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Jewish schools to colleges: Don’t recruit our students unless you can guarantee their safety
(JTA) — Any college or university that wants to recruit students from two Modern Orthodox schools in New Jersey will now have to prove it can keep Jewish students safe, according to announcements from the schools.
Torah Academy of Bergen County, a boys school in Teaneck, and Ma’ayanot Yeshiva High School for Girls, located just blocks away, each told families on Friday that they were enacting new requirements for colleges that seek to meet with students on campus, a regular component of the college search process.
A third school in the area told families on Monday that it was “reevaluating our relationships with college admissions officers” but had not yet settled on any policy changes.
The announcements offer a concrete indication that antisemitic incidents on U.S. campuses following Hamas’ attack on Israel Oct. 7 and Israel’s military response could affect how some Jewish students decide where to go to college.
The incidents are unfolding at precisely the time that high school seniors must complete their college applications, and they add to a preexisting sense of unease among some U.S. Jews about the status of Jewish students on college campuses.
“We feel strongly that we cannot continue to invite college representatives to speak to our students as they have in the past,” TABC head of school Rabbi Shlomo Stochel and associate principal Rabbi Steven Finkelstein wrote in an email outlining new requirements for on-campus recruitment. “Your son’s physical and emotional welfare is too important to us.”
Going forward, the TABC and Ma’ayanot administrators wrote, recruiters and college representatives must now bring “a statement from their university leadership detailing their plans to protect and maintain the safety and security of our graduates on their campuses as Jews.”
The announcement comes in the wake of multiple antisemitic incidents on college campuses nationwide, including an eruption of violence at a pro-Palestinian rally at Tulane University; a situation where Jewish students were barricaded inside a library at Cooper Union during a pro-Palestinian protest; and most recently, where death threats were made against Jewish students at Cornell Sunday evening, specifically targeting the kosher dining hall.
Colleges and universities have also drawn criticism over their public statements about the violence in Israel, with prominent Jewish donors in a few cases vowing to cut off institutions that they said insufficiently condemned Hamas or allowed antisemitic sentiment to flourish.
The climate has so alarmed the Biden administration that the U.S. Education Department has given itself two weeks to create and present a plan to combat the wartime spike in campus antisemitism.
The goal of high schools’ policy change is to increase pressure on the universities to act, the TABC letter says.
“It is our hope that our collective stance in prioritizing the safety of our students will compel universities to address the severity of the current situation,” it says. “Those who cannot or will not accede to our valid and just request will not be welcome here.”
The moment coincides with when high school seniors must make decisions about where to apply to college. Many universities use Nov. 1 — Wednesday — as an early decision deadline, meaning that students who apply by that date and are accepted are obligated to attend.
The New Jersey schools chose to send the emails ahead of that deadline, according to Rabbi Josh Kahn, the rosh yeshiva of TABC. Almost all of the school’s graduates head to Israel for a year and then to Yeshiva University, the Modern Orthodox flagship in Manhattan, though others enroll at other colleges with large Jewish populations including New York University and the University of Maryland.
Kahn said his school isn’t trying to close its doors to college recruiters.
“Our goal actually really is for our students to be able to go to college. The entire Jewish community’s goal is that our students should be able to go to the university campus and feel safe. That’s all we want,” he said. “We’re not looking to not allow colleges on to recruit from our campus. So we would like to do everything we can to help colleges ensure that our students will be safe.”
Ma’ayanot said that in addition to asking college representatives to provide assurances about students’ safety, it would also work with its own students to factor the campus climate about Israel into their post-graduation plans.
“We are working to educate our students about the Israel climate on various campuses,” said the school’s letter, signed by four administrators including Head of School CB Neugroschl. “Just as a thriving observant Jewish community is a vital factor, it is crucial to make sure that a college is a safe place for Jewish and pro-Israel students. It is our hope that our collective efforts will help students make wise and informed choices about their future.”
Paul Bernstein, the CEO of Prizmah, the North American network for Jewish day schools, said the school’s demands are appropriate.
“Safety for Jewish college students is paramount, and colleges should be able to demonstrate how they would enable students to live a full and active Jewish life on their campus, without fear or threat,” Bernstein said. “Jewish day school alumni are proud leaders in Hillel and other programs on campus, in support of positive Jewish living and Israel. We expect college administrations to ensure that is true not only at a time of war, but in years to come for future students.”
Other Orthodox high schools in a broader network are still discussing how to approach the college admissions process, according to Kahn, who said a meeting is planned on the topic.
Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy and Rae Kushner Yeshiva High School, Modern Orthodox schools also in Bergen County, told families on Monday that they were rethinking admissions practices as application deadlines neared.
Head of School Eliezer Rubin said in a letter to families he believed that “universities have allowed a toxic ideology to fester, and that ideology manifests as raging, aggressive and overt anti-Semitism.” He named four schools — Cornell, Cooper Union, Tulane and Columbia — where recent incidents had induced fear for students’ safety.
“They believe that they could take our families for granted. … We need to dissuade them from the notion that they are entitled to our children by mere virtue of the fact that they are prestigious institutions,” Eliezer Rubin wrote. “The privilege is for these universities to educate our students, not the other way around. It is just that: a privilege. Not a right.”
Rubin concluded, “Put simply: If a university cannot keep our students safe, we cannot in good conscience send them there.”
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Bryan Singer Secretly Filmed Period Drama With Jon Voight Critical of Israel for Lebanon War: Report
Jon Voight at the opening night of the 2023 Beverly Hills Film Festival held at TCL Chinese 6 Theatres in Hollywood, California, on April 19, 2023. Photo: FS//AdMedia/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
Jewish-American filmmaker Bryan Singer has returned to the director’s chair after a long hiatus with a film starring Oscar winner Jon Voight that is set in the Middle East and critical of Israel, Variety revealed on Wednesday.
Singer secretly filmed the period drama and one source who saw the final cut, but is not involved with the production, thinks the feature is “going to be a huge hotbed of controversy” because of its attention on the Middle East. “It makes Israel look really bad and could be polarizing,” the insider told Variety.
The source said the film is set in late 1970s or early 1980s. On June 6, 1982, Israel launched the First Lebanon War against Palestinian terrorists based in southern Lebanon following the attempted assassination of Israeli Ambassador to the United Kingdom Shlomo Argov by a terrorist cell.
The “Superman Returns” director shot the new film in Greece in 2023, and it focuses on the relationship between a father and son, Variety added. Israeli filmmaker Yariv Horovoitz is also reportedly collaborating on the project. There are no details about a release date.
Voight is a longtime supporter of Israel and said in 2018 that he feels an obligation to combat antisemitism. Last year, he was critical of his daughter, actress and filmmaker Angelina Jolie, when she slammed Israel’s defensive military campaign against Hamas in Gaza following the Palestinian terrorist group’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.
Singer – who was raised Jewish in suburban New Jersey – has not directed in mainstream Hollywood since he was infamously fired by 20th Century Fox from “Bohemian Rhapsody” in 2017 and replaced during shooting, after several absences during the film’s production. He was signed on to direct a remake of the action film “Red Sonja,” but was reportedly fired from the project amid allegations in 2019 of sexual misconduct involving minors, which he denied.
The director’s past credits include four films in the “X-Men” franchise, “Valkyrie,” and the Oscar-winning film “The Usual Suspects.”
Singer faced sexual misconduct allegations starting in 1997, when two teenage boys claimed the director ordered them to strip naked for a scene in his film “Apt Pupil.” The filmmaker has never faced criminal charges for the sexual misconduct allegations made against him in 1997 or in later years.
Singer has been living in Israel for several years and Variety reported in 2023 that he was looking to make a comeback into the mainstream Hollywood film industry with features set in and around Israel.
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Italian Law Professor Faces Backlash Over Viral Antisemitic Social Media Posts
An Italian law professor is facing mounting backlash after past antisemitic social media posts went viral, sparking outrage among the local Jewish community and public officials.
Professor Luca Nivarra, who teaches in the Faculty of Law at the University of Palermo in Sicily, has come under scrutiny after several of his social media posts went viral, spreading antisemitic and hateful content.
“I don’t want to meddle in matters that don’t concern me directly, but, having very few tools at our disposal to oppose the Palestinian Holocaust, a signal, however modest, could be to unfriend your Jewish ‘friends’ on Facebook, even the ‘good’ ones, who declare themselves disgusted by what the Israeli government and the IDF are doing,” Nivarra wrote in one of his posts.
“They lie, and with their lies, they help cover up the horror: it’s a small, tiny thing, but let’s start making them feel alone, face to face with the monstrosity to which they are complicit,” he continued.
On Tuesday, the university issued a public statement distancing itself from Nivarra’s antisemitic remarks. Despite mounting public outrage, Nivarra has not faced any disciplinary action yet.
Massimo Midiri, Dean of the University of Palermo, condemned such hateful rhetoric, calling it “a personal and culturally dangerous initiative, far removed from our academic principles.”
“Nivarra’s statements risk fueling the very dynamics he claims to oppose. Complex issues like the Middle East conflict require dialogue and critical engagement, not exclusion or ideological censorship,” Midiri said in a statement.
Italy’s Minister of University and Research, Anna Maria Bernini, also denounced Nivarra’s remarks, saying they “not only offend the Jewish people but also all who uphold the values of respect and civil coexistence.”
“Conflicts are overcome through dialogue, not isolation and it is only through this path that an authentic journey toward peace can be built, an objective to which Italy and the international community continue to dedicate their efforts,” the Italian diplomat wrote in a post on X.
This is not the first time Nivarra has made public antisemitic statements and spread anti-Jewish hateful rhetoric. In his previous Facebook posts, he also wrote that “there are no good Israelis” and that “Israeli society is morally rotten.”
Nivarra also compared the Israeli Defense Forces’ defensive campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas to the actions of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann during the Holocaust.
“The only difference between Adolf Eichmann and the IDF is that Eichmann defended himself by saying he was following orders, while Israeli soldiers happily do what they do,” he wrote in another social media post.
Since his posts went viral, Nivarra has faced mounting criticism on social media, but he has denied any accusations of antisemitism.
“You can call me an anti-Semite when I am not one at all. There is an insurmountable distance between me and the perpetrators of these horrors,” he wrote on his Facebook page.
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‘Six Million Not Enough’: Minneapolis School Shooter Scrawled Antisemitic, Anti-Israel Messages on Guns
Law enforcement officers set up barriers after a shooting at Annunciation Church, which is also home to an elementary school, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, US, Aug. 27, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ben Brewer
The lone suspect in Wednesday’s mass shooting at a Catholic school in Minneapolis, Minnesota, scrawled antisemitic and anti-Israel messages across his weapons and allegedly shared his desire to kill “filthy Zionist Jews” in a notebook before unleashing a barrage of gunfire on students and parishioners.
Law enforcement officials identified the shooter as Robin Westman, 23, who died by suicide at the scene. According to police, Westman opened fire during morning Mass in the school’s adjoining church, killing two children (aged 8 and 10) and injuring 17 others.
Witnesses said the church erupted in chaos as stained-glass windows shattered and gunfire ripped through pews filled with children. Teachers and staff rushed to shield students, with some ushering them outside the building.
The shooting is being investigated as both a domestic terrorism case and a hate crime against Catholics, according to FBI Director Kash Patel.
However, the assailant also appeared to endorse antisemitic conspiracies and express a desire to kill Jews and Israelis.
Researchers at the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) reported they found videos believed to be from Westman showing firearms and ammunition magazines marked with the antisemitic messages. Investigators are also reviewing the now-deleted YouTube channel allegedly linked to Westman that featured disturbing videos uploaded before the attack.
“Israel must fall and “Burn Israel” were among the writings on the weapons, as seen in the video. In addition, the messages on the guns included “6 million wasn’t enough” — an apparent reference to the 6 million Jews killed during the Holocaust, and “Burn HIAS” — an apparent reference to a Jewish organization which helps settle refugees.
Westman also allegedly wrote “kill Donald Trump” on a gun magazine as well as anti-black and anti-Latino racist messaging.
The videos also included images of a notebook with writing in the Cyrillic alphabet.
“If I will carry out a racially motivated attack, it would be most likely against filthy Zionist jews,” the notebook said, according to a translation by the New York Post. Westman also allegedly wrote slogans such as “Free Palestine.”
Images of the content has been widely circulated on social media.
Robin Westman, the suspected shooter in today’s mass shooting at the Annunciation Catholic Church and School in Minneapolis, Minnesota, appears to have had a YouTube Channel named “Robin W” which has since been deleted, that contained several video consisting of guns, a manifesto… pic.twitter.com/B3JJUOIGJp
— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) August 27, 2025
Shocking antisemitic messages spotted on the Minneapolis shooter’s gun including:
– “Israel must fall,”
– “Burn Israel”
– “6 million wasn’t enough.”
– “ Burn HIAS (originally a Jewish resettlement org for refugees)Via our colleague @RealSaavedra pic.twitter.com/NFUnkRNlDs
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) August 27, 2025
An analysis of the shooter’s apparent manifesto by the ADL found no singular political motive. The assailant “scrawled numerous references and symbols on their weapons linked to a broad range of mass attackers, mimicking the 2019 Christchurch, 2022 Buffalo, and 2025 Antioch shooters, among others, who marked their weapons before launching their attacks,” the ADL wrote.
“The references found on the attacker’s weapons do not suggest a deep knowledge of white supremacy. Instead, the references point to a broader fixation on mass violence,” the group concluded.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, who is Jewish, spoke with raw emotion after visiting the scene. “There are no words that can capture the horror and the evil of this unspeakable act,” he said.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said the students “were met with evil and horror and death.”
“We often come to these and say these unspeakable tragedies or there’s no words for this. There shouldn’t be words for these types of incidents because they should not happen and there’s no words that are going to ease the pain of the families today,” Walz added.
The suspect was reportedly a transgender woman who changed her name from Robert to Robin in 2020. Westman’s mother worked as a secretary at Annunciation until 2021, according to news reports, and authorities are still examining whether that connection influenced the target.
The tragedy adds to a growing list of school and faith-based shootings in the United States this year. Experts warn that antisemitic conspiracy theories, spread widely online, can inspire such violent attacks.
The tragedy came a week after the ADL released a new report highlighting how extremist online spaces are fueling not only school shootings but also a broader rise in antisemitism across the US. According to the report, many websites containing violent and gruesome material have pulled young people into white supremacist propaganda and conspiracy theories, inspiring them to commit deadly attacks.