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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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Jewish Democrat Announces Primary Challenge Against Anti-Israel New York City Councilwoman
Jewish Democrat Maya Kornberg, an author and senior research fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice, has launched a primary challenge to New York City Councilmember Shahana Hanif. Photo: Screenshot
Maya Kornberg, a Jewish Democrat from Brooklyn, New York, has launched a campaign to unseat New York City Councilwoman Shahana Hanif, an outspoken critic of Israel.
Kornberg announced on Tuesday that she will seek to represent District 39 in the New York City Council. Much of the city’s Jewish community has expressed outrage at Hanif over her repeated repudiations of Israel, including her false accusations that the war against the Hamas terrorist group in Gaza constitutes a “genocide.”
“I am thrilled to announce that I’m running for NYC Council in District 39! With the Trump presidency looming, local governance is more important than ever, and the City Council is our best line of defense,” Kornberg wrote on X/Twitter on Tuesday. “Together, I believe we can build a district where everyone can feel happy, safe, and thrive.”
“I’ve dedicated my career to making democracy work better,” Kornberg added in a statement, promising that if elected she will concentrate on “standing up against hate, providing reliable constituent services, and delivering meaningful change for every resident in every corner of the district.”
Kornberg’s decision to enter next June’s Democratic primary contest sets up a showdown between a self-described “pragmatic” liberal and a far-left democratic socialist. Hanif, who represents heavily Jewish neighborhoods in central Brooklyn such as Park Slope, has reportedly enraged her constituents by ignoring concerns about antisemitism and unloading an unrelenting barrage of criticism directed at Israel.
Following Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7, Hanif issued a statement blaming the Jewish state for the terrorist attacks.
“The root cause of this war is the illegal, immoral, and unjust occupation of the Palestinian people. The Occupation has brought violence toward Israelis and Palestinians for over 75 years. There will be no peace unless the rights of all people in this region are respected,” Hanif wrote on X/Twitter on Oct. 13.
Despite Hanif’s presence on New York’s “Taskforce to Combat Hate,” she has reportedly refused to denounce acts of antisemitic vandalism and graffiti around the city. Hanif was also arrested at an October 2023 “ceasefire” rally organized by the anti-Israel Democratic Socialists of America organization. At the rally, protesters chanted “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” — a popular slogan among anti-Israel activists that has been widely interpreted as a call for the destruction of the Jewish state, which is located between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea — and held up signs reading “No, I do not condemn Hamas.”
Hanif later participated in the anti-Israel encampments at Columbia University in April. She posted a photo of herself from the center of the encampment, sporting a red keffiyeh and smiling.
“I’m proud to witness disciplined leadership from students mobilize for peace and against genocide,” Hanif wrote.
The incumbent councilwoman also voted against a resolution to establish “End Jew Hatred Day” in New York City, claiming that it had been brought forth by a “coalition that has concerning ties to far-right politicians who promote problematic and hateful rhetoric.”
Kornberg, who has reportedly spent months fundraising to enter the primary race, is expected to receive substantial backing from the community’s pro-Israel constituents. Many District 39 constituents have expressed exasperation with Hanif’s unwillingness to publicly apologize for her past commentary and hesitance to tackle surging antisemitic hate crimes in the city.
The impending battle between Kornberg and Hanif comes on the heels of New York City experiencing a somewhat rightward shift in the 2024 presidential election. Every single county in the New York City metropolitan area moved toward Trump compared to four years ago, and the Republican president-elect’s margin of defeat in the heavily Democratic city was 16 points narrower than in 2020.
In the wake of last month’s surprising election results, many Democrats are modulating their approach to controversial topics such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, seeking to strike a more moderate tone. Many observers believe the District 39 primary race could indicate whether the deep-blue city has made an enduring shift away from far-left progressivism.
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Orthodox Rabbinical Conference Slams German University for Canceling Lecture by Israeli Historian Benny Morris
Israeli historian Benny Morris in 2024. Photo: Screenshot
The Orthodox Rabbinical Conference of Germany, an influential association of orthodox rabbis, lambasted the University of Leipzig for canceling a lecture by Israeli historian Benny Morris following anti-Israel student protests described by the school as “understandable, but frightening in nature.”
The Cologne-based group said on Wednesday that it was “shameful to see how quickly an academic institution in Germany is now caving in to aggressive anti-Israeli and antisemitic activism,” German media reported. Instead, the association continued, it is necessary to “resolutely defend the freedom of teaching and science.”
According to the rabbinical conference, young people must be taught to engage with each other at educational institutions rather than shut out opposing views in order to fulfill the post-Nazi promise of “never again.” However, it continued, submitting to aggressive activists rather than protecting constitutional rights is an “alarming signal” and a threat to a free, democratic society.
Morris, one of Israel’s leading public intellectuals, was scheduled to deliver a lecture about extremism and the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, in which the Jewish state secured its independence, at the university on Thursday as part of a lecture series on antisemitism.
However, the school released a statement this past Friday announcing that it had canceled the planned event, citing protests over the lecture and what it described as security concerns.
“Our invitation to Prof. Morris was motivated by the desire to talk about his earlier work, which has had a profound impact on historical research, the university said in its statement. “Unfortunately, Prof. Morris has recently expressed views in interviews and discussions that can be read as offensive and even racist. This has led to understandable, but frightening in nature, protests from individual student groups.”
The University of Leipzig did not elaborate on any specific comments by Morris, whose works include the seminal study The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, first published in 1988, and made a point of noting it did not endorse the historian’s views.
“In principle, inviting speakers to the university does not necessarily mean that we agree with their views, and we firmly distance ourselves from Prof. Morris’ controversial statements,” the school said. “The purpose of the event with him was to engage critically, not to endorse his theses or later statements. In our opinion, science thrives through the exchange of diverse ideas, including those that are challenging or uncomfortable. We trust that our students are able to engage constructively and critically with the guest speaker.”
Various groups including Students for Palestine Leipzig had called for the lecture to be canceled, arguing Morris — who has expressed political opinions associated with both the left and the right — held “deeply racist” views against Palestinians.
“Together with security concerns, the above points mean that Prof. Benny Morris’ lecture will not take place,” the university stated.
Morris, 75, told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that the decision to cancel the lecture was “disgraceful, especially since it resulted from fear of potential violence by students. It is sheer cowardice and appeasement.”
Despite canceling Morris’ lecture, the University of Leipzig expressed concern about the increased efforts to boycott and marginalize Israeli scholars because they are from the world’s lone Jewish state.
“Regardless of this case, we want to express our concern that a double standard is being established that is being applied to Israeli scholars, who are increasingly marginalized and excluded from events under the pretext of political differences of opinion, while other voices are given unhindered access to the university,” the university said. “This applies, for example, in Leipzig to events by colleagues who are close to the BDS movement, which is classified as a suspected extremist case in Germany. We are far from establishing a culture of cancellations, but the possibility should remain open to be able to discuss difficult and critical voices from both sides in a tough manner.”
The Algemeiner has reported extensively on wide-ranging efforts across academia to exclude Israeli scholars and institutions in accordance with the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to isolate Israel from the international community as a step toward its eventual elimination.
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Australia Backs UN Resolution Calling for Israel to Pull Out From Gaza, West Bank in Major Policy Shift
Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Penny Wong during Question Time in the Senate chamber at Parliament House in Canberra, Nov. 28, 2024. Photo: AAP Image/Mick Tsikas via Reuters Connect
Australia on Tuesday voted in favor of a UN General Assembly resolution calling on Israel to withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza, breaking a two-decade pattern of opposing such a measure.
The resolution passed by a vote of 157-8 vote, with Israel and the United States voting no and seven abstentions.
In the measure, the General Assembly called for a two-state solution to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “based on the pre-1967 borders,” as well as a peace conference in New York next year, co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia, to advance diplomatic efforts in making the two-state solution a reality.
The resolution characterized Israel as an “occupying power,” demanding the Jewish state end its presence in Gaza, the West Bank, and eastern Jerusalem — areas described as “Occupied Palestinian Territory.” It also called on the UN to recognize the “inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, primarily the right to self-determination and the right to their independent state.”
Australia has not voted for such a measure at the UN since 2001. However, Australia’s Ambassador to the UN James Larsen and a spokesperson for Foreign Minister Penny Wong both said in statements that Tuesday’s vote was meant to work toward peace in the Middle East and a two-state solution. Wong previously called on Israel to “exercise restraint” on Oct. 7, 2023, the day of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.
Australian Opposition Leader Peter Dutton blasted the government’s decision to support the UN resolution, accusing Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of “selling out” the Jewish community and “abandoning Israel” for electoral purposes.
“The best we can do for peace in the Middle East is defeat Hamas and Hezbollah and make sure their proxy in Iran does not strike with nuclear weapons, or through the Houthis, or others they are finding because innocent women and children are losing their lives,” he told reporters in Sydney.
The vote came amid already flaring tensions between Israel and Australia.
On Monday, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar summoned Australia’s Ambassador to Israel, Ralph King, for an official reprimand following Canberra’s decision not to grant Israel’s former Justice Minister, Ayelet Shaked, a visa to enter the country last month.
Saar charged that the decision to prohibit Shaked from visiting Australia was based on “baseless blood libels spread by the pro-Palestinian lobby.”
Australian Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke explained that his decision to refuse Shaked’s visa application was rooted in concerns that she would “seriously undermine social cohesion” by speaking about the war in the Middle East, noting her past comments about Palestinians.
Meanwhile, antisemitism in Australia has surged following Hamas’s Oct. 7 onslaught, amid the ensuing war in Gaza.
Antisemitism in Australia quadrupled to record levels over the past year, with Australian Jews experiencing more than 2,000 antisemitic incidents between October 2023 and September 2024, according to a new report published by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), an organization that advocates upholding the civil rights of the country’s some 120,000 Jewish citizens. In many cases, antisemitic incidents were fueled by anti-Israel animus.
Daniel Aghion, president of ECAJ, lambasted Australia’s latest UN vote in comments reported by the Sydney Morning Herald.
“This is a shameless pursuit of a domestic political agenda that puts [the ruling Labor Party’s] aspirations in vulnerable seats ahead of historic and principled support for a democratic ally,” he said, referring to Australia’s upcoming elections this spring. “For some time now, this government has been chipping away at bipartisan support for Israel and a negotiated end to the conflict. After this latest significant shift, there is very little left.”
David Taragin is a writer based in New York.
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