college

Home is Where the Chabad Is

Hannah Kotkin — Wed, 19 Mar 2025 11:51:41 -0400

For Jewish college students, Chabad is more than just a social organization—it's a community of inclusion and belonging.

When I embarked on a ten-day long trip to Montreal, I did not expect to end up sitting in a plastic chair eating a free meal of Israeli food from a styrofoam plate at McGill University. My boyfriend of the time had signed us up– we were low on money and knew that Chabad would give us free food. I was hesitant. We didn’t know anyone at McGill– wouldn’t it be awkward to just walk into a random school building and sit down for a Shabbos meal with complete strangers? This, however, proved not to be the case. Upon walking in, we were greeted warmly by the Rabbi, his family, and a healthy group of about fifty students. People made room for us at the tables and we spent the meal telling each other our life stories and discussing the torah portion of the week. Even though I was miles away from New York, I felt right at home.

This experience was not singular. My boyfriend, who went to school at Indiana University, had introduced me to Chabad at his college the year before. When I would visit, he would take me to the Chabad house on Friday nights. IU’s Jewish community is quite large with a lively, friendly, and accommodating Chabad to match. At Indiana, Chabad is more than just an organization– it’s a lifestyle. Events range from Torah study to parties to family-style dinners. The Chabad there has greatly catered to their audience by often collaborating with Jewish greek life organizations through philanthropy and volunteer work. I have several Jewish friends at IU, all of whom are either on the board of the organization or regularly attend events. For many, it has placed Judaism at the forefront of their lives, which for some is a new and often unexpected change from their life before.

What is to be said about this Chabad takeover? Why Chabad as compared to other organizations such as Hillel or SSI (Students Supporting Israel)? The answer lies in Chabad’s main goal to meet students where they are. This strategy is both compelling and effective. Although Chabad is an orthodox sector of Judaism, they don’t require students to climb to their level, but actually encourage them to remain where they are. They focus on the importance of simply showing up.

Over 3,500 Chabad-Lubavitch institutions exist in more than 85 countries. The movement originated in the 18th century in Russia, stemming from persecution that leaders of the movement faced when trying to keep the Torah alive. Chabad’s official website states that the meaning behind Chabad is to care for the “spiritual and material needs of all Jews.”

From this mission statement came the establishment of the Chabad House, influenced by Baal Shem Tov, whose teachings focus on the joy of faith through trusting and loving one’s soul rather than their outer being. Even though the leaders of Chabad know they are oftentimes more religious than a majority of their community, their place is not to judge but rather to accept with open arms. For college students, this acceptance is empowering and extremely appealing– students can be a part of a community that doesn’t necessarily require anything of them. Chabad welcomes all Jewish folk into their home, regardless of degree of faith or political belief. Membership comes simply from being part of the tribe.

To an outsider, this intermingling of individuals from different sectors of the Jewish religion may appear strange. But at its core, this act is a fundamental pillar of the Jewish religion, and something that has kept us alive and afloat for so many years.

Chabad is an example of how to effectively build a community that supports and gauges the interest of young college-age people. While the Chabad movement may be perceived by some as promulgating archaic ideas, it has instead transcended the traditional inward-looking boundaries of the Hasidic movement and offered a common place for the entire Jewish community. The Chabad House is an invaluable place of asylum for Jewish students and a source of help and support in a post-October 7th world.

Hannah Kotkin is a junior at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, NY.

The Truth About Being Jewish and in College

Hannah Kotkin — Mon, 22 Apr 2024 19:39:46 -0400

In the summer of 2022, just freshly out of confinement from the coronavirus pandemic, I, along with two hundred others, boarded a plane to Israel, where I would spend the following six weeks of my summer vacation. The trip served as a transitional period for my time spent at summer camp, between being a camper and being a counselor.

Even though I didn’t get the full experience of Israel due to covid safety restrictions, I found my life permanently altered from my stay in the Holy Land. First of all, as a Jew who spent much of my life in a mostly Christian area, the experience of being surrounded by Jewish people who knew and understood the parts about myself that I used to have to explain to everyone around me was unlike anything I can even describe.

The summer was hot and dry and full of music and dancing in the streets. We toured museum after museum, engaged in dialogue with Bedouins, Palestinians, Circassians, and more, and explored the entire country, from the Lebanon border all the way down to the sprawling sand dunes of the Negev. I came home to California five shades tanner and eager to speak Hebrew again.

I carry that summer with me, and still regard my trip to Israel as one of the prime factors in my development into a young Jewish adult. Upon my return, I was so excited to share my experiences with just about everyone I knew. My peers were fascinated with my time spent in the Middle East. They asked questions, sometimes even about the long standing Palestinian conflict, to which I shared my view. Their responses were positive and understanding.

Just a couple years later, after one of the largest tragedies Israel had ever seen, the same people that I had spent so much time educating about Israel went radio silent or, in many cases turned hostile. Following October 7th, I noticed those same people posting on Instagram, saying things like “Globalize the Intifada,” and “From the River to The Sea, Palestine Will Be Free.” What hit me the hardest was the fact that a great deal of these people posting were friends from high school and peers from my college.

At Sarah Lawrence, my university, culture influences political stance. The students tend almost automatically to latch on to a principle of left-wing ideology. The college's most recent fad happens to be Palestinian liberation. In fact, the student body of Sarah Lawrence is so obsessed with this idea of Palestinian liberation that even the school’s one Jewish organization, Hillel, claims that they are not affiliated with Israel, providing Zionist Jews with no community whatsoever.

This isn’t just a student-organized mindset: some professors appear to be just as invested in Palestine, even to the point of excusing the atrocities committed by Hamas. I share their interest and concern for the well-being and safety of the Palestinian people, but Sarah Lawrence, in my opinion, has crossed the line. I knew what I signed up for when I committed to Sarah Lawrence; The school is notoriously radically liberal and not much of a change from my performing arts high school in California. That being said, I still expected an inclusive environment to be fostered by my professors.

The main issues began on October 9th, just two days after Hamas’s attack on Israel. Soon after sitting down for my Sociological Theory seminar, my young professor declared that class that day was optional, and that we were free to leave if we were affected by the events of the past weekend. I, naturally, assumed that my professor was referring to the terrorist attacks, and for the first time since the attacks happened, I felt seen and heard on campus. She then, however, followed with another statement. “In this class,” she proclaimed, “we will not tolerate any colonialist dialogue.” It took me a second to register what she was saying. When I did, I promptly gathered my belongings and left the classroom. At this point, Israel had not even retaliated. I was left wondering- what could she possibly mean?

Later that week, when I looked at the syllabus for the class, I saw that a whole unit dedicated to anti-Zionist rhetoric and Palestinian liberation had been added. To this day, I still wonder what that unit had to do with sociological theory and the works of Marx, Weber, and Durkheim. From then on, my professor would frequently remind us of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) meetings (she was the new faculty advisor) and for an extra credit assignment, had us write, specifically, about Palestinian liberation.

My school is now littered in white people wearing keffiyehs. Just recently, there was a drag show for Palestine. Unlike like other schools in which there are Jewish populations and organizations advocating for freedom for Palestine through the eradication Hamas and their goal of obliterating Israel, at Sarah Lawrence, the only safe spaces I’ve made are the ones I carve for myself. I cannot name a single attempt that has been made to create protections for Jewish students.

There seems to be a misconception that Jewish Zionists do not wish for the safety of the Palestinian people. A main tenant of the Jewish religion is to treat all people with dignity, respect, and kindness. Jewish people all over the world are then left questioning why so many, including those we saw as friends, ignore the crimes Hamas is committing and the damage being perpetrated, in their name, among their own people.

----

Hannah Kotkin is a sophomore at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, NY.

Even Progressive Voters Don't Like Racial Affirmative Action

Joel Kotkin — Wed, 28 Jun 2023 11:45:59 -0400

As the Supreme Court moves towards its expected affirmative action ruling, a backlash among supporters of racial quotas is already brewing. One magazine, The Nation, suggests that the lawyer pleading the case for Asian American students is serving the cause of “white supremacy”, while top college presidents, interviewed on PBS, predict that any move to curb race quotas would constitute a “disaster.” Some schools are going a step further by exploring how to get around the potential new law — just as corporations, always keen to please the chattering classes, do the same thing.

Affirmative action is not a winning issue for progressives. Indeed, a majority of both Democrats and Republicans, as well as roughly half of African Americans, say that colleges should not factor race and ethnicity into the admissions process. Asian Americans are even more hostile to the idea: one recent national poll found that four in 10 of the group saw affirmative action as “racist” and more than half welcomed a Supreme Court ruling outlawing it.

The fundamental flaw with affirmative action is that it directly contradicts what the Swedish sociologist Gunnar Myrdal defined as “the American creed” — a notion, too often ignored, embracing equal opportunity for all its citizens. But where the early goals of the Civil Rights movement backed this ideal, the new affirmative action regime embraces race-based discrimination as an unadulterated good.

Read the rest of this piece at UnHerd.

Joel Kotkin is the author of The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class. He is the Roger Hobbs Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and Executive Director for Urban Reform Institute. Learn more at joelkotkin.com and follow him on Twitter @joelkotkin.