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Celebrating Community and Mourning Tragedy at Brown University
The campus of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
Two recent events took place at Brown University, one of joy and one of tragedy.
Under a tent on Pembroke Field, Cantor Lizzie Shammash sang Shalom Aleichem and Rabbi Ayelet Cohen recited the Motzi and Kiddush, beginning a glorious weekend celebrating 130 years of Jewish life at Brown.
A few weeks later, a former Physics graduate student killed two Brown students, and wounded nine others, in a mass shooting event on campus.
The juxtaposition of these events demonstrated Brown’s commitment to its Jewish community, and also that community and support networks are central to campus life.
On the weekend of November 7-9, more than 1,000 Jewish students, faculty, and alumni convened on College Hill. There were hundreds more attendees than the university expected, spanning nearly eight decades of life at Brown.
Some of us attend a daily minyan; others rarely see the inside of a synagogue. The faces of today’s Jewish students demonstrate we have ancestry from every corner of the globe. For a weekend, we came together as one, emphasizing our common values and heritage.
We participated in lectures, panels, and religious services, celebrating alumni and our school’s accomplishments in business, academia, and the arts.
Even before the shooting tragedy on our campus, we knew America’s college students were struggling with a fractured environment. Mental health is a serious issue in our country, but especially among our young people. Three-fifths of younger adults reported serious loneliness in the past month, compared to 24 percent of people 55-65.
Younger adults are no longer anchored in their families, but still must grapple with decisions about relationships and career paths. They spend more time on their phones and alone in their dorm rooms, and 40 percent less time in group venues like the gym, library, or cafeteria.
Contrary to initial fears, the Brown shooting does not appear to have a political or religious dimension. Still, being a Jewish college student is harder now than it was just a few years ago.
Between 2019 and 2024, cases of antisemitic assault, harassment, and vandalism rose by over 300 percent, with college campuses seeing an 84 percent increase between 2023 and 2024.
People who subscribe to a dichotomy about oppressors and the oppressed common on university campuses are especially likely to hold antisemitic views.
Our “J130” event demonstrated the vibrancy and resilience of Brown’s Jewish community. Brown sprang from the tolerant and ecumenical traditions of Rhode Island. From its founding, Brown foreswore religious tests in admitting students. And there is no historical evidence that Brown used the formal Jewish quotas common at other elite institutions.
The weekend also highlighted how Jewish faith and community are not only essential to Jewish students, but also a force for good at the university. In one of the event’s faculty seminars, Judaic Studies scholar Professor Michael Satlow explained the relevance of religious wisdom. Jewish texts teach gratitude, patience, personal connection, the dignity of the individual, and the combination of purpose with humility — all somewhat counter-cultural when college students often focus on ideological conflict or careerism. That guidance resonated in November — and it’s only more important now.
Many Jews have found inspiration in a covenantal relationship with God, in which we bear a shared responsibility with the Almighty. The Pirkei Avot tells us, “What you do, do for Heaven,” and reminds us that, “It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.”
Since the shooting, Brown students of every faith have wrestled with confusion, rage, and grief. Jewish students have sought out rabbis to make sense of these events, as other students have received pastoral care from clergy in other denominations.
Brown RISD Hillel must be a center of gravity on campus — a place of rich community, deep meaning, intellectual rigor, and spiritual resilience, even in the face of tragedy. Close to 1,000 Jewish students (and hundreds of non-Jewish students) walk through the doors of the Hillel building each semester. We must make it even more of a destination, a welcoming, bustling hive of activity, where Jewish students know they can go to be with other Jews — and where students of every faith and background can convene in fellowship.
We can make Hillel central to the intellectual life on campus. We can extend the exciting programming we’ve done on the Jewish tradition in the visual arts to include music and theater. We can innovate in the way we provide religious education to students and we can examine the way that AI may enhance the study of Jewish religious texts. We can provide more pastoral care to young men and women seeking to make sense of their world. And we can engage our alumni to mentor students, not how to ace a job interview, but on how to build meaningful and rewarding careers they can sustain over decades.
What happens at Brown RISD Hillel (and every other Hillel on every campus) matters for the wider Jewish world and the university ecosystem.
When Jewish students are grounded, supported, and educated, they become better Jews, students, and citizens. They also can help heal a wounded campus, and represent the resilience of the Jewish tradition and community in America.
James M. Kaplan chairs the Board of Trustees for Brown-RISD Hillel. He graduated from Brown University in 1992.
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London Police Set Up Specialist Jewish Protection Team
A police officer stands at the scene, after a man was arrested following a stabbing incident in the Golders Green area, which is home to a large Jewish population, in London, Britain, April 29, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Hannah McKay
British police are setting up a new team of 100 officers including counter terrorism specialists to help protect Jewish communities across London after a series of antisemitic attacks including the stabbing of two men.
The plan announced on Wednesday for a dedicated protection team comes as officers announced more arrests for antisemitism, including detaining a 35-year-old man on Saturday after rocks were thrown at an ambulance belonging to the Jewish community.
London‘s top police boss Mark Rowley said Jewish communities were facing “sustained threats” from hostile state actors as well as extreme right-wing groups, elements of the extreme left, and Islamist terrorists.
Detectives are examining whether the arson incidents have possible Iranian links, after British security officials warned that Iran was using criminal proxies to carry out hostile activity.
Since late March, there have been a number of high-profile arson attacks with four Jewish ambulances burned and synagogues targeted. Last week, two Jewish men were also stabbed. Both victims survived the attack.
Over the past four weeks, police said they had arrested around 50 people for antisemitic hate crimes and charged eight individuals. On top of that, 28 arrests have been made as part of investigations alongside counter terrorism policing for arson and other serious incidents.
“This new team will be primarily focused on protecting the Jewish community, which faces some of the highest levels of hate crime alongside significant terrorist and hostile state threats,” said a statement from London‘s Metropolitan Police force.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer convened a meeting on Monday with business, health and cultural leaders aimed at trying to tackle antisemitism.
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Iran Reviewing US Proposal to End War, Though Key Demands Remain Unaddressed
People walk on a street near a mural featuring an image of the late Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in Tehran, Iran, May 6, 2026. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Iran said on Wednesday it was reviewing a US peace proposal that sources said would formally end the war while leaving unresolved the key US demands that Iran suspend its nuclear program and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
An Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson cited by Iran‘s ISNA news agency said Tehran would convey its response. US President Donald Trump said he believed Iran wanted an agreement.
“They want to make a deal. We’ve had very good talks over the last 24 hours, and it’s very possible that we’ll make a deal,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday.
Earlier in the day, Trump had sounded more pessimistic about the chances of a deal. In a Truth Social post, he threatened to restart the US bombing campaign in Iran, calling the possibility of Tehran agreeing to the latest US proposal a “big assumption.”
Trump has repeatedly played up the prospect of an agreement that would end the war that started Feb. 28, so far without success. The two sides remain at odds over a variety of difficult issues, such as Iran‘s nuclear ambitions and its control of the Strait of Hormuz, which before the war handled one-fifth of the world’s oil and gas supply.
A Pakistani source and another source briefed on the mediation said an agreement was close on a one-page memorandum that would formally end the conflict. That would kick off discussions to unblock shipping through the strait, lift US sanctions on Iran, and set curbs on Iran‘s nuclear program, the sources said.
It was unclear how the memorandum differs from a 14-point plan proposed by Iran last week, and Iran has yet to respond to the latest US proposal.
Iran‘s semi-official Tasnim news agency, citing an unnamed source, said the US proposal contained some unacceptable provisions, without specifying which ones.
Iranian lawmaker Ebrahim Rezaei, a spokesperson for parliament’s powerful foreign policy and national security committee, described the text as “more of an American wish-list than a reality.”
“The Americans will not gain anything in a war they are losing that they have not gained in face-to-face negotiations,” he wrote on social media.
OIL PRICES TUMBLE
Reports of a possible agreement caused global oil prices to tumble to two-week lows, with benchmark Brent crude futures falling around 11% to around $98 a barrel at one point before rising back above the $100 mark.
Global share prices also leapt and bond yields fell on optimism about an end to a war that has disrupted energy supplies.
Trump on Tuesday paused a two-day-old naval mission to reopen the blockaded strait, citing progress in peace talks.
The US military has kept up its own blockade on Iranian ships in the region. US Central Command said forces fired at an unladen Iranian-flagged tanker on Wednesday, disabling the vessel as it attempted to sail toward an Iranian port in violation of the blockade.
NO MENTION OF KEY US DEMANDS
The source briefed on the mediation said the US negotiations were being led by Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner. If both sides agreed on the preliminary deal, that would start the clock on 30 days of detailed negotiations to reach a full agreement.
The full agreement would end the competing US and Iranian blockades on the strait, lift US sanctions, and release frozen Iranian funds. It would also include some curbs on Iran‘s nuclear program, with the aim of a pause or moratorium on Iranian enrichment of uranium.
While the sources said the memorandum would not initially require concessions from either side, they did not mention several key demands Washington has made in the past, which Iran has rejected, such as curbs on Iran‘s missile program and an end to its support for proxy militias in the Middle East.
The sources also made no mention of Iran‘s existing stockpile of more than 400 kg (900 pounds) of near-weapons-grade uranium.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump’s ally against Iran, said on Wednesday the two leaders agreed that all enriched uranium must be removed from Iran to prevent it from developing a nuclear bomb.
Tehran denies wanting to acquire a nuclear weapon.
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Brussels cathedral installs plaques apologizing for medieval antisemitic persecution depicted in stained glass
(JTA) — More than 650 years after Jews in Brussels were executed and expelled following false antisemitic accusations, church officials at the Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula have installed a plaque apologizing for the persecution commemorated in its stained glass windows.
At a ceremony on April 27, Archbishop Luc Terlinden of Mechelen-Brussels and Rabbi Albert Guigui, the chief rabbi of Brussels, unveiled four plaques, written in Dutch, French, English and Hebrew, providing historical context for the windows and an apology for the antisemitic persecution tied to the events they depict.
The plaques, which Terlinden signed, state that “baseless accusations of the desecration of the Eucharistic host were made against Jewish communities” in medieval Europe and that the accusations “led to persecution, massacres, and unjustifiable expulsions.” The windows show Jews being executed at the stake in response to their alleged attacks on the Eucharist, bread that Catholic doctrine considers a literal representation of Jesus’ body.
“Theological and social anti-Judaism is in direct contradiction with the Gospel of Christ, which calls for truth, justice, and brotherhood,” the plaques say. “We ask forgiveness from the Jewish people for the suffering these accusations have caused.”
The stained glass windows in the cathedral depict the “Brussels Host Desecration,” an antisemitic accusation in 1370 that Jews had desecrated communion wafers, leading to the execution of Jews in Brussels and the expulsion of the city’s Jewish community.
The windows have drawn scrutiny for decades, particularly as the Catholic Church sought to reckon with its history of antisemitism. In 1969, shortly after the landmark Nostra Aetate declaration rejecting longstanding anti-Jewish Catholic doctrine, the Archbishop of Brussels ordered that several paintings be removed and a plaque be mounted to offer context about the remaining depictions.
Several years later, the European Jewish Congress noted last week, Catholic leaders did install a plaque that drew readers’ attention to “the biased nature of the accusations [against the Jews accused of the desecration] and to the legendary presentation of the ‘miracle.’”
But Flora Cassen, the director of the Brandeis Center for Jewish Studies and a scholar of European antisemitism, said the existing plaque was “very ambiguous about the responsibility and what happened” and installed in an easy-to-miss location. The new plaques, she said, contain a clear and “very moving” apology and cannot be missed by anyone who comes to see the windows.
“The significance is enormous of the church finally putting a plaque there that tells the story, that acknowledges the antisemitism behind it, that acknowledges that it was a slander and that it resulted in persecution and in the execution of Jews in Brussels and their expulsion,” Cassen said.
The new plaques cite Nostra Aetate and the Catholic Church’s subsequent effort under Pope John Paul II to reckon with historical antisemitism in 2000. They affirm the church’s “commitment to combat all forms of antisemitism, to deepen dialogue between Jews and Christians, and to pass on to future generations a clear remembrance, based on the acknowledgement of truth and mutual respect.”
While some have called for the historic windows to be removed, Guigui said in a statement that the plaques represented an appropriate way to address relics of historical antisemitism.
“What matters today is how we look at these images,” the rabbi said. “They must not be erased, because they are part of history, but they must be accompanied by explanation and moral insight in order to understand the context and avoid repeating past mistakes.”
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