Shortly after I graduated from Swarthmore College, it became the first campus to formally break with Hillel International. The campus Jewish organization began, instead, to call themselves an “Open Hillel,” then rebranded entirely after the parent organization threatened legal action over a civil rights panel it deemed too critical of Israel.

Swarthmore Jewish students lost the name, but they kept their integrity. Jewish students at Middlebury just faced the same question. They answered it the same way. And they were right to do so.

What happened in Vermont is not just a local story about one campus organization. It is a story about a deep contradiction at the heart of Hillel International — one that the organization may no longer be able to sustain.

Hillel presents itself, publicly and forcefully, as the Jewish student organization at colleges and universities across the United States. It’s the home of Jewish campus life, where Jewish students celebrate the High Holidays, eat kosher meals, light Hanukkah candles and gather for Shabbat. It describes itself as the world’s largest Jewish campus organization, serving nearly 200,000 students at more than 850 colleges and universities. It is, at many of those colleges, the only such institution that exists.

Precisely because of that monopoly position, Hillel and its allies have argued — with some justification — that protests targeting Hillel are a form of antisemitism. To make Jewish students feel unwelcome at the one place on campus where they can observe their religious obligations, they argue, is to attack Jewish students as Jews, not merely to criticize a political organization.

That argument has real force. Jewish students deserve to celebrate their holidays without running a political gauntlet. No one should have to defend their views on the West Bank occupation before they can get a bowl of matzo ball soup.

But the problem is that Hillel is also an explicitly political organization. And as such, it should be fair game for protesters.

Hillel International has a mandatory political line that all affiliated chapters must enforce: Its guidelines declare that Hillel is “steadfastly committed to the support of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state,” and campus chapters are prohibited from partnering with or hosting any group or individual that supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, “delegitimizes” Israel by Hillel’s own definition, or questions Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.

When the Middlebury Jewish students met with Hillel International representatives, they were told that board members must universally adopt the organization’s political values about Israel. Universally. There is no asterisk, no opt-out, no room for the challenging pluralism of Jewish life in 2026.

This, from an organization that recently used imagery showing the entire territory from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea as part of Israel, without distinguishing the West Bank and Gaza.

This is not a neutral cultural position. It is a political one, and a fairly aggressive one at that. Hillel sends students on trips to Israel through Birthright and similar programs and received $22 million from a $66 million Israeli government initiative called Mosaic International to promote pro-Israel sentiment in the U.S. These are choices a political organization makes.

So which is it? Is Hillel a cultural and religious organization that provides communal Jewish life for all students, in which case it has no business enforcing political litmus tests? Or is it a politically committed advocacy organization with a defined ideological position — in which case it cannot claim special immunity from protest on the grounds that criticizing it means attacking Jewish students’ ability to celebrate Passover?

The answer, uncomfortable as it is, is that Hillel is both. For students like those at Middlebury, the tension between those two identities has become impossible to manage. I suspect more will soon follow their lead.

This contradiction matters now more than ever, because the American Jewish community is changing.

A major recent survey by the Jewish Federations of North America found that 14% of Jews ages 18 to 34 identify as anti-Zionist. Even among younger Jews who support Israel’s existence, the survey found, less than half agreed that Israel makes them feel proud to be Jewish. The Jewish Electorate Institute’s most recent survey found that only about a third of American Jews self-identify as Zionist. As the government of Israel moves further and further to the right, the divide between American Jews and the state of Israel is only likely to grow.

Under current Hillel rules, the meaningful and growing number of Jewish students who identify as non-Zionist or anti-Zionist are effectively excluded. If they choose to participate, they are required to keep their politics at the door — but the organization doesn’t require the same of itself.

The Middlebury case illustrates the absurdity with unusual clarity.

The students’ discomfort with Hillel International began, they explained, after a November 2023 challah sale raised $656 for World Central Kitchen, an organization that provides food relief in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. That act of simple, universalist charity created friction with the chapter’s parent body. Co-president Caroline Jaffe put the stakes plainly: “How are we ever going to get to peace in Israel and Palestine if we can’t even have a Middlebury Jewish group and a Middlebury SJP” — Students for Justice in Palestine — “talk to each other in Vermont, pretty much as far removed as you could be?”

That should not be a radical question.

The solution is not to try to reform Hillel International from within; that project has been tried repeatedly, by the Open Hillel movement and others, and the structural incentives against change are too powerful. The solution is instead what the Middlebury students are pointing toward: decentralization.

Political pluralism within Jewish campus life is not a threat to Jewish students. It is a reflection of the actual diversity of Jewish opinion, which surveys consistently show to be far wider than Hillel International’s guidelines allow. An American Jewish community that can only cohere by suppressing internal dissent is far more fragile than one that has learned to argue openly and remain in relationship. The students at Middlebury, by renaming themselves the Jewish Association of Middlebury and insisting on a more pluralistic identity, are not abandoning Jewish community. They are building a community that is more honest about what it is and who it is for.

I remember the moment at Swarthmore when Jewish students stopped asking permission and started asking a different question: not “what will Hillel International allow?” but “what do our Jewish students actually need?” The answer turned out to be more interesting, more contested, and, in its way, more Jewish than anything the guidelines had room for.

The post The profound internal contradiction that could spell doom for Hillel appeared first on The Forward.

US President Donald Trump takes part in a charter announcement for his Board of Peace initiative aimed at resolving global conflicts, alongside the 56th annual World Economic Forum (WEF), in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 22, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse

The US is considering asking Israel to give some tax money it is withholding from the Palestinian Authority to Donald Trump’s Board of Peace to fund the US president’s post-war plan for Gaza, five sources familiar with the matter said.

The Trump administration has not yet decided whether to make a formal request to Israel, said three of the sources, officials with knowledge of US deliberations with Israel.

The two other sources, Palestinians with knowledge of the deliberations, said that under the proposal a portion of the tax money would go to a US-backed transitional government for Gaza and other funds to the PA if it makes reforms.

The PA puts the amount of tax being withheld at $5 billion.

The prospect of the Palestinians’ own tax money being repurposed toward Trump’s Gaza rebuilding plan, over which their government has had no input, could further sideline the Western-backed PA even as Israel‘s withholding of the funds begets a financial crisis in the West Bank.

The PA exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank but has not had any sway over Gaza since it was exiled from the territory after a brief civil war with terrorist group Hamas in 2007.

Trump’s plan for Gaza, shattered after more than two years of war, has been held up by a refusal by Hamas to lay down their weapons.

‘MONEY HELD IN A BANK DOES NOTHING’

The Board of Peace declined to comment on whether a proposal to use Palestinian tax money was under consideration.

A Board official said it had asked all parties to leverage resources to support Trump’s rebuild plan, estimated to cost $70 billion.

“That includes the Palestinian Authority and Israel. There is no doubt that money held in a bank does nothing to further the President’s 20-Point Plan,” the official said.

That appeared to refer to the PA tax revenue that Israel has withheld from the body in a long-running dispute over payments it makes to Palestinians and their families for carrying out terrorist attacks against Israelis.

Under this policy, official payments are made to Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, the families of “martyrs” killed in attacks on Israelis, and Palestinians injured in terrorist attacks.

Reports estimate that approximately 8 percent of the PA’s budget has been allocated to paying stipends to convicted terrorists and their families.

Israel collects taxes on imported goods on behalf of the PA and is meant to transfer the revenue under a longstanding arrangement. The PA is supposed to use the funds to pay civil servants and fund public services.

The sources did not say how much of the tax money Washington was considering asking Israel to transfer to the Board.

The US State Department, Israeli government, and PA did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The US and Israel have long pressured the PA to abolish payments to Palestinian prisoners and families of those killed by Israeli forces, arguing it encourages violence.

In response to US pressure, the PA in February 2025 said it was reforming the payment system, but the US said those changes did not go far enough. As punishment, Israel has withheld taxes it collects on the PA’s behalf, an amount that Palestinian officials say has reached $5 billion – well over half of the PA’s annual budget.

That has set off a financial crisis in the West Bank, with the PA slashing salaries of thousands of civil servants.

Israel accepted a US invitation to join the Board of Peace. The PA was not invited.

Under Trump’s plan, a group of Palestinian technocrats dubbed the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza would take control of Gaza from Hamas as the terrorists lay down their weapons.

Nickolay Mladenov, Trump’s Board of Peace envoy for Gaza, said during a press conference in Jerusalem on Wednesday that reconstruction planning was in advanced stages.

“We’re doing it sector by sector. We’re costing things. We’re coordinating with donors and we’re ready to begin in earnest once the conditions allow it,” Mladenov said, without mentioning the tax issue.

A police officer stands by a cordon 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. Photo: REUTERS/Hannah McKay

The trial of a 45-year-old man charged with attempted murder over a knife attack during which two Jewish men were stabbed will take place next March, a London court heard on Friday.

Essa Suleiman, a British national who was born in Somalia, is alleged to have tried to kill two Jewish men on April 29 in north London‘s Golders Green area, which is home to a large Jewish population.

The incident was the latest in a spate of attacks targeting Jewish premises in the area, which have left Jewish communities fearing for their safety, prompting British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to vow stronger action.

Suleiman is also charged with a third count of attempted murder, relating to an unconnected incident at the home of a former acquaintance earlier the same day, and with possession of a bladed article.

He appeared at London‘s Old Bailey court on Friday and was not asked to enter pleas to any of the four charges he faces. A date of March 1, 2027, was set for his trial, and he remains in custody.