‘Take Back the Campus’: Hundreds of Pro-Israel Activists Gather in DC for Major Unity Conference

Over 500 Jewish and pro-Israel students from across the US gathered in Washington, DC this week to craft strategies for countering the anti-Zionist movement on college campuses and attend lectures by dozens of the biggest scholars and social media influencers in the American Jewish community.

As The Algemeiner has previously reported, Jewish college students face an unprecedented crisis in American academia. Following Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, higher education saw paroxysms of antisemitic and pro-Hamas protests, as well as acts of violence, vandalism, and assault. Elite colleges such as Harvard University, the University of California, Berkeley, and Columbia University became centers of anti-Zionist agitation, exporting methods and tactics to other campuses and upending the assumptions Jewish Zoomers believed about their place in the progressive movement and, more broadly, the United States.

Held at the Grand Hyatt, the event was the third National Leadership Summit held by the Israel on Campus Coalition (ICC). According to the organization, 153 colleges and universities were represented there.

Founded in 2002, the Israel on Campus Coalition is a nonprofit organization that describes its mission as inspiring college students to defend and be proud of Israel. One of its major initiatives is the “microgrants” program, which helps pro-Israel campus groups organize events about Israeli culture and society. Another, the ICC Community Impact Fellowship, awards college students a $1,000 stipend for completing a leadership seminar in which they are trained in civic engagement, coalition building, and rapidly responding to antisemitic and anti-Israel events on their campuses.

On Tuesday, ICC chief executive officer Jacob Baime told The Algemeiner how Oct. 7 changed college life for Jewish students and how this year’s conference prepared them for what will likely be two more semesters of pandemonium, during which the US will elect its next president and Israel’s wars against Hamas and Hezbollah may escalate into a region-wide conflagration.

“After this explosion of vile antisemitism that we’ve seen on campuses from coast to coast, it’s time to empower Jewish and pro-Israel students to take back the campus — to take it back from these forces of hatred, antisemitism, and anti-Americanism,” Baime explained. “What I said to the students, and I really think that it’s true, is that the challenges are enormous, but there is hope right here. And it’s been really interesting to see how many students want to get up off the bench.”

He continued, “We have 500 people here at this conference, and there’s still a large waiting list also. Logistically, we could not accommodate the surge of interest, which isn’t going to go away. There’s a renewed sense among pro-Israel Americans and students of purpose and identity. The interest and the passion of Jewish students and their friends is at an all-time high, and next year we’ll need to have a much larger gathering to include the student leaders who want to stand up for what’s right.”

The idea of pro-Zionists reclaiming their place in higher education inspired University of California, San Diego student Shani Menna, who attended for the first time, said. She stressed the importance of a speech by Tel Aviv Institute senior fellow and co-founder Hen Mazzig.

“In Hen Mazzig’s speech, he said, ‘If you’re not on the table, you’re on the menu,'” Menna told The Algemeiner. “And it’s true. We saw throughout this year the importance of Jewish student involvement in student government and conversations with administration. Overall, this conference reminded Jewish students of the strength that we have as a people, as well as the strength of the values of democracy, Western civilization, and peace of love — all of these things that have been clouded with all the hate on campus.”

Netanel Crispe, an Orthodox student at Yale University, stressed that the state of college campuses is still perilous.

“It’s a very hard time to be on campus, and we have faced horrific opposition. I gain strength from knowing I have the backing of so many wonderful people,” he said. “A primary concern for everybody on campus is the upcoming election. We recently got a new president at Yale who has yet to be tested, and while a lot of people are trying to give her the benefit of the doubt, there is a lot of concern that we have yet to see any proactive measures being taken by the administration to prepare or address what we expect or what many of the [anti-Zionist] organizations have clearly publicly stated will be a repetition of the previous year’s events — activism, protests, mobs, and encampments.”

Several students who attended the conference noted that many of its speakers — which included Nova Music Festival survivor Shye Klein, Aviva Klompas, Miriam Elman of the Academic Engagement Network (AEN), and Adam Lehman — were highly accessible, sharing advice, book recommendations, and opportunities for further involvement in pro-Israel activism. Social media influencers, who have amassed hundreds of thousands of followers on platforms such as Instagram, proved to be popular with Zoomer students, 50 percent of whom receive daily news from social media.

As The Algemeiner walked through the Grand Hyatt, it spotted one such Instagram favorite who is immensely popular with students, Emily Austin.  She was surrounded by students seeking selfies and counsel on how to merge the Zionist and professional components of their identities. During an interview, she told the paper that the students gave her hope that higher education is not lost yet.

“I attend a lot of conferences, but the room of students that gathered for this one were super, super motivated, and they are actually move makers and game changers. Many of them are leading Jewish clubs on their campuses or suing their school for antisemitism,” Austin said. “It was nice to see that students are starting to fight back and defend themselves, because most of my speeches aim at making students feel motivated or empowered, and it seemed that this cohort of students are already strong. It’s refreshing to know that this is our next generation of Jewish leaders.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

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