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The word crisis  has become the dominant lens through which Jewish communities describe the present moment. It appears everywhere: in funding appeals, strategy documents, campus statements, donor briefings, and board conversations. It is used to describe rising antisemitism, hostile public culture, institutional cowardice, student fear, and communal exhaustion. The problem is not that the word is inaccurate. Much of what it names is real. The problem is that crisis  carries w

For much of the late twentieth century, Jewish students in North America did not merely participate in Jewish communal life. They asserted themselves within it. They organised independently of professional oversight, published adversarial journals, disrupted federation assemblies, and built national networks that treated the Jewish establishment not as a benevolent sponsor, but as a power structure with which they were entitled to disagree, and even argue. Jewish student acti

There are two kinds of books written for  Jewish students on campus.  The first kind tries to comfort them. It tells them they are not alone. It offers reassurance, moral clarity, and a few talking points they can deploy in a seminar. The second kind does something rarer. It treats Jewish students as agents, not patients. It assumes they are capable of intellectual seriousness, strategic discipline, and public leadership. It does not flatten the terrain for them. It hands the

I’ve lost count of the number of times students came to me over the years asking for a program that would teach them how to answer difficult questions about Israel or how to respond to antisemitism. I heard this repeatedly during my seven years working for Hillel at Queen’s and Western, from summer 2018 through summer 2025. Sometimes it was framed as a request for advocacy training. More often, especially in recent years, it was about what to say in the classroom. How to resp

Every January, on campuses around the world, students mark Holocaust Remembrance Day. Posters go up. Speakers are booked. A survivor or historian tells a devastating story. Candles are lit. The words “Never Again” are spoken with appropriate solemnity. And then everyone goes back to class. Nothing about this is malicious. In fact, it is often done with genuine care and good intentions. But intention doesn’t in any way guarantee impact. And increasingly, I worry that much of w

For a long time, I did a lot of good work that relied more on instinct than intention. Things moved. Programs happened. Leaders emerged. Crises were managed. Relationships were built. Sometimes real progress followed. Sometimes it didn’t. Often, it was hard to explain why. Then, a few years ago, I was introduced to the concept of a theory of change . And quietly, almost annoyingly, it reshaped the way I approached everything. Anyone who has worked with me since will not be su

Much of the conversation about antisemitism on campus is stuck oscillating between panic and policy. One day it’s about security. The next day it’s about statements. Then it’s about social media. Then it’s about the next incident. All of that matters, but none of it works unless it’s grounded in something deeper. Over the past several years, and especially in the academic year following October 7th, I found myself returning to the same question again and again: What are the n

After I published my piece on events vs organising , a student messaged me something totally reasonable: “Maybe as a next step, you can create a guideline on how to make an impactful event.” I get why she asked. Most of us have been trained, explicitly or implicitly, to think of Jewish advocacy on campus as a sequence of “programs.” Something happens, we plan something. We need visibility, we host something. We want education, we run something. The culture rewards what can be

Campus activism to defend Jewish students and counter antisemitism isn’t failing because students don’t care. They care deeply. They show up. They give time, energy, and emotional labour - often while carrying the weight of being the only Jews in the room. And yet, despite all that effort, something keeps stalling. Not because antisemitism is unbeatable. But because too much of our response is built around events, not organising. The Two Event Traps (Both Familiar, Both Wrong

Jewish communities today are exhausted. Exhausted from explaining. Exhausted from defending. Exhausted from waiting for someone… anyone… to show up with the perfect solution to antisemitism. But here’s the uncomfortable truth: There is no cavalry coming. Not from governments. Not from universities. Not from well-meaning people who think “raising awareness” is somehow a strategy. If we want a different outcome, we need a different posture; one rooted not in reaction but in lea