I feel like I'm living in an imaginary bubble. The other day, as I was walking on campus, I saw the smiling faces of students and felt the gentle breeze of wind and sun. For a moment, I thought October 7 had never happened. Then I walked into the cafeteria for lunch, and the first thing I saw was my library liaison, engaged in a spirited discussion about Jews and October 7. My bubble burst, and I was reminded that, yes, October 7 did happen.
I can’t say that I feel unwelcome, but perhaps I’ve developed a thick skin and have stopped paying attention. I come, I teach, I leave. My students have been wonderful so far, which helps me maintain my temporary bubble, if only for a few hours while I’m there.
But it seems it's not as easy for the incoming students...Perhaps my (imagined) sense of calm suggests that I am applying coping mechanisms that could easily dissipate as I confront a daily reality.
Read how Jewish students feel…
I already felt unwelcome’: Jewish students decline admission offers to Columbia over antisemitism concerns.
Spectator spoke to six Jewish students about why they decided to turn down their offers.
By Rebecca Massel • September 23, 2024 Daily Spectator
https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2024/09/23/i-already-felt-unwelcome-jewish-students-decline-admissionoffers-to-columbia-over-antisemitism-concerns/
Some Jewish students who applied to Columbia and Barnard wrote emails to the University turning down their spots after following the news of the last academic year, speaking to friends at Columbia, and discussing with their families.
Spectator spoke to six Jewish students who were accepted to Columbia or Barnard and declined their admissions offers, citing incidents of antisemitism and on-campus protests over the war in Gaza. Each of them said that they felt that Columbia would be unwelcoming for Jewish students.
Sarit Greenwood decided to apply to Barnard after visiting the college for a weekend during her senior year of high school. The idea of a “small women’s college” with access to Columbia’s research opportunities appealed to her, Greenwood said, and she felt that her passion for feminism and social justice aligned with the Barnard student body.
After receiving her acceptance letter, Greenwood plastered her water bottle and computer with Barnard stickers. She then moved to Israel to begin her gap year, where she hoped to learn about Jewish texts and traditions. Greenwood was in Jerusalem on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas launched an attack on Israel.
During her gap year, two of Greenwood’s Jewish friends at Barnard told her not to come, she said. One of them said she had her Star of David necklace pulled off during a walk to class, and the other, who is Israeli, said her mental health had declined during the academic year. Greenwood decided to withdraw her acceptance in March.
When Greenwood saw students organize the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” in April, she said she felt validated in her decision.
“To me, the encampment was a sign of like, ‘We’re not willing to talk. We’re just going to kind of sit here until the administration gives into our demands, or until we have to be taken away by the police,’” Greenwood said. “That was upsetting to me because that’s an indication of a community that’s not willing to face these issues in a respectful dialogue.”
Instead of attending Barnard, Greenwood said she is spending the 2024-25 academic year working in the Israeli government press office through a national service program. She values the American college experience, Greenwood said, but she is looking for “discord through discourse,” which she described as “a student body that’s respectful and graceful, inclusive of differing opinions, and willing to talk it out head-on.”
Raquel Schnall initially decided to come to Barnard because it “checked all of [her] boxes,” including having a robust Jewish life. But, during the encampments and sweeps by the New York Police Department in April, Schnall remembers thinking “‘I can’t believe I’m going there right now.’” Schnall decided to defer her acceptance at Barnard and enlist in the Israeli military.
Rosh Yeshiva Rabbi Joshua Kahn, the dean of Jewish high school Torah Academy of Bergen County, sent out a letter to the school’s community in October 2023, writing that for university representatives to recruit at the institution, they must provide 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.”
“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,” Kahn wrote.
By the planned time of the school’s annual college fair in May, Kahn had decided to cancel the event altogether.
“It felt tone-deaf to end up having these colleges in which our students were literally not able to access areas, and then to bring those colleges into us didn’t feel right,” Kahn said. “We felt that it would not have been a program that served the interest of what we’re trying to do.”
University spokesperson Samantha Slater wrote in a statement to Spectator that the “spike in antisemitism on our campus, around the country and around the world is serious” and that the University is “committed to sustained, concrete action to make Columbia a community where Jewish students and everyone feel safe, valued and are able to thrive.”
“At the same time, we are proud of Columbia’s vibrant Jewish community and the many opportunities Jewish students have to partake in both formal areas of study and informal and extracurricular activities to both celebrate and strengthen their identity,” Slater wrote.
Eden Shaveet, an Israeli-American student, graduated in 2024 from Columbia’s Bridge to the Ph.D. Program in STEM, a two-year program designed for students who have faced barriers to entering graduate programs. Shaveet was the first student to be accepted into the program for the computer science department.
“There were points where I was challenged academically, socially, professionally, but in the ways that I wanted to be challenged, in the ways that I expected to be challenged by Columbia,” Shaveet said.
By fall 2023, Shaveet said she found her footing and decided that if Columbia gave her the Ph.D. offer after her second year, she would accept.
Soon after Oct. 7, her experience started to change. Shaveet was troubled by a sense of exclusion at Columbia, describing the messaging of some signs around campus as a “systematic exclusion of people who they term ‘Zionist.’”
“But really, they were talking about us. They were talking about Israeli students,” Shaveet said.
After several months of attempting to cover her Hebrew tattoo when walking on campus and avoiding campus whenever possible, Shaveet reconsidered her decision to accept a position if offered. In April, she declined her return offer.
Shaveet said that since deciding not to accept the offer, many other Israelis have reached out on LinkedIn and Instagram, asking for advice as to whether or not to apply to Columbia.
“The fact that I’m Israeli, Jewish, and Levantine are not things that I can control and [are] not things that they can control. We can’t change our genetics, but at the end of the day, we can change our environments,” Shaveet said. “I had to value myself and my work enough to find a home that valued us back. And, it became clear to me last year that Columbia was no longer that place.”
Another Jewish student, Rebecca Bubis, was accepted to a master’s program in the School of Engineering and Applied Science. While there were similar protests at other schools she had been accepted to, she said that at Columbia, the pro-Palestinian protests were “getting in the way of the academics” and created safety concerns for Jewish students.
Bubis said she was nervous that she would not feel comfortable attending services on the High Holidays at Columbia.
Bubis decided to decline Columbia’s offer.
One accepted Jewish student, who spoke on the condition of anonymity citing concerns for professional repercussions, chose to come to the United States from Vienna for her undergraduate degree due to the presence of Jewish community. After graduating during the pandemic and working in defense, she applied to the School of International and Public Affairs. She had until late April to respond to her offer of acceptance.
In the months between her acceptance and the decision deadline, she was aware of antisemitic incidents on and around Columbia’s campus, hoping to see action from the University. But by April, she said she only saw a more polarized campus than before.
The student said that growing up in Vienna has an impact on how she views antisemitism.
“I was very appalled by it, perhaps even because of the more sort of historic connection that I have to other locations that have really witnessed antisemitism and suffered under it,” she said.
She said she deferred her position until next fall and is waiting to see “immense progress” within the next year, particularly in how the administration will lead the University.
“My interest in SIPA is still there, right? I think that’s almost the sad part, like I’m still equally excited about the classes at SIPA,” the student said. “I just want to see normalcy on campus. I want to see Jews being treated well. I want to see additional security for either the Hillel, or just other related buildings where Jews can just feel safe going in and out.”
Ellie Nathan said she chose to apply to Barnard—where her mother, grandmother, and aunt also attended—because she loved the atmosphere and classes on the pre-med track. She said she was excited to enter the strong Jewish community the University offers. Before attending, Nathan took a gap year to study Jewish texts and traditions in Israel.
Nathan followed the news of the events unfolding at Columbia and spoke to friends already at Barnard. “You get screamed at, but you get used to it,” Nathan’s friends told her, encouraging her to attend, she said.
But the final straw was when her mother called, she said. Nathan was surprised that she, a Barnard alumna, advised Nathan to attend Stern College for Women at Yeshiva University instead. At the end of May, Nathan withdrew from Barnard and accepted a position at Yeshiva.
Yeshiva University, an Orthodox Jewish university in New York City, announced in April 2024 that it would reopen its transfer applications due to the “public protests laced with antisemitism on college campuses throughout the United States, including in our neighboring campuses of Columbia and NYU,” according to a letter by Yeshiva University President Rabbi Ari Berman.
“I didn’t even start yet, and I already felt unwelcome,” Nathan said. “Why would I start somewhere where I already know it’s not going well for Jews? Why would I put myself in that situation?”