Uniting against hate: Hillel JUC prepares student leaders to tackle antisemitism

Last year was challenging for Jewish college students around the country, including in Pittsburgh. Anti-Israel protests and encampments, where activists shouted antisemitic chants like “globalize the intifada,” created an environment of anxiety and distress for Jews on campus.

The situation came to a head in January when dozens of anti-Israel demonstrators protesting speaker Yadin Gellman, an IDF commando veteran and an Israeli actor, marched from the University of Pittsburgh’s Cathedral of Learning down Forbes Avenue to the Hillel Jewish University Center, shouting “Free Palestine” and blocking Jewish students from entering the building.

Dan Marcus, executive director and CEO of Hillel JUC, is expecting that anti-Israel activity may escalate this coming school year, and is being proactive in preparing Jewish student leaders.

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Hillel JUC will be expanding its annual Jeannette C. Kalson Student Leadership Retreat, which will be held just before the start of classes, to include student leaders from all the Jewish fraternities and sororities, as well as other Jewish groups at Pitt, Carnegie Mellon University, Chatham University and Duquesne University.

The aim is to give the students a sense of “the strength and depth and breadth of the wider Jewish student community,” Marcus said. Shawn Brokos, director of community security for the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh will provide security training and Laura Cherner, director of the Federation’s Community Relations Council, will explain the resources available in the wider community.

Marcus hopes that by expanding the seminar, Jewish student leaders “from across the whole campus spectrum” will gain strength.

The one-day event, he said, will be “a launch pad for the whole year of leadership development and training,” to which all Jewish student leaders will be invited.

Part of the impetus for gathering a broad range of student leaders, Marcus said, was that last year was “challenging and painful for us as a community.” He pointed to the encampments and the demonstrations — specifically the demonstration outside of the Hillel JUC building.

Students and staff need to be “prepared for changes in environment,” Marcus said, and the demonstrations following Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack in Israel presented “clearly a significant change in environment for Jewish students on campus, and, of course, the Jewish people as a whole. So we want to ensure that these student leaders have the knowledge and supports to deal with it. That’s our responsibility to our students.”

Marcus, along with Pitt student Alon Leshem, were among other Jewish Pennsylvanian university stakeholders who testified last month at the state capitol building in Harrisburg about the hate they had experienced on their campuses.

Marcus said he told the lawmakers about “how responsive and caring the senior administration at both Pitt and CMU and have been to Jewish students’ concerns.”

But there was another piece to Marcus’ testimony: the “unacceptable nature of the protest outside of Hillel JUC, the antisemitic chanting — ‘From the river to the sea,’ the ‘Globalize the Intifada,’” he said.

He shared with the legislators “how this certainly caused anxiety and trauma for our students and for our staff while it was occurring, and the disgust that we have for them being able to be outside and intimidate and block the streets.”

Marcus further stressed in Harrisburg the “need for support from our from our politicians,” as well as the need for universities to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of antisemitism, which includes the demonization of the Jewish state.

Hillel was instrumental in having Pitt add the IHRA definition to its website as a resource for understanding antisemitism, Marcus said.

“My rationale is that in the IHRA definition, when Israel is consistently singled out from all the other nations to vilification and demonization, that is antisemitism,” he told the Chronicle. “And you only have to look outside your window to see how that’s playing out.”

Marcus, who has been working with college students for more than two decades, acknowledged that his role inevitably has changed as a result of the surge in antisemitism.

“Look, when you’re walking outside your building to move people from your door chanting ‘From the river to the sea’ to let Jewish students get into your building, you’ve crossed the Rubicon,” he said. When these types of activities take place on campus, he continued, “We don’t have room to be philosophical. We have to be clear: Anti-Zionism is antisemitism. We don’t have the luxury anymore of not having clarity on that point.”

It’s also important to be clear on what Zionism is, he said.

“Zionism is not Netanyahu,” Marcus said. “It’s not Likud. That’s politics. And I’ve been trying — I’ve been sharing with our friends at the universities that Zionism is the belief the Jewish people have the right to live in safety and security in our ancient homeland. Everything else we can discuss — that’s politics, that’s culture of course, that’s part of the pluralism and inclusivity. We can debate all sides of the coin. What we won’t debate is, ‘Does Israel have a right to exist?’”

Marcus anticipates that the anti-Israel protests, encampments and marches will continue this school year. And while they can’t be stopped, he intends to prepare Jewish students “in terms of being in community, being in support, being in good communication and strengthening each other,” he said.

One way to strengthen the Jewish campus community is gathering to celebrate the joys of Judaism, he said.

To that end, Hillel, in partnership with Chabad on Campus, will be hosting Shabbat 1000 on Sept. 13 at CMU. The aim is to gather 1,000 college students from Pittsburgh’s campuses “to come together in community.”

“It is an extremely unifying event and a very empowering event for students to feel that they can celebrate their identity together,” said Sara Weinstein, co-director of Chabad on Campus. “It’s really exhilarating to get that many people together in honor of Shabbos, as Jews. There’s also a lot of unifying and positive activity leading up to it.”

In these “challenging times” on campus, marked by “such resistance and darkness for Jewish students,” Weinstein said, hosting the event at the beginning of the school year is a way to “start out with Jewish pride, Jewish unity, love of a fellow Jew and really just identifying and being able to feel safe and supported on campus.”

Public officials, including the governor and the mayor, will be invited to attend Shabbat 1000, as well as university presidents, administrators and some faculty, Weinstein said. The event, which was also held in 2015 and 2017, is free for students and is supported by Chabad, Hillel and individual donors.

Marcus stressed that through these challenging times, “Nothing’s changed from our mission and vision to engage every Jewish student. We are still focused on creating positive, vibrant Jewish lives. We will not let our enemies dictate how we behave and how we live and celebrate the pluralistic umbrella of our Judaism, period.” PJC

Toby Tabachnick can be reached at ttabachnick@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.