Targeting Campus Antisemitism with New Teaching Fellowship

The fellowship, a program of the Touro University Antisemitism Institute, aims to reclaim the campus as a serious place for scholarship, intellectual rigor, fairness and safety through one of the most powerful tools available to educators and universities: the classroom.

According to fellowship leader Dr. Mark Goldfeder, director of the Antisemitism Clinic at Touro Law Center and CEO of the NJAC, the campus eruptions after October 7 were not spontaneous. Somebody assigned the readings, framed the questions and graded the papers for years. Many of the students in those tents did not know which river or which sea they were chanting about. They were there because someone they trusted had given them a story simple and broad enough to explain the world. That person was often a professor. Activists understood long ago that the classroom is one of the most powerful rooms in the West, and they treated it accordingly and that is where the repair must begin.

“When the people who set out to capture our universities began their work, they didn't start with a million people. They started on one campus, in one classroom, with a dedicated few, and they were patient. Last week, that is exactly how the correction began. Ten fellows came to Touro and built courses that will teach a thousand students a year how to think clearly, using nothing more radical than primary sources, honest scholarship and the even application of the law,” said Goldfeder. “It went better than I dared hope, and it is the beginning of something big. In 10 years, G-d willing, when we look back at how we won our universities back, the answer will have started here, this week, with this group.”

Developing New Courses on Antisemitism

The inaugural fellowship brought together 10 fellows representing nine disciplines and three continents, including Jewish, Christian and Muslim scholars. Over the course of the three-day, in-person retreat, fellows worked with experts in antisemitism and law, alongside Touro University curricular specialists, to develop courses they can bring back to their own institutions.

The program covered the history of U.S. and global antisemitism; legal frameworks governing discrimination and civil rights protections; and practical tools to understand and counter bias, hate crimes and systemic discrimination. Fellows learned specialized techniques they can use to combat antisemitism, to design assignments and assessments for antisemitism courses, and creating classroom environments where students can engage in respectful disagreement and rigorous debate.

The potential reach of the fellowship extends well beyond its inaugural cohort. Each fellow will teach the courses developed through the program, with the initial cohort expected to reach approximately 1,000 students annually. Over the course of the fellows’ careers, that reach could extend into the tens of thousands, even before future cohorts, a published syllabus library and additional course materials expand the program to campuses across the country.

The Fellows

For the fellows, the experience was about more than developing a syllabus. It was an opportunity to think about how educators can equip students to confront antisemitism with greater knowledge, context and intellectual rigor.

“In Pirkei Avot, we learn, ‘Lo alecha ham’lacha ligmor, v’lo atah ben horin l’hivatel mimena:’ it is not the responsibility of any one individual to complete the work of repairing the world, but neither are we free to refrain from beginning it. Thus, this fellowship started that beginning,” said Patrik Rako, scientific researcher at the Institute of State and Law of the Slovak Academy of Sciences.

“Thank you again for a deeply meaningful experience,” said Laurie Rozakis, PhD, an English professor at Farmingdale State College, part of the State University of New York. She continued, “I look forward to teaching the class on antisemitism at my college and helping my students understand what is happening to Jews.”

Ariel Liberman, assistant professor, Law and Justice Program and political science at Auburn University, said the experience reinforced the importance of bringing scholars from different disciplines together around the issue.

“Teachers, scholars and advocates of all sorts came together to learn, to teach, to reflect and to think about one incredibly complex challenge and how we can make a difference,” Liberman said, “With renewed energy and purpose, we’re ready to work.”

Daniel Holtzman, EdD, assistant superintendent for secondary education at Great Neck Public Schools, said the fellowship provided practical tools he can use to bring the subject into his own educational community. He is using what he learned to develop and teach a course entitled Antisemitism Through the Lens of Psychology, Sociology, Law and Media Literacy.

“The opportunity to be the room with great legal minds and engage in rhetorical development of collegiate level coursework was a powerful and meaningful experience,” Holtzman said. “I look forward to the continued partnership and important work ahead.”

Ultimately, the fellowship is designed to give students something more durable than a set of talking points: the ability to distinguish history from slogans, argument from accusation and scholarship from conspiracy. By empowering professors to teach about antisemitism through their own academic disciplines, Touro and NJAC hope to create a model that can be replicated across campuses and sustained through generations of students.

To learn more about the initiative and the Touro University Antisemitism Institute, visit antisemitism.touro.edu.