is what you will see. The People of Israel live.

Talia Elkin
University of Chicago

Talia Elkin is a senior at the University of Chicago.

I’m not terribly worried about myself as I prepare to start my fourth year of college. I already know what to expect, since Oct. 7. By last December, the routine felt unconscious: My peers would organize a protest, a sit-in, an incendiary social media campaign, or perhaps all three; I would receive a panicked call or text, from one or both parents; and I would defuse the panic, until the next campus incident arose. Lather, rinse, repeat.

My parents would ask if I was OK. As the school year progressed and my nerves deadened, my replies became increasingly flippant. Are you seriously worried? Each escalating protest supplied me with a punchier retort: These students are trying to intimidate the university president while sleeping in a princess tent. Then: Their idea of a protest involves urgently requesting emergency dental dams on the quad. And: You know they’re pooping in a tent, right? By ridiculing the situation, I could put my parents’ minds at ease with a good laugh. And if my breezy facade belied any minor fears, anxieties, or doubts about my return to school—following a year that exposed the shocking depths of my peers’ hatred and my administrators’ incompetence—I could brush it off. I was (mostly) just fine.

But this year, my younger sister will be joining me, starting her freshman year at school. And my worried parents have asked me countless times, in every possible paraphrase: Will she be OK there? Each time, I delivered my response with an eye roll that must have been audible over the phone. Of course she’ll be OK. I’ll be right there with her.

But when my sister asked me herself, I paused. Will I be OK there? We were sitting together on my bed, her head resting on my shoulder and my computer open on our laps. Moments before, her face glowed with excitement in the bright screen light as she peppered me with questions about her classes, how she’ll learn her way around campus, what kind of Shabbat dinners we’ll host. Now, with the dimmed screen barely illuminating her creased brow, she echoed my parents’ concern. Beneath it, though, I recognized a deeper one. How do you know? How do you do it?

I paused and stifled my instinctively cheeky reply, suddenly back in my freshman self’s shoes. Insecure and lost, looking up at the sage, confident seniors, so acutely envious of how they did it. I spent my first two years of college desperately trying to figure out their secrets, bribing the upperclassmen with meal swipes and winnowing out wisdom from every inane conversation. How did they know the right departments to major in, how to spend their summers, and what careers to pursue? And beyond their academic savvy, how did they deal with the terrifying, misinformed, pervasive antisemitism? How do you know? How do you do it?

My sister’s head was heavy on my shoulder as I responded. After facing my dumbfoundingly ineffective administrators and shockingly ignorant classmates, time and again over the last year, I finally uncovered the secret knowledge I’d once coveted. I pulled my sister’s hair gently and whispered: No one knows what they’re doing. Least of all the people who profess to.

Despite the anticlimax, or perhaps because of it, the secret was still liberating as I passed it on. It’s what empowered my campus leadership: If no one else knows what they’re doing, then I might as well have a go. You figure it out along the way. I nudged my sister again, feeling her begin to nod off, and delivered the same reassurance I’d given my parents: Of course you’ll be OK. I’ll be right there with you.

Very soon, I’ll be back on campus. The quad’s clean, unobstructed pathways might still feel alien to me. I’ll notice the newly green patches of grass that were deadened, months ago, by my peers’ now-vacated tents. If I were alone, it would be hard to ignore these details and my growing sense of foreboding; but I’ll be next to my sister, who won’t discern them at all. Of course, I’m still anxious about the new year and the rabid antisemitism it might bring. But I’ll look at my sister smiling, soaking in the Chicago foliage and ivy-covered buildings for the first time, and relax.

To her, the open space will be fresh with opportunity.

Ella Persky
Mountain View High School

Ella Persky is from the Bay Area, California, and is a senior at Mountain View High School.

Just a few months ago, I imagined I’d spend this fall as a high school senior filling out college applications—with my hopes set on Barnard, my “dream school.” Then I went for a campus tour.

While I waited with my abba outside the college gates one afternoon in late April, I stood frozen, watching. Just 10 feet away, a few college-age girls wearing kaffiyehs were huddled in a semi-circle, yelling at a man holding an Israeli flag, who was tearing down anti-Israel posters with a worn-down box cutter. While I’d seen such incidents on the news before, I’d yet to see it in person.

“Keep recording me,” the man yelled out at the girls, who’d started filming him. “I’m going to go over to that pole, too,” he said, pointing to another pole across the street. His infant son, who sat calmly in a stroller beside him, was wearing a “Bring Them Home Now” onesie, and had his eyes locked on his abba.

For the first time, I saw what the posters said, peering over the man’s shoulder as he was tearing them down. “Israel was founded upon the death of innocents,” one read. “Jews don’t belong here,” read another. I was shocked. I sat down on a nearby bench, staring at the gates of what, up until that point had been my “dream school,” and felt myself begin to break down.

When encampments began popping up on college campuses in late 2023, I didn’t pay much attention. Living in the academically suffocating Bay Area means I’ve been refining and developing my college list since freshman year of high school—no way I was going to let what I thought was simply “periodic adolescent rebellion” change that.

But then, after seeing the severity of the unbridled antisemitism and palpable tension that has settled in Morningside Heights, I knew I had to seriously reconsider my college list, which, before then, included schools like Columbia, Northwestern, and UCLA.

Arriving at this conclusion was difficult, and yet I felt it had to be done. And I’m not alone. In a survey of 2,000 BBYO participants done in February, 64% said antisemitism was an important factor in their college decision process.

One of my former classmates, incoming college freshman Samantha, was deciding between attending UCLA and the University of Miami before ultimately choosing the latter, in large part due to the pro-Palestinian protests she witnessed when touring UCLA. “My religion and my culture is very important to me,” Samantha told me. “I really wanted to choose a place where I would feel safe and at home, and felt like I belonged to a vibrant Jewish community.”

This emphasis on safety and feeling supported by the university’s Hillel or Chabad is more important than ever, according to StandWithUs senior high school regional manager John Michael Graves: “Go where there’s a strong Jewish community,” he said. “At the end of the day, that’s where you’ll find your solace.”

Because of this, I no longer find the expansiveness of a school’s study-abroad programs or their political science department to be top considerations. I no longer think as much about the party culture, or the location, or the school spirit.

Instead, I ask myself if I’ll feel happy there.

I speak to Jewish professors and students, heavily weighing their opinions and experiences at their respective universities. I research the Hillels and scour school papers’ articles about the encampments, trying to gauge if a certain school is “too antisemitic” for me—something I can’t believe I’ve begun to say.

And while this process is exhausting, and although it seems like nearly every other school I used to be interested in is no longer an option, I’ve weirdly grown thankful. Because of what’s come to light, Jewish students can be more secure in their college choices, and make decisions with a better understanding of the environments they’d be committing to.

With this clarity and transparency, I’ve become genuinely excited to be applying to schools with communities I deem advanced, respectful, and mature. Institutions that, I believe, encourage their students to think critically, act independently, and value complexity—a growing rarity in higher education.

So, no. I’m no longer applying to schools like Barnard. And I’ll bet you that many other Jewish students aren’t either.