Hamas hijacks campus narratives

Since October 7, I’ve been asking myself how the pro-Hamas narratives took hold so quickly in American universities. The truth is that this has been brewing for some time.

Recently, anti-Zionist pro-Hamas protestors, once again disrupted campus life — this time at Barnard College. While these types of incidents are certainly less frequent this year, what continues to go on in college classrooms has not meaningfully changed over the past several years. Additionally, just because there are fewer campus protests doesn’t mean that the very organizations responsible for these disruptions are any less active.

The Barnard incident is a wakeup call: If we fail to push back, we risk losing the next generation. In addition, these protests are another clear reminder that we must educate our children and teens now about Israel, its right to exist in the land, and the origins of the Arab/Palestinian and Israeli conflict. Fortunately, that is exactly what we are doing at Schechter Bergen.

I believe this is not just a campus issue. It is a mounting societal crisis. The question is always “What can we do?” Politicians do listen, and donor money often speaks. As college alumni we can push for accountability. Many universities have been more than willing to accept foreign funding, and we must insist on transparency regarding that money and the influences shaping their academic programs. If you’re an alumnus of one of these universities, reach out. If you’re a donor, reconsider your giving until meaningful change happens. Encourage others to do the same. This must be a pressure campaign from the Jewish community and all like-minded people who value truth and intellectual freedom.

I hope Israel and the larger Jewish community will invest more in media, storytelling, and grassroots activism to counter what are now deeply ingrained narratives that paint Israel as an oppressor and Zionism as racism. We must stop playing defense. Arguing on social media only fuels an endless cycle of rebuttals. Instead, we need to tell our story, our truth, clearly and powerfully with evidence to back it up.

Above all, we need to prepare our children before others do. If we wait until they graduate high school, it’s already too late. And that is something we are doing at Schechter Bergen.

I hope that I got your attention on this, because history has shown us what happens when radical ideologies take over institutions of higher learning. After October 7, I immersed myself in articles and books to try to understand how the pro-Palestinian/Hamas propaganda machine could mobilize and execute so quickly, dominating the narrative almost immediately. I came to learn that for decades, American college campuses have been ideological battlegrounds where pro-Palestinian groups were quietly preparing and spreading their narrative, both in the classrooms and in public spaces. And what we are witnessing today is the culmination of those years of preparation. The rise of anti-Zionist hostility toward Jewish students and the silencing of dissenting voices should alarm every one of us. Too many universities have allowed the adoption of radical frameworks that cast Israel and Jews as colonial oppressors, and these patterns are repeating themselves from other times in history.

I have heard that history doesn’t actually repeat itself, but it often rhymes. Our students need to understand that the propaganda against Israel is just the latest version of various attacks against Jews in other decades and centuries.

When teaching our eighth-graders about the origins of the Palestinian/Arab and Israeli conflict, we also introduced them to the origins not only of campus hate and distortion, but the origins of anti-Zionism and how that relates to the hate on campuses. They learned that the transformation of German universities in the 1930s happened quickly. Jewish professors were expelled. Academic freedom was silenced. German students participated in book burnings and publicly ostracized those who dissented. Intellectuals who once shaped Western thought either fled or fell silent. The German universities played a role in poisoning the minds of young German college students and what followed is a history we painfully know all too well.

In examining the rise of anti-Zionism and the colonial and Imperialist rhetoric, we shared with the eighth-graders that the Soviet Union, no longer willing to be overtly antisemitic, changed strategies and launched a disinformation campaign that shaped the modern anti-Zionist movement. When Israel aligned with the West, the Soviet Union launched campaigns portraying Zionism as racist, imperialist, and oppressive. That narrative bled into European intellectual thought and finally found a home in Western universities, first in Europe, and then eventually in the United States. Many college students today repeat Soviet talking points without even realizing their origins.

So where are we now?

On American campuses, a distorted version of history is taking root, weaponizing and misrepresenting scholarly discussions and framing Israel as a “settler-colonial” state. Jewish identity is being recast as white privilege, and DEI programs — originally designed to foster inclusivity — all too frequently are hijacked and used to exclude Jewish voices.

The consequences are real. Pro-Israel students and faculty often find themselves ostracized, harassed, or even physically threatened for challenging these narratives. Organizations like Students for Justice in Palestine have organized protests that block speakers, disrupt campus events, and push for BDS measures. In some cases, Jewish students are afraid to openly express their support for Israel — or even their Jewish identity. And while media coverage may ebb and flow, the hostility persists, both overtly and covertly.

I am not one for overreacting, but I want to make you aware of a widening generational divide in attitudes toward Israel. A 2023 Gallup poll found that while 71% of Americans over 65 have a favorable view of Israel, only 41% of 18– to 34-year-olds do. A Pew 2024 study found that a third of adults under 30 said their sympathies lay completely with the Palestinians while only 14% said their sympathies lay completely with Israel. 60% of this age group have a positive opinion of the Palestinian people while only 46% do of the Israeli people. Only 16% of this age group support the U.S. providing military aid to Israel. In 2024, the ADL conducted a survey that also showed growing anti-Jewish sentiments among the younger generation.

This shift should matter to all of us. Younger generations will increasingly shape the political and cultural landscape. What starts on campus will not stay on campus. The slogans we see at protests — “From the River to the Sea,” “Zionism is Racism” — are not just rhetoric. They fuel real-world antisemitism, as seen in the rising number of attacks on Jewish individuals and institutions across the U.S. and Europe.

I believe that this is a warning sign for society at large. When universities become echo chambers of ideological conformity, democracy itself is at risk. History has shown that once radical ideologies take hold in universities, their influence extends far beyond the classroom.

So what do we do?

We engage. We stop assuming things will work themselves out. We speak up, educate, support, and refuse to give up. That is what we are doing at Schechter Bergen by setting the stage for preparing our students with their story, supported by factual evidence.

If we do nothing, history has already taught us where this road leads. But if we act — intelligently, strategically, unapologetically — we can still change the trajectory.

And we must.

Steve Freedman of Teaneck is the head of school at Schechter Bergen in New Milford.

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