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The Price of Abandoning Jewish College Students (PART TWO)
Part one of this article appeared here.
As Jewish families vote with their feet, abandoning hostile campuses for welcoming ones, elite universities face a reckoning.
The exodus documented in Part 1 of my article isn’t just a demographic shift — it’s an indictment of institutions that once symbolized Jewish achievement in America.
Harvard, Columbia, Yale, and their peers are scrambling to respond. Task forces are being formed. Listening sessions are being scheduled, and security measures are being enhanced. But these surface-level responses cannot mask a deeper rot: a campus culture that has normalized hostility toward Jewish students while administrators equivocate and Jewish organizations struggle to mount an effective defense.
The question is no longer whether Jewish students will remain at these institutions. That verdict is being rendered in admissions offices across the country. The question now is what this abandonment will mean — for the universities losing their Jewish communities, for the schools gaining them, and for American higher education itself.
Elite Campuses Have Not Changed
Some elite northern universities have responded to criticism, but their actions reveal the depth of the problem rather than solve it.
Harvard recently agreed to cover security costs for its Hillel chapter, a basic safety measure that should never have been in question.
Columbia established a Task Force on Antisemitism and held listening sessions after months of campus upheaval. Yet these measures came only after Congressional hearings, donor revolts, and the resignation of two Ivy League presidents. The very need for “task forces” to address antisemitism in 2024, and debates over whether to fund security for Jewish students, speaks to how far these institutions have fallen.
But these surface-level responses cannot mask the underlying culture that remains hostile. Anti-Israel activism is normalized, sometimes even celebrated, while openly Zionist students are treated as suspect. Student governments pass BDS resolutions while refusing to condemn Hamas.
Professors who call October 7 “exhilarating” face no consequences, while students who tear down hostage posters are protected as exercising free speech. Jewish students report being excluded from progressive groups unless they denounce Israel, forced to pass ideological litmus tests that no other minority group faces.
Diversity and inclusion are loudly championed for some groups — but withheld from Jews.
The same DEI offices that rush to support other communities remain silent when Jewish students face harassment, or worse, frame Jews as white oppressors undeserving of protection. Orientation programs that celebrate every form of identity offer nothing for Jewish students. Ethnic studies departments that explore every Diaspora experience somehow omit Jewish history and culture.
Meanwhile, administrators hedge, equivocate, and fear controversy more than they fear injustice. They take days to condemn antisemitic vandalism but hours to denounce other forms of bias.
They parse the difference between anti-Zionism and antisemitism, while Jewish students are told to hide their Stars of David. They invoke “context” and “nuance” when asked if calling for genocide against Jews violates campus policies, but show no such hesitation when other groups are threatened.
The irony is bitter.
A century ago, these same schools used explicit quotas to keep Jews out. When quotas fell, Jewish students and faculty showed up, helping make these universities world-class institutions. Now, through neglect and bias, those same institutions are driving Jewish students away.
Jewish Institutions Have Also Fallen Short
Universities bear primary responsibility for campus culture. But Jewish communal organizations have also failed to meet this moment.
I have argued that Jewish institutions have been far too focused on statements and elite conversations, and not nearly focused enough on real, on-the-ground action. Students need more than words: they need physical presence, legal support, and rapid response.
There are bright spots.
Hillel’s Campus Climate Initiative is doing important work, and some ADL and AJC interventions have made a difference.
As I documented in my recent AEI piece at The Algemeiner, Jewish fraternities like AEPi have become critical lifelines for Zionist and Jewish students, with brothers creating safety networks, walking each other to class, and providing the protection universities fail to offer.
But these efforts are patchy and uneven. Too often, a lone Chabad rabbi or Hillel director ends up serving as the first and last line of defense for hundreds of students, while national organizations issue press releases from afar.
Grassroots groups like Jewish on Campus and Students Supporting Israel are filling the gap heroically. Fraternity brothers are literally serving as bodyguards. Student volunteers are documenting incidents, organizing counter-protests, and providing real-time support to threatened peers. But they should not have to shoulder this burden alone.
The fact that 19-year-old fraternity brothers have become de facto security forces, and that student-run Instagram accounts are doing more to combat antisemitism than university administrations, reveals a complete institutional abdication. The lack of robust institutional backing is one reason families are choosing to leave hostile campuses rather than fight to change them.
A Debate About Leaving vs. Staying
These institutional failures have forced families into a difficult choice. This raises a painful debate within the Jewish community. Many believe Jewish students should stay and fight. These schools, after all, were built and sustained in part by Jewish effort and philanthropy. Walking away can feel like surrendering hard-won ground.
This instinct to fight is noble. And there are students and organizations committed to asserting Jewish presence on these campuses. But the data tell a different story.
Nearly two-thirds of Jewish parents are now eliminating colleges from their lists due to antisemitism. Enrollment numbers at elite northeastern schools are dropping. Simultaneously, Jewish life at southern universities is exploding.
Families are making a rational choice. They are prioritizing their children’s safety, dignity, and joy over symbolic battles. Leaving is not surrender; it is choosing to thrive rather than endure.
The message from Jewish students and their parents could not be clearer: we will go where we are welcome, and we will leave where we are not.
This shift also reflects a broader truth: the old northeastern elites no longer have a monopoly on intellectual vitality or success. Southern schools like Vanderbilt, Emory, and Tulane now offer world-class academics, robust Jewish communities, and a culture of belonging. Families are realizing that the future can be built elsewhere.
The Stakes for Universities
The consequences for elite schools are profound. They are not just losing students; they are losing some of their most engaged, high-achieving, and civically minded young people. Jewish students have historically been leaders in campus organizations, from student government to academic clubs, from literary magazines to debate teams.
They’ve been Rhodes Scholars and valedictorians, startup founders and social activists. These are the students who go on to become major donors, serve on boards of trustees, and send their own children back to their alma maters.
They are also risking long-term philanthropic support. Jewish alumni networks have been essential to these institutions’ growth. Names like Bloomberg at Johns Hopkins, Lauder at Penn, and countless others have transformed campuses through their generosity. If their loyalty wanes, endowments and influence will follow. We’re already seeing early signs: major Jewish donors pulling funding, reconsidering bequests, and redirecting their philanthropy toward schools that protect Jewish students.
The unraveling of this partnership will reshape higher education. Institutions that fought so hard to overcome their antisemitic past have allowed it to resurface in new forms, driving away the community that helped make them great.
A Broader Realignment and What Comes Next
Jewish students are at the forefront of a larger realignment in American higher education. Many non-Jewish students are also rejecting elite northern campuses. They are seeking environments that feel open, balanced, and sane: places where education takes priority over permanent protest.
Jewish families are simply the first to act. Their migration is a leading indicator of wider discontent.
Fall 2025 marks a turning point. The start of the academic year and the High Holy Days have converged to highlight a stark reality: Jewish students are voting with their feet.
Elite schools could choose to reform by enforcing clear standards, protecting all students equally, and rebuilding trust. Jewish institutions could choose to step up, placing resources and people where they are needed most.
But if they do not, this Fall’s movement will become a permanent migration. The Jewish campus map will be redrawn, and the old hierarchies of prestige will crumble.
The Ivy League once represented the pinnacle of Jewish aspiration. Now, for many families, it represents a question: Why fight to stay where we are not wanted, when there are places ready to welcome us?
This isn’t just a story about Jewish students or campus antisemitism. It’s about the collapse of institutional trust, the failure of moral leadership, and the quiet power of families making rational choices about their children’s futures. The map of Jewish campus life is being redrawn not by quotas or decrees, but by thousands of individual decisions that add up to a historic realignment.
And in that choice lies both a condemnation of what these institutions have become and hope for what American higher education might yet be.
Samuel J. Abrams is a professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence College and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
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Spain’s PM Sánchez Faces Backlash for Fueling Anti-Israel Hostility Amid Surge in Antisemitic Incidents
Cycling – Vuelta a Espana – Stage 21 – Alalpardo to Madrid – Madrid, Spain – Sept. 14, 2025: Barriers are smashed by anti-Israel protesters during Stage 21. Photo: REUTERS/Ana Beltran
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is facing backlash from his country’s political leaders and Jewish community, who accuse him of fueling antisemitic hostility after incidents at the Vuelta a España disrupted the prestigious cycling race.
Amid a sharp rise in anti-Jewish hate crimes and anti-Israel sentiment, Lorenzo Rodríguez, mayor of Castrillo Mota de Judíos in northern Spain, accused the country’s leader of “fueling a discourse of hatred” against Israel and the Jewish people.
“The government is fostering antisemitism that will prove deeply damaging for Spain,” Rodríguez said in an interview with the local outlet El Español.
“Sánchez’s moves are less about serious foreign policy and more about deflecting attention from his trials and failures in governance,” he continued. “Spain isn’t leading anything — it’s merely whitewashing Hamas and other terrorist groups.”
On Sunday, anti-Israel protests forced the finale of the Vuelta a España cycle race to be abandoned as police tried to quell demonstrations against the participation of an Israeli team.
In his interview, Rodríguez blamed Sánchez for fostering a hostile climate in Spain, saying the country is witnessing “hatred toward an entire people.”
He also criticized the Spanish leader for failing to take a strong stand on other international crises, including those in Russia and Venezuela.
“We all recognize that the Palestinian people are suffering, but the solution cannot be to blame the Jewish people,” Rodríguez said.
“People are afraid. There’s growing concern because our town was recently targeted,” he continued. “We are being singled out and threatened even though we have nothing to do with this war.”
Before the incidents on Sunday that led to the race’s cancellation, Sánchez expressed “admiration for the Spanish people mobilizing for just causes like Palestine” through their protests.
Madrid’s Mayor José Luis Martínez-Almeida strongly condemned Sánchez’s statement, accusing him of encouraging hostility and fueling tensions.
“The prime minister is directly responsible for this violence, as his statements this morning helped instigate the protests,” Martinez-Almeida said after the race was canceled.
“Today is the saddest day since I took office as mayor of this great city,” he continued.
Santiago Abascal, leader of the far-right Vox party, also criticized Sánchez’s remarks, accusing him of stoking division to maintain his hold on power.
“The psychopath has taken his militias to the streets,” Abascal wrote in a post on X. “He doesn’t care about Gaza. He doesn’t care about Spain. He doesn’t care about anything. But he wants violence in the streets to maintain power.”
Shortly after the incidents, the Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain (FCJE) publicly denounced the violence, urging authorities to respond quickly and decisively.
“Violence and intimidation have no place in a democratic society and cannot be excused under the guise of freedom of expression,” FCJE said in a statement.
“These violent demonstrations fuel hatred and contribute to a concerning rise in antisemitism in Spain, which we have been warning about over the past two years,” the statement read. “It is unacceptable that violence is justified on ideological grounds and hostility is directed toward the Jewish community”
La @fcjecom condena los graves incidentes que ayer obligaron a suspender la última etapa de @lavuelta https://t.co/8JBO4chMpx
— FCJE (@fcjecom) September 15, 2025
Since the start of the war in Gaza, Spain has become one of Israel’s fiercest critics, a stance that has only intensified in recent months, coinciding with a shocking rise in antisemitic incidents targeting the local Jewish community — from violent assaults and vandalism to protests and legal actions.
On Monday, Sánchez called for Israel to be barred from international sports events after pro-Palestinian activists disrupted the finale of the Vuelta cycling race in chaotic scenes in Madrid.
“The sports organizations should ask whether it’s ethical for Israel to continue participating in international competitions. Why was Russia expelled after invading Ukraine, yet Israel is not expelled after the invasion of Gaza?” Sánchez said while speaking to members of his Socialist Party.
“Until the barbarity ends, neither Russia nor Israel should be allowed to participate in any international competition,” the Spanish leader continued.
¿Por qué se expulsó a Rusia tras la invasión de Ucrania y no se expulsa Israel tras la invasión de Gaza?
Nuestra posición es clara y rotunda: hasta que no cese la barbarie, ni Rusia ni Israel deben estar en ninguna competición internacional más. pic.twitter.com/QlXsnWVKs5
— Pedro Sánchez (@sanchezcastejon) September 15, 2025
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar condemned Sánchez’s remarks, labeling him “an antisemite and a liar.”
“Did Israel invade Gaza on Oct. 7th or did the Hamas terror state invade Israel and commit the worst massacre against the Jews since the Holocaust?” the top Israeli diplomat wrote in a post on X.
The Palestinian terrorist group Hamas started the war in Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023, when it led an invasion of southern Israel, murdered 1,200 people, and kidnapped 251 hostages while perpetrating widespread sexual violence against the Israeli people.
Israel responded with an ongoing military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military capabilities and political rule in Gaza.
As part of its anti-Israel campaign, Spain announced on Tuesday that it will boycott next year’s Eurovision Song Contest if Israel participates, citing the country’s military offensive against Hamas in the war-torn enclave.
Last week, Sánchez also unveiled new policies targeting Israel over the war in Gaza, including an arms embargo and a ban on certain Israeli goods.
The Spanish government announced it would bar entry to individuals involved in what it called a “genocide against Palestinians,” block Israel-bound ships and aircraft carrying weapons from Spanish ports and airspace, and enforce an embargo on products from Israeli communities in the West Bank.
In one of its latest attempts to curb Israel’s defensive campaign in Gaza, Spain has canceled a €700 million ($825 million) deal for Israeli-designed rocket launchers, as the government conducts a broader review to systematically phase out Israeli weapons and technology from its armed forces.
Saar has denounced Sánchez’s latest actions, accusing the government in Madrid of antisemitism and of pursuing an escalating anti-Israel campaign aimed at undermining the Jewish state on the international stage.
“The government of Spain is leading a hostile, anti-Israel line, marked by wild, hate-filled rhetoric,” Saar wrote in a post on X, accusing Sánchez’s “corrupt” administration of trying to “divert attention from grave corruption scandals.”
“The obsessive activism of the current Spanish government against Israel stands out in light of its ties with dark, tyrannical regimes — from Iran’s ayatollahs to [Nicolás] Maduro’s government in Venezuela,” the Israeli diplomat continued.
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US Sanctions Iran’s ‘Shadow Banking’ Network, Ecuador Designates IRGC as Terrorist Group
A bronze seal for the Department of the Treasury is shown at the US Treasury building in Washington, US, Jan. 20, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
The United States has fired another shot in the battle to break Iran’s illicit finance machine, this time targeting a web of “shadow bankers” moving millions of dollars through Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates to fuel Tehran’s military efforts and terrorist allies.
Meanwhile, Ecuador has become the latest country to blacklist Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Hamas, and Hezbollah, naming them as terrorist organizations.
On Tuesday, the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated two Iranian nationals — Alireza Derakhshan and Arash Estaki Alivand — as key financial facilitators for the IRGC-Qods Force (QF) and Iran’s Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics (MODAFL). Alongside them, more than a dozen shell companies and individuals in Hong Kong and the UAE received sanctions for laundering oil money and cryptocurrency transactions to support Iran’s weapons programs.
“Iranian entities rely on shadow banking networks to evade sanctions and move millions through the international financial system,” US Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence John Hurley said in a statement. “We will continue to disrupt these key financial streams that fund Iran’s weapons programs and malign activities in the Middle East and beyond.”
The networks OFAC mapped out are intricate and deliberate, comprising a dizzying labyrinth of front companies such as Alpa Trading – FZCO in Dubai and Alpa Hong Kong Limited, coordinated by Derakhshan and his conspirators, with ties to Hezbollah’s financial operators and Syrian oil brokers. Transactions included more than $100 million in cryptocurrency sales on behalf of the Iranian government, funneled through offshore accounts and digital wallets designed to obscure their final destination into the furnaces powering the IRGC’s terror industrial complex.
This is the third time since June that OFAC has targeted Tehran’s “shadow banks.” In July, another sprawling network received sanctions for laundering billions through exchange houses and front firms. This oil sold off the books fuels Hezbollah, Hamas, and Iran’s other terrorist proxies.
Sanctions freeze all property in the United States tied to individuals and firms named, forbidding US persons from doing business with them, and threatening secondary sanctions on foreign financial institutions that participate. This has created a financial game of whack-a-mole, with Iran creating new financial fronts as soon as old ones get exposed and sanctioned.
Other nations have also taken action against the threats posed by the Islamic regime in Iran and its primary fist abroad, the IRGC.
On Monday, Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa signed a decree designating the IRGC, Hamas, and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations, drawing from intelligence reports warning of their presence in South America and links to local criminal gangs. The decree warned the groups pose “a direct threat to public security and sovereignty.”
Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar praised the decision, writing on X that “Ecuador’s courageous step sends a clear message against Iran’s terror network and strengthens global security. We call on more countries in Latin America and around the world to follow suit.”
The US has previously called for terrorist designations for the IRGC. Ecuador has joined Canada, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and most recently Paraguay and Australia in designating the IRGC.
Last month, Australia expelled the Iranian ambassador after the nation’s intelligence service uncovered the Islamic regime’s hand behind a series of arson attacks against Jewish communities in Sydney and Melbourne. Iran responded by cutting ties and denying involvement.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called the crimes “extraordinary and dangerous acts of aggression orchestrated by a foreign nation on Australian soil.” He said that they sought “to undermine social cohesion and sow discord in our community.”
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke described the terrorist scheme as “a series of intermediaries so that people performing different actions don’t in fact know who is directing them or don’t necessarily know who is directing them.”
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said that “the accusation of antisemitism against Iran is ridiculous and baseless.” He added, “According to diplomatic law and in response to Australia’s action, the Islamic Republic has also reciprocally reduced the level of Australia’s diplomatic presence in Iran.”
On Tuesday, Israel struck another Iran-backed terrorist group, Yemen’s Houthis, at the Red Sea port of Hodeidah.
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California Legislature Passes ‘Landmark’ Bill to Combat K-12 Antisemitism
Illustrative: May 1, 2024; Los Angeles, California, USA. Photo: USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
California lawmakers have passed legislation, Assembly Bill 715, which would require the state to establish a new Office for Civil Rights for monitoring antisemitism in public schools at a time of rising anti-Jewish hatred across the US.
The measure, which will now head to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk potentially to be signed into law, also comes amid the state government’s embrace of the controversial ethnic studies movement, which largely promotes anti-Zionism in its course materials.
Receiving near-unanimous support, the legislation passed the state Senate on Friday in a 35-0 vote with five abstentions and then, hours later, cleared the state Assembly in a 71-0 vote with nine abstentions.
The bill is California’s response to an epidemic of antisemitism in K-12 schools, which, as The Algemeiner has previously reported, has produced a slew of complaints alleging violations of civil rights. If signed by Newsom, a Democrat, it would establish an Antisemitism Prevention Coordinator, set parameters within which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may be equitably discussed, and potentially bar antisemitic materials from reaching the classroom.
“Antisemitism in K-12 education is a major crisis. AB 715 creates new tools to address this proactively, protect Jewish students from discrimination, hold school districts accountable, and stop outside interests from weaponizing our schools to promote hate,” said Roz Rothstein, chief executive officer of StandWithUs, a Jewish civil rights advocacy group based in Los Angeles. “We deeply appreciate the tireless work of legislators, some of whom endured outrageous attempts to smear and intimidate them. This bill was weakened, in part because interest groups who are complicit in K-12 antisemitism have so much influence over our education system. While we achieved progress, much remains to be done if California is going to earn back the trust of Jewish families.”
Pro-Hamas groups, left-wing nonprofits, and teachers unions have emerged to denounce the bill even as it declined codification of the widely recognized International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism — the exclusion of which constitutes a significant compromise for Jewish and pro-Israel activists. Additionally, the bill’s effect on California’s politicized and racially divisive ethnic studies curricula remains unclear.
“This isn’t just curriculum — it’s about whose histories and lived experiences are allowed in our schools,” the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said in a statement, imploring Newsom to veto the bill. “By anchoring enforcement to a politicized definition of antisemitism and inviting politically motivated complaints, AB 715 sets a dangerous precent of censorship and erasure.”
AB 715 enjoys the backing of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). On Saturday, the organization’s office praised it as a “landmark bill” while Robert Trestan, vice president of the organization’s western office, said it is a “foundational step toward addressing systemic antisemitism in K-12 classrooms and a national model” for similar bills.
Antisemitism in K-12 schools has increased every year of this decade, according to data compiled by the ADL. In 2023, antisemitic incidents in US public schools increased 135 percent, a figure which included a rise in vandalism and assault.
In September 2023 some of America’s most prominent Jewish and civil rights groups sued the Santa Clara Unified School District (SCUSD) in California for concealing from the public its adoption of ethnic studies curricula containing antisemitic and anti-Zionist themes. Then in February, the school district paused implementation of the program to settle the lawsuit.
One month later, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, StandWithUs, and the ADL filed a civil rights complaint accusing the Etiwanda School District in San Bernardino County, California, of doing nothing after a 12-year-old Jewish girl was assaulted, having been beaten with stick, on school grounds and teased with jokes about Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
On Sept. 9, EndJewHatred (EJH), a Jewish civil rights nonprofit group based in New York City, declared war on K-12 antisemitism, launching a new “End Hate in Education” initiative in the US and beginning preparations for a push into the Canadian media market.
“For too long, classrooms have been used as platforms for pushing divisive ideologies that undermine our core values,” EJH founder Brooke Goldstein said in a statement. “Across the United States, K-12 schools and college campuses have become incubators of extremist ideology, including pro-terror and radical Islamist agendas. The End Hate in Education campaign is about reclaiming our schools, defending civil liberties, and ensuring that every child — regardless of background — can learn in an environment grounded in truth, respect, and constitutional values.”
In press materials, EJH outlined six objectives for the campaign — “curriculum transparency,” “rejecting political indoctrination,” “accountability through funding,” “examination of the rule of foreign funding,” “strategic legal action,” and “grassroots mobilization” — all of which serve its larger, ambitious goal of eradicating from public schools not just antisemitism but all forms of “hate and harassment.”
Speaking to The Algemeiner during an interview on Tuesday, Gerard Filitti, senior counsel of EJH and The Lawfare Project, a partner organization, said antisemitism and anti-Israel bias have been planted in public schools.
“What we’re seeing in colleges and universities is just the tip of the iceberg. The radicalization in schooling, in reality, starts much earlier,” Filitti said. “We’re seeing lesson plans which push the idea that Israel is a genocidal state, or that it is an illegitimate state. We see faculty and administrators who do not support Zionist identity and reject that it can be the basis of discriminatory hate.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.