YU head to 'Post': ‘Campuses need to be safe for Jews, not free from Jews’

Yeshiva University has seen a dramatic rise in transfers from other universities since the October 7 massacre. Still, the solution to increased antisemitism and anti-Israel animus is not a mass exodus from other campuses. Still, to make them safe for Jewish students through enforcing discipline, YU president Rabbi Dr. Ari Berman told The Jerusalem Post in an interview.

“We’ve had a 53% increase in transfers this year,” Berman said. We don’t have room. We opened up our transfer portal to give students a chance to transfer. We were already full – I don’t even know where we’re going to put them – but we can’t leave a Jewish student who feels endangered behind, so we opened the portal. We already had conversations with several Columbia [University] students who want to come, meaning we’ll do it because we have to, but we can’t fit all the Jews in America. It’s very important to me that other campuses need to be safe for Jews, not free from Jews.”

Yeshiva University was expanding to meet the increased demand as dozens of universities and colleges across the United States had seen tent encampments established over recent months, but Berman said the YU system was designed for a certain number of students.

Wave of antisemitism

In addition to YU taking as many students as it can, he also wants to help make sure that other campuses are safe. As a flagship academic institution for Jewish students, YU, Berman feels, has a responsibility to help Jewish students across North America.

“It’s very important to partner and to find allies in the other universities who can keep their college campuses safe,” said Berman.

Seeking to force campuses into adopting anti-Israel boycott policies, student groups bolstered by outside activist organizations have led mass protests in which terrorist organizations have been extolled and calls for revolution and intifada have regularly been made. Jewish students have faced harassment, threats of violence, and have been prevented from accessing certain parts of their campuses.

To make America’s universities safe, Berman said, other administrations need to foster discipline and properly educate and take a strong stance on terrorist movements like Hamas.

The slow response and reluctance to engage in a heavy crackdown on these students despite their occupation of buildings and vandalism of university property have not been motivated by antisemitic sentiment, said Berman, though the universities have been accused as such by Jewish students and pro-Israel organizations. The YU president has been in conversation with presidents of academic institutions throughout the year, even as chancellors and other presidents have been brought before Congress and accused of double standards in enforcing policy against the bullying of Jewish students.

“In my conversations with university leadership across the country, I do not sense animus against Jews. I think they’re very concerned for the Jewish students,” said Berman. “I think the university leaders are concerned not just for their pro-Palestinian protesting students, but for their pro-Israel students and their Jewish students. I think they are concerned.

“The problem is the perils of indulgence. They are indulging their students to break the rules without consequence, to intimidate another group... without the needed set recourse. And they’re indulging lies without telling the truth.”

According to Berman, what was restraining universities and colleges from taking action against protesters who were illegally occupying campus grounds or organizing demonstrations without permits was fear.

“I think most university presidents are afraid because their campuses are tinderboxes, and they’re afraid of the consequences [of taking action],” said Berman. “Ironically, their reticence to proactively educate is actually causing greater problems for their campuses.”

There should be consequences “if they intimidate another group of students,” said Berman. Discipline alone is not enough, however, as students identifying with Hamas or the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine represents a failure to educate.

“They should speak the truth about the situation, which is that Hamas is a terrorist organization that’s bent on the destruction of the State of Israel and wants to kill all of its Jewish citizens,” said Berman. “That needs to be expressed clearly to the student body. Now is a time where universities need to educate, not equivocate. They have, unfortunately, only thought of themselves as simply a place to convene conversations rather than as a place to seek truth.”

A strong stand against Hamas and other terrorist organizations while allowing pro-Palestinian students the opportunity to express their opinions would allow them the right to express their opinions without having the university’s reputation stained by pro-terrorism among its student body.

“A real conversation between the students that are pro-Palestinian and the students that are pro-Israel needs to happen on college campuses,” said Berman. “The only way or the most productive way for it to happen is if they educate their students that Hamas is a terrorist organization and that the language and symbols of Hamas are abhorrent, as it’s a terrorist organization. Let the students know that, and then let them talk about the areas where they should truly disagree and argue about, whether it’s the ethics of war, on the one hand, or to what extent the Palestinians are represented by Hamas, on the other. They should really have those conversations, but the university leadership needs to be clear about the nature of the situation with Hamas as a terrorist organization.”

WHILE OTHER universities are rocked by protests, Yeshiva University has enjoyed security and taken a strong stance on the Israel-Hamas war, especially when compared to other institutions in New York.

“Our campus is safe,” said Berman. We do not experience... protests laced with antisemitism within our campuses. Security is, of course, a primary concern of any university, the safety of our students. For us, it’s more about strengthening the perimeter, making sure that that is strong. There’s nothing inside, as in the other campuses. Thank God, there has been no threat against the university. We’re a safe and secure campus, and we look to the other campuses and see how we can help them based on how they’re struggling right now.”

Berman said that the Yeshiva University model is likely not replicable at other campuses. With around 3,000 undergraduate students, some of whom are studying in Israel, and another 4,000 graduate students, the student body knows “everyone can speak for themselves, but they know that they’re in a Zionist university. And they also know that the leadership speaks very strongly and clearly about Hamas being a terrorist organization.” The non-Jewish students at the campus are welcome but are aware of the administration’s position on such matters.

Yeshiva University is “publicly pro-Israel, Zionist. We fly an Israeli flag 365 days a year. That’s our ethos. That’s who we are. I would assume that’s not replicable in any other university in the country,” said Berman. “If you’re an undergraduate student and you want your Zionist identity nourished and fed, this is a good home for you. Our students don’t play defense. They don’t need to justify their existence in any way; just the opposite. They’re at the leadership of the pro-Israel movement of how do we disseminate Israel, its values and its support, across the country and throughout the world. The undergraduates are in a fundamentally different place than any other undergraduate system in the country.”

THE ADMINISTRATION’S stance post-October 7 is not just a matter of ethics, but a personal connection for faculty, staff, and students to the victims of the Hamas-led pogrom.

“Every single student, every undergraduate student of Yeshiva University, is one degree of separation from somebody who was murdered, taken hostage, raped, on October 7, and certainly someone who was injured or killed in line of duty. Everyone at YU knows someone who is in your [Israeli] army, fighting for our freedom right now,” said Berman, who has family serving in the IDF campaign against Hamas. “So this is very personal and very real. And we understand the importance. We understand why this is an existential fight for the State of Israel. And certainly, as there is a spread of antisemitism in the world and across the country, we understand our unique place as being leaders in this battle here because we have opportunities in Yeshiva University that other college students don’t have.”

Berman said that “there’s nothing that’s happened after October 7 on our campus that is the same as before October 7. Every single day, our students carried with them the sense that they are supporting and fighting for Israel. It showed in their prayers every single day with intensity and fervency, in the hessed that they do in support of Israel and its soldiers.”

The university has seen multiple projects for the support of Israel post-October 7, many of them student initiated.

“When Hamas called for the global day of rage, our students did a global day of hessed [kindness between people], and they got people from around the world to contribute by doing hessed,” Berman recalled. “Our students know that their leadership is essential at this moment.”

Thousands of students and alumni went to Washington, DC, to rally on behalf of Israel, which was facilitated by the administration with the cancellation of classes. They have also directly lobbied politicians, bringing them to campus for discussions. On May 29, the university honored US Sen. John Fetterman with the Presidential Medallion for Distinguished Heroes of Israel, thanking him for his strong stance against Hamas and advocacy for hostages held in captivity by the Gazan terrorist organization. The university has also hosted former hostages and hostage families.

The university has organized multiple delegations to Israel, said Berman, including one with the popular and highly publicized Yeshiva University basketball team.

“We were at one point No. 1 in the country in Division III. So we get a lot of people watching our team. Before every game, not only do we always sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” and “Hativkah,” but before every game they wore T-shirts with the hostage faces on them. Before every game, we said a prayer for the hostages and for the soldiers,” said Berman.

“Our women’s fencing team had a national tournament in MIT, playing all of the schools, but they put an Israeli flag on their shoulders. You don’t see people’s faces in fencing, but they saw that they were fighting people representing Israel.”

BERMAN PERSONALLY led initiatives to rally university leaders in support of Israel, as he saw, upon returning to the US in the wake of October 7, that many administrations had not responded as well as they could have.

“I started a coalition for presidents to stand with Israel against Hamas, and I got over 100 universities across the country to sign on to it,” said Berman.

You have major public and private universities, University of Texas, University of Miami, Arizona States, faith-based universities, Notre Dame, Baylor, Catholic, historically black colleges, universities all across this country who said that they stand with Israel, with the Palestinians who suffer under Hamas’s full rule in Gaza, and with all people of moral conscience.

Recently, Berman led a delegation of university presidents to Auschwitz, because he wanted to show “the importance of the lesson, of what happens when antisemitism and hate go unchecked. So we are out there working hard to try to educate other campuses and the university leadership with the truth and moral clarity. Our students have been doing it, day in and day out, every day of this year.”

With the protests on US campuses showing signs that they will continue after the summer, Berman urged Jewish students to believe in their Jewish identity and destiny.

“We’re on a great trajectory. The birth of the State of Israel was a dramatic reflection of the move in history, where the Jews take their place as a light to the world, and they should stand proud of their identity and who they are. With love and kindness and joy in their heart, they should spread their Jewish values to everyone around them. That’s the purpose of Judaism.

“We’ll fight against antisemitism if we need to, but that’s not who we are. That’s just to survive.

“But they have something great and glorious for their own lives. They will infuse their own lives with meaning, and that’s necessary for the world. So they should continue working towards meeting their destiny,” said Berman.

“Our campus is an embassy for Israel. And people know that they could come to Yeshiva University, and this is where they will have a home. This is where they’ll get support.” •