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Could a video game help combat antisemitism on college campuses?
At a time of escalating antisemitism in the online gaming community, Julia Sebastien’s upcoming PC game, StrangeLand, which explores the difficulties of Jewish life at an Ivy League college, offers an alternative: the digital game not as an agent of antisemitism, but as a bulwark against it.
“What I want players to experience with this game,” Sebastien told me over Zoom, “is the sequence of choices and trade-offs a Jewish student in a really rigorous institution has to make.”
Yet she also has a longer-term, and perhaps loftier, aim for StrangeLand: That college educators and administrators use it as a guide of sorts to Jewish student life in general, and in particular, to “antisemitism on campuses,” she said.
Still, its target audience is one you might expect — current and former Jewish students at North American colleges, who, Sebastien believes, need help communicating “to family and friends when they’re feeling too tired or burnt out by everything that’s been going on.”
Sebastien has made digital games before. Indeed, she’s had a couple, both also academic in tone, published in digital journals. (One explored the effects of burnout in academia.) But thanks to a grant from the nonprofit Maimonides Fund, StrangeLand is her most ambitious, well-funded effort yet.
It’s also a little more personal.
Sebastien grew up in what she described as a “pretty religious Jewish suburb,” a modern orthodox community in Toronto. She attended Jewish day school and was fluent in Hebrew. But she never really took to prayer, she told me, and even as a teenager she had begun to see her Jewishness as an intellectual pursuit more so than a religious one.
She stayed in Toronto for her BA at York University, but then ventured south to Cambridge, Mass., where in 2022 she got a Master’s in Learning, Design, and Technology from Harvard, before starting a PhD in media psychology at Cornell (she’s partway through).
StrangeLand is loosely based on her own experiences in the academy, though it also comprises anecdotes from dozens of other Jewish undergraduates, graduates and alumni, whom Sebastien consulted via a survey. Players will “inhabit the life of a Jewish student who has just left home to start graduate school at an Ivy League university, sometime in the 2010s,” she said. There, they’ll be presented with a series of scenarios, organized thematically.
These scenarios will be “evergreen” Jewish student dilemmas: negotiating obligations around Jewish holidays alongside the traditional academic calendar; staying late at a laboratory on a Friday night versus leaving to meet other Jewish students for Shabbat dinner. And some will have a grain of antisemitism, at least according to Sebastien: how to respond to an off-color remark in a social setting, say, or whether or not to wear a Magen David necklace in public.
There’s no winning or losing, per se. Rather, StrangeLand will aim to illustrate the “impossibility of satisfying the demands of these two worlds; that, really, is the crux of the gameplay,” Sebastien said.
Notably absent from StrangeLand, however, are Zionism and Israel, the very topics that have elevated the Jewish collegiate experience to something of a national issue. Their omission is no accident. “I’m not trying to shine a light on what’s happening now,” Sebastien said. “I’m trying to educate people about antisemitism.”
And to include such divisive subjects wouldn’t help Sebastien fulfill this aim, she feels. “As a designer, I need to consider the very real possibility that for some players, StrangeLand might be their first exposure to antisemitism as a distinct concept,” she said. “And I feel that the best way to bring antisemitism awareness to diverse audiences is to use examples that are clear, universal, and evergreen.”
These hot-button issues, moreover, would seriously upset the vibe Sebastien is going for. “I actually don’t want characters in the game shouting horrific things,” she said. “I don’t want to jar the player. I want to explore concepts in a safe way that can still be emotionally poignant and meaningful and educational.”
The game will have a retro feel, then, a lo-fi aesthetic — the heavily-pixelated, Game Boy-style gameplay that Sebastien adored as a child — which she’s confident will reinforce these feelings of comfort and safety. (She cited Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin’s best-selling 2022 novel about a pair of Jewish, Harvard-educated video game developers in the ‘90s, as one of the game’s inspirations.)
In short, Sebastien wants StrangeLand to be a respite from the pressures of campus life, while at the same time illuminating, especially for those non-Jewish players, the complexities of the Jewish student experience.
How it can accomplish this without meaningfully discussing Zionism is an open question. To my mind, StrangeLand seems to be as much a work of history as anything else. The antisemitism Sebastien repeatedly referenced during our conversation was of the classical U.S. variety, the WASP-y strain of the 1960s and 1970s often found in Roth and Bellow novels. Nowadays, of course, discussions about campus antisemitism are typically focused on something else entirely. So it’s a little hard to square Sebastien’s broader goal for StrangeLand, that it eventually be part of DEI curricula, with its lack of contemporary examples.
But Sebastien is confident players will leave StrangeLand with a more complete understanding of Jewish student life. “I want this to speak to and for Jewish students now and in the past,” she said. “That’s what this game is to me.”
The post Could a video game help combat antisemitism on college campuses? appeared first on The Forward.
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Former UPenn President, Who Resigned in Disgrace Amid Antisemitism Crisis, Hired as Dean of Georgetown Law
Former University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill at the US Capitol, in Washington, DC, on Dec. 5, 2023. Photo: Graeme Sloan/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect.
Georgetown University in Washington DC has hired Liz Magill, the former president of the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) who resigned in disgrace amid backlash over her handling of antisemitism on campus, as the new dean and executive vice president of its law school.
“We are honored to welcome Liz Magill as the new dean of Georgetown Law,” interim Georgetown president Robert M. Groves said in a statement. “Liz is the right person to lead Georgetown law. She is a distinguished legal scholar and an accomplished administrator who brings a values-driven vision to Georgetown Law. We are excited to see her take the herm and join our vibrant community.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Magill’s resignation from Penn in December 2023 followed growing calls from donors, students, and university leaders, as well as US lawmakers, for her to step down after refusing to say during a US congressional hearing that calling for the genocide of Jews would not constitute a violation of school rules. Instead, she argued, the question of whether to punish a student for such a genocidal call would be a “context-dependent decision.”
The statement precipitated a scandal which led to Penn’s losing the philanthropic support of many its most generous donors and being denounced across the country for its handling of campus antisemitism.
Magill resigned from the office three days after the gaffe.
Then in August 2024, Harvard University hired Magill as a visiting fellow, and she also signed a three-year contract with the London School of Economics to teach as a visiting professor.
As president of Penn, Magill had several opportunities throughout her tenure at Penn to denounce hateful, even conspiratorial, rhetoric directed at both Israel and the Jewish community. However, Magill repeatedly declined to respond to the mounting incidents of antisemitism, especially anti-Zionism, on campus, according to an analysis by The Algemeiner of public statements she had issued since July 2022, when she assumed the presidency at Penn.
Only once did she comment on issues of race and identity, addressing in June 2023 the US Supreme Court’s restricting of race-conscious admissions programs through affirmative action. Up to that point, her public statements were limited to discussing climate change and marginal university business despite an anti-Zionist group, Penn Students Against the Occupation (PAO), regularly distributing literature blaming Jews for the world’s social problems and inviting to campus a speaker, Mohammed El-Kurd, who accused Israel of harvesting Palestinians’ organs.
Even the school’s hosting known antisemites at the “Palestine Writes Literature Festival,” which took place on campus from Sept. 22-24 in 2023, did not immediately move her to address antisemitism. When she did, she defended the event — whose itinerary listed speakers such as Palestinian researcher Salman Abu Sitta, who previously said during an interview that “Jews were hated in Europe because they played a role in the destruction of the economy in some of the countries, so they would hate them” — as an expression of free speech rather than cancel it and protect the university from extremists whose intellectual credentials were suspect and whose utterances violated principles of “diversity and inclusion” the school purported to uphold.
Georgetown’s decision to hire Magill comes at a time when the school is facing scrutiny over its foreign funding, which, according to experts, could impact how the school approaches antisemitic discrimination, anti-Zionist extremism, and classroom discussions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
A new report released in January by the Middle East Forum, a prominent US-based think tank, describes how Qatar has allegedly exploited and manipulated Georgetown since 2005 by hooking the school on money that buys influence, promotes Islamism, and degrades the curricula of one of the most recognized names in American higher education.
“The unchecked funds provided by Qatar demonstrate how foreign countries can shape scholarship, faculty recruitment, and teaching in our universities to reflect their preferences,” the report says. “At Georgetown, courses and research show growing ideological drift toward post-colonial scholarship, anti-Western critiques, and anti-Israel advocacy, with some faculty engaged in political activism related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or anti-Western interventionism.”
Georgetown is hardly the only school to receive Qatari money. Indeed, Qatar is the single largest foreign source of funding to American colleges and universities, according to a newly launched public database from the US Department of Education that reveals the scope of overseas influence in US higher education.
The federal dashboard shows Qatar has provided $6.6 billion in gifts and contracts to US universities, more than any other foreign government or entity. Of the schools that received Qatari money, Cornell University topped the list with $2.3 billion, followed by Carnegie Mellon University ($1 billion), Texas A&M University ($992.8 million), and Georgetown ($971.1 million).
“Qatar has proved highly adept at compromising individuals and institutions with cold hard cash,” MEF Campus Watch director Winfield Myers said in a statement. “But with Georgetown, it found a recipient already eager to do Doha’s bidding to advance Islamist goals at home and abroad. It was a natural fit.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Jewish Women Expelled From Madrid Museum After Antisemitic Harassment, Sparking Outrage
Illustrative: Anti-Israel demonstrators release smoke in the colors of the Palestinian flag as they protest to condemn the Israeli forces’ interception of some of the vessels of the Global Sumud Flotilla aiming to reach Gaza and break Israel’s naval blockade, in Barcelona, Spain, Oct. 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Nacho Doce
Three elderly Jewish women, including a Holocaust survivor, were forced to leave a national museum in Madrid on Saturday after being verbally harassed for openly displaying Jewish symbols, with officials now facing mounting backlash for shielding the aggressors rather than the victims.
First reported by the Spanish news outlet Okdiario, the three women were visiting the National Museum Reina Sofía in central Madrid when other visitors spotted them wearing a Star of David necklace and carrying a small Israeli flag.
At that point, a group of people started attacking them verbally, shouting antisemitic insults and calling them “crazy child killers.”
Rather than intervening against the instigators, museum officials expelled the Israeli women, telling them to leave because “some visitors were disturbed that they are Jewish.”
A security guard also told the group to hide their Jewish symbols, insisting they could not be displayed inside the museum.
Even though one of them pointed out that Spanish law allows people to wear religious symbols and carry national flags in public institutions, they were still forcibly removed from the building despite not breaking any rules.
The incident has sparked public outrage, with museum personnel leaving the victims even more exposed and vulnerable, and no action taken against those who hurled insults and provoked the disruption.
As a state-affiliated cultural institution under Spain’s Culture Ministry, the Reina Sofía is internationally recognized as one of the country’s leading contemporary art museums.
In the past, the museum has also faced criticism for hosting anti-Israel demonstrations and presenting an exhibition titled “From the River to the Sea,” a popular slogan among pro-Palestinian activists that has been widely interpreted as a genocidal call for the destruction of the Jewish state, which is located between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea
The European Jewish Congress (EJC) strongly condemned the latest incident at the museum, calling it “deeply troubling and unacceptable,” and urged authorities to take immediate steps to protect Jewish visitors and ensure such harassment does not happen again.
“Instead of protecting those subjected to antisemitic abuse, the apparent decision to remove the victims raises serious concerns about discrimination within a public cultural institution,” EJC wrote in a post on X.
“Jewish identity must never become grounds for exclusion. Such conduct demands full clarification, clear accountability, and decisive action to ensure that antisemitism is confronted without ambiguity,” the statement read.
The expulsion of three elderly Israeli visitors, including a Holocaust survivor, from Madrid’s Reina Sofía museum after they were insulted as “child killers” and targeted for displaying Jewish symbols is deeply troubling and unacceptable.
The women were reportedly asked to leave… pic.twitter.com/KA9UixCYvz
— European Jewish Congress (@eurojewcong) February 16, 2026
The Action and Communication on the Middle East (ACOM) group, a leading pro-Israel organization in Spain, also condemned the incident and announced it will pursue legal action against the Museum Reina Sofía, alleging discrimination and the promotion of hate from a public institution.
“The legal action will be directed both at the institution and its top official, the museum director, Manuel Segade,” ACOM wrote in a post on X, adding that the museum’s actions reflect “a persistent pattern of using political agendas, engaging in discrimination, and promoting narratives of hate against the State of Israel and the Jewish-Israeli community from a publicly funded institution.”
“A public institution should never be used as a platform for sectarian activism,” the statement continued.
ACOM emprenderá acciones legales contra el Museo Reina Sofía por discriminación y posible promoción de odio desde una institución pública
ACOM anuncia que emprenderá acciones legales contra el Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía ante lo que considera una conducta…
— Acción y Comunicación sobre Oriente Medio – ACOM (@ACOM_es) February 16, 2026
Like most countries across Europe and the broader Western world, Spain has seen a rise in antisemitic incidents over the last two years, in the wake of the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Still, Spain stands out as one of the most extreme cases, with experts warning that antisemitic violence and anti-Zionist rhetoric have moved beyond a social phenomenon to, in many instances, being state-promoted and legitimized as a political tool.
In particular, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and several members of his left-wing party have come under mounting criticism from the country’s political and Jewish leaders, who accuse them of fueling antisemitic hostility.
Sánchez has repeatedly issued pro-Hamas statements, falsely accusing Israel of “genocide” and of violating international law in its defensive war against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
“Protecting your country and your society is one thing, but bombing hospitals and killing innocent boys and girls with hunger is another thing entirely,” the Spanish leader said during a televised speech last year.
“That isn’t defending yourself – that’s not even attacking. It’s exterminating defenseless people. It’s breaking all the rules of humanitarian law,” he said.
Sánchez has also voiced solidarity with the “Palestinian people and their cause,” while praising anti-Israel demonstrations for championing what he called “just causes.”
Across the country, political leaders have accused Sánchez of exploiting the war in Gaza to deflect attention from his corruption scandals, recent electoral losses, and growing public dissatisfaction with his government.
According to the Spanish Observatory of Antisemitism, antisemitic incidents in Spain have surged by 567 percent from 2022 to 2024, with the trend expected to have continued into last year.
Since the start of the war in Gaza, Spain has launched a fierce anti-Israel campaign aimed at undermining and isolating the Jewish state on the international stage.
In September, the Spanish government passed a law to take “urgent measures to stop the genocide in Gaza,” banning trade in defense material and dual-use products from Israel, as well as imports and advertising of products originating from Israeli settlements.
Spanish officials also announced that they would bar entry to individuals involved in what they called a “genocide against Palestinians” and block Israel-bound ships and aircraft carrying weapons from Spanish ports and airspace.
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Olympic Store Worker Fired After Repeatedly Calling Out ‘Free Palestine’ to Israel Sports Fans
Milano Cortina 2026 Olympics – Bobsleigh – 2-man Heat 2 – Cortina Sliding Centre, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy – February 16, 2026. Adam Edelman of Israel and Menachem Chen of Israel react after their run. Photo: REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha
An employee at an official store for the 2026 Milano Cortina Olympics in Italy has been fired after repeatedly called out “Free Palestine” to a group of Israeli sports fans, Olympic organizers said on Sunday in a statement to Reuters.
Milano Cortina Games organizers said in a statement they have taken action to maintain “a neutral, respectful, and welcoming environment” at the Olympics. They said the incident took place inside the official shop at the Cortina Sliding Center, the venue that is hosting bobsled, luge, and skeleton during the Winter Games this year. Israel competed in skeleton last week, among other sports, and its bobsled team had their first Olympic competition on Monday.
“It is not appropriate for Games staff or contractors to express personal political views while carrying out their duties or to direct such remarks at visitors,” Olympic organizers added about the incident. “Those involved were reassured, and the individual concerned was removed from the shift.”
The store employee was identified as Ali Mohamed Hassan, according to StopAntisemitism. On Friday, the watchdog organization shared on Instagram a video of the confrontation and said it took place earlier that same day.
The clip shows a woman inside an official Olympic retail store filming Hassan as she says, “What were you saying? Say it again.” Hassan is then heard repeatedly saying, “Free Palestine.”
“This is the Olympics. Israel is allowed to compete just like any other country; It’s not controversial; it’s not rage bait,” the woman who is filming tells Hassan in the clip, as he repeatedly says “Free Palestine.”
“OK, good for you, you did it, you freed Palestine, good job,” the woman tells Hassan before leaving the store.
“Police were called and a harassment investigation has been started, with possible charges forthcoming,” StopAntisemitism claimed in the caption for the video.
Israel has 10 athletes competing in the Milan Cortina Olympics. On Monday, AJ Edelman and Menachem Chen finished in last place out of 26 sleds in the two-man bobsled race. Edelman will be the pilot of his bobsled team when they compete in the four-man event later this week.