Your Daily Phil: The kids are not all right: Campus antisemitism still rampant, AJC-Hillel find
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In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we examine additional data about antisemitism on college campuses collected by American Jewish Committee in partnership with Hillel International for the annual “State of Antisemitism in America” report. We cover a summit on the intersection of religion and sports held last week at Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, and we report on Startup Nation Central’s new strategic shift toward “innovation diplomacy” as well as an upcoming vote by members of the International Federation of Social Workers to expel their Israeli colleagues. We feature an opinion piece by Betsy Berns Korn and William Daroff as the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations holds its latest Israel mission; Gil Preuss and Ted Sasson reflect on how Zionist-identifying communal organizations should respond to recent data about American Jewish attitudes toward Zionism; and Avi S. Olitzky spotlights a story from the corporate world with a lesson for the nonprofit sector. Also in this issue: Dasha Zhukova, Francine Klagsbrun and Joanne Greenaway.
What We’re Watching
The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations is continuing its annual mission to Israel, which began on Sunday.
Israel’s High Court of Justice held a hearing on the long-stalled Western Wall Compromise today. A ruling is expected in the coming days.
What You Should Know
Though antisemitism on college campuses is no longer the featured story on the nightly news, according to data on college antisemitism that was collected as part of the American Jewish Committee’s annual “State of Antisemitism in America 2025 Report” and shared exclusively with eJewishPhilanthropy ahead of its publication today, a larger percentage of Jewish college students report having experienced antisemitism than ever before.
According to Adam Lehman, president and CEO of Hillel International, which co-conducted the student section of the report, antisemitism is shifting away from the campus courtyards and quads and becoming weaponized in a more targeted and private way. For instance, Hillel has fielded reports of professors lowering grades due to students’ views on Israel, swastikas scrawled on dorm room doors and students excluded from a cappella groups due to their beliefs. Yet students are still thriving, Lehman stressed.
The study showed that 42% of respondents reported experiencing antisemitism during their time as a college or university student, compared to 35% in last year’s report. Of those students who experienced it, 55% said they had felt uncomfortable or unsafe at a campus event because of their Jewish identity, and 60% said that they avoided wearing, carrying or displaying things that would identify them as Jewish because of antisemitism. Nearly 7 in 10 (68%) of students who had experienced antisemitism also said that they avoided expressing their views on Israel on campus or with classmates because of fears or antisemitism.
“We’re very grateful for the improved efforts of university administrators to implement time, place and data restrictions and to get much more serious about enforcing their content-neutral codes of conduct,” Lehman told eJewishPhilanthropy, “but we still have a lot of work to do to return campus to a safer, more welcoming environment for Jewish students.”
Between 2023 and 2025, Harvard, Columbia, Cornell and the University of Pennsylvania have watched their Jewish population decrease by 3-5%. Increasingly, Jewish students are enrolling in universities in the Southeast and Southwest, at schools that have not traditionally been viewed as being Jewish hubs, including Southern Methodist University, near Dallas, and Auburn University, in Alabama, tripling their number of Jewish students. “The realignment is going to change the map of schools that Jewish students and families prioritize and choose,” Lehman said. Because of this, Hillels are increasing their engagement at schools with growing Jewish populations, while working to improve the experience for Jews at schools with troubling track records.
Overall, a third of all respondents said that they have avoided displaying or wearing things that would identify them as Jewish, 32% felt that some campus activities have promoted antisemitism or cultivated hostile environments for Jews, and a quarter reported that they felt excluded from an event or group because of their identity. Of the students who reported not having experienced campus antisemitism, only 9% of respondents felt unsafe at campus events due to their identity, only 16% avoided wearing or displaying Jewish symbols and only 17% stifled their views on Israel due to fear of antisemitism.
“We always have to view these statistics in the broader context of Jewish life on campus,” Lehman said. “Even at schools where we have continued to see recurring or one off instances of harassment or discrimination, we also are often seeing very high levels of engagement in Jewish life through Hillel or other institutions and Jewish students who are leading on their campuses [and] Jewish communities more broadly, who are engaging in community service, who are pursuing bridge building and dialogue across difference. They are not victims. They are working to make their campuses the kind of places that they believe they deserve and that other students who will follow deserve.”
LOVE (OF GOD) AND BASKETBALL
L.A.’s Sinai Temple hosts top athletes for summit exploring the connections between faith and sports
When Rabbi Erez Sherman, co-head rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, began calling potential partners about an unorthodox idea — a summit exploring how sports and faith could help push back against rising division and hate — the response was immediate. They all said “Yes.” Nine months later, the summit finally came to fruition under the title: “FCS: Faith. Connection. Sport.” Last Thursday, as the sports world gathered in Los Angeles for NBA All-Star weekend, dozens of participants arrived at Sinai Temple for six hours of conversations about the intersection of sports and faith, and what truly defines us, reports Ayala Or-El for eJewishPhilanthropy from the event.
No competition: Sherman, the son of a rabbi, grew up in Syracuse, N.Y., and played basketball in his youth. While balancing religious life and sports can be challenging, Sherman said he learned early on that he didn’t have to choose between them. “There was never a choice between faith and sports. It was never faith or sport. Never the sanctuary or the court. It was always faith and sports,” he said. Speakers included non-Jewish and Jewish sports legends and leaders such as Lisa Leslie, Eddy Curry, A.C. Green, Byron Scott, Angel McCoughtry, Bob McKillop and Tamir Goodman, the former Israeli American basketball player, dubbed the “Jewish Jordan” by Sports Illustrated.
EXCLUSIVE
Startup Nation Central refocuses on ‘innovation diplomacy’ with smaller, specialized team
Startup Nation Central, the nonprofit that connects Israel’s tech scene to the rest of the world, announced that it was scaling back its activities and staff to focus on connecting Israeli tech companies with business opportunities in the Gulf, India and U.S. states as part of a strategic pivot to “innovation diplomacy,” the organization’s board told stakeholders in a letter on Sunday, which was shared exclusively with eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross.
All grown up: In the letter, the organization’s board said that the shift comes as the Israeli economy has developed significantly in the 13 years since SNC was created and does not need the same kind of support as it did then. “Given the Israeli ecosystem’s maturity, SNC must now mature, focus, pivot and realign to continue adding value,” the board said. “To support this focused mandate, SNC will operate with a smaller, more specialized team. This was not an easy decision, but we believe it is necessary to move SNC forward.” According to the Israeli financial newspaper Globes, which first reported on the layoffs, 65 of SNC’s 80 employees are expected to be terminated.
UNITED FRONT
Jewish social workers urge international body against expelling Israel
The largest global membership organization for social workers from around the world will vote on Wednesday on whether to expel Israel’s leading social work body, sparking a feverish advocacy campaign by Jewish and Israeli practitioners to urge members to vote against the measure. The vote by the International Federation of Social Workers is scheduled for Feb. 18, and it comes after several members in the IFSW complained that some Israeli social workers served in combat roles in the Israel Defense Forces during Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. The IFSW alleges that military service violates social workers’ professional and ethical commitments to nonviolence, reports Gabby Deutch for eJewishPhilanthropy’s sister publication Jewish Insider.
Their position: The Israeli Union of Social Workers — and its allies in the United States and Canada — argue that such a request ignores Israel’s mandatory draft policy, holds Israel to a different standard from other member nations and singles out the only Jewish state. The leader of the Israeli body said it would be “entirely unimaginable” for Israeli social workers to ask not to serve in combat, noting that it would come across as “elitist” and “mark our union as illegitimate in the eyes of both the government and the public.”
Read the full report here and sign up for Jewish Insider’s Daily Kickoff here.
BOTTLING THE UNITY
Sustaining civility in a season of choice
“This week, we lead a mission of 70 leaders from across the American Jewish spectrum to Israel,” write Betsy Berns Korn and William Daroff, the chair and the CEO, respectively, of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy. “At a moment of healing, we represent the broad center of our community, those who refuse to allow partisan anger to hollow out communal responsibility.”
From shared vulnerability to shared purpose: “We proved that we can fight for one another in moments of terror and grief. Now we must show that we can live with one another in moments of choice. The cost of failure is not abstract. A fractured community weakens our advocacy in Washington, strains our partnership with Israel and diminishes our credibility when we speak in defense of Jewish security and democratic values. … We choose to move from a unity shaped by shared vulnerability to a unity shaped by shared purpose. That purpose requires us to build a canopy broad enough to shelter the observant and the secular, the progressive and the conservative, the American and the Israeli, each bound to the same collective future.”
SURVEYS SAY
How should Jewish organizations respond to the growing criticism of Israel from inside our communities?
“[H]ow should Jewish communal organizations that define themselves as Zionist respond to the growing presence in our community of people who describe themselves as anti-Zionist or non-Zionist? How should we relate to the even more significant number of people deeply troubled with Israeli government policies and apparently uncomfortable with the term Zionist?” write Gil Preuss, CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington, and Ted Sasson, Ruderman Foundation Scholar in Residence at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University and director of Jewish studies at Middlebury College, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy.
Show organizational courage: “The kind of Zionism that American Jewish organizations embrace, that supports both a Jewish and democratic Israel, needs to be championed loudly and clearly, not abandoned. Instead of ignoring the challenge, or abandoning the term Zionism, we believe Jewish organizations should double down on practicing and modeling the kind of expansive Zionism and inclusive Jewish community we purport to embrace. … [W]hatever meanings one associates with the term, Zionism has always served as shorthand for a belief in and commitment to Jewish agency. We can help people tap into this energy and find their place in the story of Jewish Peoplehood and Jewish communal life by demonstrating organizational courage and making space for questions, debate and understanding.”
TAKE A LESSON
When people share in the outcome, purpose becomes real
“Every so often, a business decision cuts through the noise and reminds us what leadership is supposed to look like — Delta Air Lines’ decision last month to share $1.3 billion in profits directly with employees was one of those moments,” writes Avi S. Olitzky, president and principal consultant of Olitzky Consulting Group, in an opinion piece for eJewishPhilanthropy. “When employees directly share in outcomes, they stop being abstract ‘labor’ and become partners in the enterprise. Accountability deepens. Pride grows. Ownership takes root. These insights matter far beyond corporate America.”
Practical application: “The lesson from Delta is not ‘pay bonuses.’ Most nonprofits cannot and should not replicate corporate compensation models. The lesson is deeper: People must be able to see themselves in the outcomes they help create. … The future will belong to organizations that understand this simple truth: Sustainability is not built by squeezing more out of people. It is built by honoring their role in the story, inviting them into the results and structuring systems that reflect what leaders claim to value.”
Worthy Reads
Give Me Counsel: In The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Alex Daniels reports on networks providing pro bono legal advice to nonprofits concerned that the focus of their work will attract the scrutiny of the Trump administration, and how some funders are responding to the need as well. “Last summer a group of large foundations said they would commit a total of $250 million to pro-democracy efforts, which would include legal defense. And a coalition of philanthropy groups that support Black, Asian American, Hispanic, and Native American people created the Racial Equity Advancement and Defense Initiative last year. … Demand for more help is strong, said Connie Chung Joe, president of Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy, one of the groups behind the fund. In its first round of funding, it received more than 470 applications that requested a total of $32.5 million. Rather than focus on risks, Chung Joe advises foundations to develop their ‘courage quotient’ and shore up the legal defenses of vulnerable nonprofits.” [ChronicleofPhilanthropy]
Hard Work: In The Forward, Louis Keene examines why some Haredi rabbis came out against artificial intelligence and how non-Haredi Jews can also appreciate their logic. “That key is the Jewish value of ????????? (ameilut), or toil. As far as Jewish values go, ameilut is an obscure one. It lacks the celebrity swagger of its better-known peers like chesed and tzedakah or the political power of tikkun olam. … For Haredim — who pronounce it ameilus — the notion that struggle can be its own reward underpins a life spent poring over sefarim in the beit midrash (and missing phone calls from the Jewish press). It follows that ChatGPT, which transforms knowledge from something developed to something consumed, is anathema to their approach. They’ve realized that making learning easy has actually made learning hard.” [Forward]
Word on the Street
Thomas Pritzker is stepping down as executive chairman of Hyatt Hotels, following the release of new documents that showed a greater connection between him and disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein than was previously known…
A new report released by the Anti-Defamation League today highlights an acceleration over the past two years in antisemitic and anti-Israel rhetoric by HispanTV, Iran’s Spanish-language state-sponsored media outlet that primarily targets Latin America, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports…
On the sidelines of the Munich Security Forum over the weekend, Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun, the State Department’s antisemitism envoy, met with Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan; elsewhere at the gathering, Alex Soros met with Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, president of the Conference of European Rabbis…
Cultured profiles fashion designer Dasha Zhukova as she pivots to real estate development with the opening of her Ray Harlem residential housing complex in New York City…
Five Canadian anti-Israel organizations have launched a new effort against Jewish summer camps in the country, calling for them to lose their accreditation over their support for Israel; the campaign has drawn fierce criticism from local Jewish leaders and camping groups…
The Times of Israel interviews author Francine Klagsbrun about her new biography on the founder of Hadassah, Henrietta Szold: Hadassah and the Zionist Dream…
The gunman in the terror attack at a Hanukkah candle-lighting event at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, made his first court appearance yesterday…
Doctors Without Borders suspended its operations at Gaza’s Nasser Hospital, citing the presence of armed individuals at the facility; two people interviewed by The Wall Street Journal said they had each been detained by Hamas in the hospital…
German shipping company Hapag-Lloyd inked a deal to purchase Haifa-based Zim Integrated Shipping Services for $4.2 billion…
An Israeli court released all of the more than two dozen Haredi men and boys who had been arrested following weekend riots in the town of Bnei Brak, where two female IDF soldiers were attacked…
Israel is moving forward with an effort that would make it easier for settlers to buy land in the West Bank’s Area C in what far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said was a move to increase settlement expansion “across all parts of our land”…
Sociologist Vicki Abt, who spoke out against sensationalist talk show programming, warning that it allowed both networks and viewers to “consume others’ misfortunes without feeling any responsibility to do anything to intervene,” died on Feb. 1 at 83…
Civil rights activist Jesse Jackson, who maintained an at-times fraught relationship with the Jewish community, died at 84…
Criminologist Alfred Blumstein, who revolutionized his field using systems theory and quantitative analysis to discover crime patterns, died last month at 95…
Major Gifts
Herb Kohl Philanthropies donated $30 million to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which will rename its music hall in honor of the late senator…
Transitions
Joanne Greenaway is stepping down as CEO of the London School of Jewish Studies in April, following seven years with the institution…
Abby Pitkowsky has joined Enter: The Jewish Peoplehood Alliance as its director of North American operations…
Keath Blatt has been named the inaugural executive director of Jewish Action Coalition, a new nonprofit focused on combating antisemitism…
Joshua Levisohn was appointed the next head of school at the Striar Hebrew Academy of Sharon, Mass.; he succeeds Rabbi Jordan Soffer, who is taking over as head of school at the Bi-Cultural Hebrew Day School in Stamford, Conn. …
Pic of the Day
Debbie Flacks uses a heavy engineering vehicle to break ground last week on Colel Chabad’s new 10-story Flacks Tower and Center. The center, to which she and her husband donated $5 million in 2024, is located near Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda market. The new facility will house Colel Chabad’s Pantry Packers, which packs boxes of food for people in need, and will also contain apartments for lone soldiers, a soup kitchen, a Center for Creative Expression for individuals with disabilities, along with classrooms and other facilities for educational programming.
“Jerusalem is the heart of the Jewish people. There is no greater place to build this center for tzedakah, benefitting the people of Israel in so many ways for decades to come,” Rabbi Zalman Duchman of Colel Chabad said in a statement. “We are deeply thankful to the Flacks Family and all those continue to make this development possible.”
Birthdays
President and CEO of MLB’s Arizona Diamondbacks, Derrick Hall turns 57…
Real estate developer and former co-owner and president of the New York Mets, Saul Katz turns 87… President of AIPAC in the early 1990s, Steven Grossman turns 80… Former executive director of American Jewish Archives and professor of Reform Jewish history, both at HUC-JIR, Gary Phillip Zola turns 74… One of the most popular Israeli basketball players of all time, Miki Berkovich turns 72… Owner of Lynn’s Photography in Beachwood, Ohio, Lynn Katz Danzig… Professor of mathematics at Princeton University, Noga Alon turns 70… Chairman of Israel’s Shas party, he has held many ministerial positions during his career, Aryeh Deri turns 67… Partner in the D.C. office of Kirkland & Ellis specializing in international trade and national security, Ivan A. Schlager turns 65… Rabbi of Khal Ahavas Yisroel Tzemach Tzedek in Baltimore and a kashrut administrator at the Star-K, Rabbi Dovid Heber… Filmmaker known for directing and producing big-budget action films including the many “Transformers” films, Michael Benjamin Bay turns 61… Executive director of American University’s Women and Politics Institute, Betsy Fischer Martin turns 56… Professor of international relations at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Sharon Pardo turns 55… Brigadier general (res.) in the IDF, he served as the chief of the Combat Engineering Corps, Oshri Lugasi turns 54… Deputy chief of the civil division at the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York and rebbetzin of New York City’s Congregation Shearith Israel, known as the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, Layaliza Klein Soloveichik… President of USA TODAY Media, Kristin Roberts… Executive director of the Kraft Center for Jewish Student Life (the Columbia / Barnard Hillel), Brian Cohen… Israeli actor, model and beauty queen who won the Miss World beauty pageant in 1998, she has since completed law school, Linor Abargil turns 46… Actor and filmmaker, with multiple roles as a child actor continuing to the present, Joseph Gordon-Levitt turns 45… Former assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, now a partner at Brunswick Group, Samantha Erin Vinograd turns 43… Director of audience and platforms at NOTUS, Dianna Heitz… Professional ice hockey defenseman for the NHL’s New York Rangers, Adam Fox turns 28… Miriam Schulman…
