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Connecticut College students are in revolt after president’s planned talk at Florida club with antisemitic and racist past
(JTA) – When students at Connecticut College learned that their president had been planning to attend a fundraiser at a historically racist and antisemitic golf club, they began to organize.
But their school’s building for race and ethnicity programming, the Unity House, didn’t have enough space to hold them all. So a pivotal meeting that kicked off a weeks-long campaign against the university took place at a space with a larger capacity: its Hillel house.
“Having a Jewish space on campus that felt like a safe space to gather as a community is something that really struck me as important,” Ilan Listgarten, a Jewish sophomore at the college, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Three weeks later, Connecticut College students have moved to an even bigger location: They have occupied a central administrative building on the New London campus for five days and counting, and are receiving support from faculty and staff.
The students want the president to resign, and they are calling for increased funding and support for various ethnic studies and student group programs. Their demands include enhancements to the Jewish studies program (the school currently offers a minor) and bias training to address antisemitism.
Tensions have remained so high that Hillel leaders canceled a planned Shabbat dinner with the embattled president, Katherine Bergeron, an annual event that this year had been scheduled for Friday.
As Jewish students and faculty on other campuses have complained that they feel excluded from progressive activism, the crisis at Connecticut College has gone in a different direction. Jewish students are playing a leadership role in the protests, working closely with a coalition of activists from other backgrounds who specifically invited Hillel to join in its efforts. That’s notable because, at other schools across the country, recruiting support from coalitions of minority groups has been a hallmark of pro-Palestinian activists — who often boycott (or are themselves barred from) Hillel due to its pro-Israel stance.
“I’ve felt even more proud to be Jewish on campus right now,” sophomore Davi Schulman, a student journalist and member of Connecticut College Hillel’s leadership team, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “And I’m just proud to be a Connecticut College student. We’re really coming together like we never have before.”
Connecticut College students are protesting against their school’s president, Katherine Bergeron, who had been scheduled to speak at a venue with an antisemitic and racist history. (Courtesy of Sam Maidenberg/The College Voice)
Key to Hillel’s participation, observers said, was the fact that the kindling for the student uprising involved antisemitism. Bergeron had been planning to attend a fundraiser for the college to be held at the Everglades Club, an exclusive golf club in Palm Beach, Florida, that has a history of denying entry and membership to Jews and Black people (reportedly including Black Jewish entertainer Sammy Davis Jr. and Jewish cosmetics mogul Estée Lauder).
Today the club is secretive about its current membership policies, though recent testimony from officials has claimed that the club no longer discriminates against Jews. Its antisemitic past was enough to turn off former President Donald Trump from selling his Mar-a-Lago club to them in the 1990s.
The larger campus community became aware of the fundraiser only after the school’s dean of institutional equity and inclusion, or DIEI, resigned from his position Feb. 7 after only a year on the job, citing the president’s unwillingness to take his advice to cancel the fundraiser. Bergeron announced the next day that the event had been canceled and apologized “to all who saw our plans as contrary to Conn’s values or to the inclusive institution we aspire to be.”
The dean had leaked his resignation letter to a group of student activists, sparking the initial efforts to organize what became Student Voices for Equity — and that meeting in the 6,700-square-foot Zachs Hillel House. Jewish students suggested the venue, opened in 2014 to serve the school’s roughly 200 Jewish students, when it became apparent that the crowd of hundreds wouldn’t fit in Unity House.
The controversy over the fundraiser was “the straw that broke the camel’s back,” according to Rabbi Susan Schein, the director of Connecticut College Hillel (and an employee of the university’s diversity and equity office). She and students said there had been long-standing dissatisfaction among many on campus with Bergeron’s leadership; several students said they wanted to see more funding and support for ethnic studies and diversity-focused programs.
When the student activists approached Hillel’s student leadership about having a Jewish representative join their efforts, the students quickly agreed, electing to have Listgarten play the role; today he is helping to support the around 30 students who are occupying the campus building where the president’s office is located. The Hillel also issued a statement standing in solidarity with the movement’s goals.
Connecticut College sits along the Thames River in New London, Connecticut. It enrolls about 2,000 students. (Connecticut College)
A Connecticut College spokesperson told JTA that Bergeron and the school’s administration “take the issues that have been raised seriously,” and that it would conduct an independent review into “the workplace-related concerns.” The college also pledged “significant additional resources” into its diversity-focused efforts. It did not address how the planned fundraiser at the country club had come together. Bergeron has sent six letters to the campus community about the controversy since the diversity dean’s initial resignation.
The ease with which the campus’s Jewish community has fit into this movement is a testament to deliberate programming efforts at the Hillel to reach out to forge relationships between Jews and non-Jews on campus, Listgarten and Schein said. Hillel hosts events like “Unity Shabbat” designed to bring together other marginalized groups, and its center — which includes a game room — was envisioned by funder Henry Zachs as a common space for Jews and non-Jews alike, Schein said.
It wasn’t always this way at Connecticut College. In 2015, the school attracted national attention when a student decried as racist a months-old Facebook post by a Jewish professor about the previous year’s conflict in the Gaza Strip. The professor had ambiguously used an analogy of “rabid pit bulls,” without specifying whether he was talking about Hamas or all Palestinians.
In the resulting furor, hundreds of students and alums signed an online petition demanding the college condemn “the racism and dehumanization” of his post. Pro-Israel activists came to the professor’s defense and accused the campus community of being hostile to Jewish and pro-Israel views.
Today, Listgarten said, Israel hasn’t come up in this current period of student activism, and dialogue between Jews and non-Jews remains civil. He confirmed Bergeron has also hosted annual Shabbat dinners with Hillel students. But this year, after the fundraiser controversy broke into view, Hillel leadership elected not to dine with her for their scheduled Shabbat dinner, which would have taken place Friday.
“The Hillel Board has very clear values of tzedek,” Listgarten said, using the Hebrew word for “justice.” “As soon as this event occurred and it was clear that our values were drastically opposed to that of the president, we canceled.”
Despite their warm reception, Schulman said she’s “conflicted” by the fact that the other campus activists “consistently mentioned the Jewish community on campus and included us in the group of marginalized students.” To her and the other Hillel leadership, the Jewish community has “privilege” that students from some backgrounds don’t, and they’ve made that a central part of their messaging. They cite the existence of the Zachs Hillel House itself, and the fact that it is in better condition than other university spaces devoted to race and ethnicity programming, as one example.
“We don’t want to appear to be pushing any kind of agenda or whatever,” Schulman said. “We’re kind of taking a step back and supporting everyone who is expressing their feelings.”
This dynamic has been crucial to Hillel’s success at ingratiating itself with larger campus culture, Schein said. She invoked Jewish teachings by way of explanation.
“The country club issue that came up involved antisemitism, and I think that caught the attention of the Jewish students. But here they recognized it is not just about themselves, and that they have a responsibility to support others,” Schein said.
Citing the famous quote by Rabbi Hillel, the campus group’s namesake, she added, “They stepped into it. They could’ve been outside, but they said, ‘Now is the moment to support our DIEI colleagues.’ And that’s what the campus is doing. They said, ‘If not now, when?’”
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Maersk Tests Red Sea Route as Gaza Ceasefire Offers Hope
Containers are seen on the Maersk Triple-E giant container ship Majestic Maersk, one of the world’s largest container ships, next to cranes at the APM Terminals in the port of Algeciras, Spain, Jan. 20, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Jon Nazca
Danish shipping company Maersk said on Friday that one of its vessels had successfully navigated the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb Strait for the first time in nearly two years, as shipping companies weigh returning to the critical Asia-Europe trade corridor.
The company stated that while it had no firm plans to fully reopen the route, it would take a “stepwise approach towards gradually resuming navigation” via the Suez Canal and the Red Sea. Maersk declined to further elaborate on its plans.
Maersk and rivals, including Germany’s Hapag-Lloyd, rerouted vessels around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope from December 2023 after Yemeni Houthi rebels attacked ships in the Red Sea in what they said was a show of solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. The Iran-backed Houthis are an internationally designated terrorist organization.
The Suez Canal is the fastest route linking Europe and Asia and until the attacks had accounted for about 10% of global seaborne trade, according to Clarksons Research.
CMA HAS MADE LIMITED PASSAGES THROUGH THE SUEZ CANAL
French shipping firm CMA CGM has already made limited passages through the Suez Canal when security conditions allowed, with other operators similarly exploring resumption plans.
“Most carriers appear to be adopting a wait-and-see approach, monitoring developments, and any meaningful reopening would likely unfold gradually,” said Nikos Tagoulis, analyst at Intermodal Group.
The potential return of Maersk to the Suez Canal could ripple through the shipping sector, where freight rates have risen because the alternative route added weeks to transit times between Asia and Europe.
A recent ceasefire in the Gaza conflict has renewed hope of normalizing Red Sea traffic, though analysts note the fragility of the truce.
“By the end of 2026, we estimate things will start to look like they were before the Houthis attack started,” said Simon Heaney, a container industry analyst at Drewry Shipping Consultants. “The risk level has reduced, so they’re prepared to test the waters. But the Houthis aren’t particularly reliable.”
Maersk confirmed that one of its smaller vessels, Maersk Sebarok, had completed the first test transit through the Red Sea on Thursday and Friday, while stressing that no additional sailings were currently planned.
“Whilst this is a significant step forward, it does not mean that we are at a point where we are considering a wider East-West network change back to the trans-Suez corridor,” it said.
Niels Rasmussen, chief shipping analyst at ship-owner association BIMCO, projected that broader resumption of Suez Canal transits could result in a 10% drop in ship demand.
“The possibility of a return to Suez Canal routings looms large over the market outlook,” he said in a note published on Thursday.
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Israel Charges Russian With Allegedly Spying for Iran
Israel and Iran flags are seen in this illustration taken June 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
Israel has charged a Russian citizen with spying for Iran, including photographing Israeli ports and infrastructure under the direction of Iranian intelligence agencies, Israel‘s domestic security agency the Shin Bet said on Friday.
The Russian individual was then paid in digital currency, the agency said in a joint statement.
A decades-long shadow war between Israel and Iran escalated into a direct war in June when Israel struck various targets inside Iran, including through operations that relied on Mossad commandos being deployed deep inside the country.
Israel has arrested dozens of citizens who allegedly spied for Iran, in what sources told Reuters has been Tehran’s biggest effort in decades to infiltrate its arch foe.
The arrests followed repeated efforts by Iranian intelligence operatives over the years to recruit ordinary Israelis to gather intelligence and carry out attacks in exchange for money.
In a statement sent to media in 2024 following a wave of arrests by Israel of Jewish citizens suspected of spying for Iran, Iran’s UN mission did not confirm or deny seeking to recruit Israelis and said that “from a logical standpoint” any such efforts by Iranian intelligence services would focus on non-Iranian and non-Muslim individuals to lessen suspicion.
Iran has executed many individuals it accuses of having links with Israel‘s Mossad intelligence service and facilitating its operations in the country.
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His family was killed in Sydney. Hours later, he helped feed 600 unhoused people in LA.
Hanukkah on Bondi Beach was the coolest party of the year, recalled Yossi Segelman.
“There’s singing. There’s dancing. There’s sufganiyot … There’s clowns and petting zoos,” he said. “It brought all people together.”
Segelman, who was born in London, spent 16 years living in Sydney, and now resides in Los Angeles, used to attend the celebration every year.
It was Segelman who drew Rabbi Eli Schlanger, his childhood neighbor in London, to Australia almost 20 years ago. Segelman made the shidduch, or match, between Eli and his wife Chaya’s cousin. As they became family, Segelman and Schlanger also became close friends.
“He was just always happy … a rocket full of joy,” Segelman said. “I knew many people who were personally moved and touched and became more connected to Judaism and to Israel as a direct result of their impact and connection with Rabbi Eli.”
When Segelman logged on to WhatsApp on Sunday, he learned that terrorists had murdered Schlanger at the same yearly Hanukkah celebration. One of his nieces was in surgery.
“I had a number of other family members, nieces, nephews, who were ducking at the tables and had bullets whizzing overhead and had seen things that no one should ever see,” he said.
And yet hours later, Segelman, who is the executive director of the nonprofit Our Big Kitchen Los Angeles, still showed up to lead dozens of people in preparing 600 meals for Angelenos in need.
That Sunday was my second time volunteering at OBKLA. As I snapped on blue nitrile gloves and prepared to scoop meatballs from a tub of ground beef, I was stunned that Segelman felt capable of showing up with one family member dead and another on the operating table.
But he insisted, during the session and two days later when I came back to speak with him, that it’s precisely during dark times that a community needs a space to come together and serve others. As rising antisemitism and violent attacks like the one in Bondi might pressure Jews to turn inward, Segelman’s emphasis on both Jewish pride and welcoming all, no matter their background, offers us a path forward.
Giving back in times of crisis
Schlanger and Segelman both served as chaplains in Australia; Schlanger for corrective services and Segelman for the military.
“We were involved in the same thing and that is to try and bring peace, and comfort, and solace, encouragement, to those who found themselves in difficult situations,” Segelman said.
In parallel to his work as a chaplain, Segelman became involved as an early director of Our Big Kitchen in Sydney, which prepares meals for Australians in need. The organization’s Bondi kitchen is less than a mile from where Sunday’s terror attack took place. Though the food is kosher, most meals go to the broader community, and most volunteers aren’t Jewish.
A few years after moving to Los Angeles, at the height of the pandemic, the Segelman family sprung into action to distribute snacks to hospitals, unhoused people, and first responders. Their impulse to help has since grown into a smooth operation, one the Segelmans activated at full throttle during LA’s wildfires this year.
In his office, Segelman has a basket where he keeps empty rolls from the stickers volunteers use to package food. Each roll signified a thousand meals. The basket was overflowing. In the past year, Segelman said, OBK LA welcomed more than 24,000 volunteers who made 183,574 meals.
Segelman emphasized the impact of the meals not only on the recipients, but also on the volunteers who created them.
“Volunteering, it’s being hands-on. It’s a visceral experience. You’re immersing yourself in an act of goodness and kindness,” he said.
How we respond to terror
Segelman has more practice than most in taking action. But the attack in Sydney posed a new challenge.
“For me to get up Sunday morning and welcome everybody and do what we do usually at OBK with cheer and with love was not easy,” he said. But he knew that his job was “to inspire people, especially when the going gets tough, and to really transform those feelings of helplessness into hopefulness.”
When we spoke on Tuesday at noon, Segelman had just finished an event with 70 school kids, with more programs to come later that day. Schlanger’s funeral, which he would attend remotely, was at 4 p.m. His teenage niece’s operation was successful, though his entire family remained extremely traumatized.
Nevertheless, Segelman insisted the Hanukkah celebration must return to Bondi Beach.
“100%. Bigger and better,” he said. “To cancel events and close down events is contrary to the story of Hanukkah.”
“We need to continue doing what we’re doing, do it stronger, obviously be smart, be vigilant, but absolutely go out there and to continue to do what we do and do it proudly.”
When I asked if a terror attack like Sunday’s might complicate OBK’s practice of welcoming everyone into its kitchen, his answer was adamant: “We are an organization rooted in Jewish values of chesed, of tzedakah, and we’re proudly kosher, and we’re proudly based in the heart of the community. But we welcome absolutely everyone, both to volunteer and to receive a meal.”
Violence cannot shatter our empathy
To be proudly Jewish and yet welcome everyone is an essential message; one whose second component, I think, may be hard for some in our community to hear right now.
The brutality of Oct. 7, of the subsequent rise in antisemitism and terror like the kind unleashed in Sydney, rightfully activates Jewish fears. It also, however, threatens to make a drought of our empathy. At its very worst — as I’ve written about in the case of far-right Jews denying hunger in Gaza or using AI to spread hate — Jewish pain is contorted into a pretext to ignore others’ suffering or even inflict it on them.
But now is the time to lean into our values, not turn away from the rest of the world. Segelman’s message for all of us this Hannukah: Find a way to give our time in service to others, even if it’s just an hour a week, and to provide inspiration or love, even to just one other person.
On Sunday night, a few hours after the OBKLA event, my partner and I welcomed our friends, some Jewish, some not, for the first night of Hanukkah. We fried latkes and schnitzel. My hand shook, then steadied, as I sang and led a menorah lighting for the first time. The candle burned through its wick; yellow and blue wax dripping onto parchment paper. We sat in the gentle glow, affirming joy.
This Hannukah, Segelman and OBKLA show us that when faced with unimaginable violence, the best way to nourish our souls might be to come together, cook, and serve others.
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