Hillel’s Back-to-School Playbook

At Hillel, we celebrated our 100th anniversary during the 2023-2024 academic year. It was a record-setting year for us, during which more college students and young adults participated in Jewish life experiences through Hillel than ever before — more than 180,000 in total. At the same time, it was unfortunately also a record-setting year relative to antisemitism on our college campuses. Growing from pervasive campaigns to demonize and delegitimize Israel, we recorded more cases of Jewish students being harassed, intimidated, threatened, subjected to vandalism, and even assaulted than ever before. In fact, these instances of antisemitism on college campuses grew by 700% from the prior year (which had represented the then-record level). 

With most students on break during the summer months, we haven’t been as consumed with troubleshooting the nearly 2,000 antisemitic incidents that required our focused attention during the prior academic year. However, at Hillel we have decidedly not been “on break”. Instead, we’ve used this brief period to do everything we can to prepare for the new academic year, focusing our efforts in four key areas.

First, we are investing in visible, joyful, and meaningful opportunities for Jewish college students to come together at the start of the school year. Hillels will be “supersizing” our many welcome events and programs – “FreshFests” for incoming students, opening Shabbat dinners, welcome barbecues, and hundreds of other back-to-school events. After the many challenges and issues of the past year, we want to ensure that Jewish students have robust opportunities to express their Jewish identities with pride and joy, on campus, and beyond. 

Second, we are taking the steps within our control to prepare for the inevitable protests and other disruptions that will impact the new school year. Since universities hold the primary authority to regulate campus activities, Hillel International, together with other leading Jewish and educational organizations, recently issued clear guidance to universities on the steps we expect them to take in strengthening, promoting and, most importantly, enforcing codes of conduct for students, staff, and faculty. We’re also creating a new, online student toolkit to educate Jewish students about their rights and share available resources and contacts they can call on when issues arise. And we’ve been convening our campus-based Hillel professionals throughout the summer to prepare and equip them to play their critical roles in supporting and advocating for their students.

Third, we’re continuing our work to address the systemic factors that have failed many Jewish students. We’ll be co-hosting a fall College and University Presidents Summit on Antisemitism, bringing together university leaders from across higher education to focus on fixing what’s broken at their institutions when it comes to allowing hostile and discriminatory environments for Jewish students to persist. This summer, we’ve already trained hundreds of university administrators on the nature of contemporary antisemitism so they can implement policy changes that better address this unique form of discrimination and bias. And we continue to hold universities accountable for their obligations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, through the Campus Antisemitism Legal Line, and our ongoing advocacy with the Office of Civil Rights at the US Department of Education. We’re also pursuing a new wave of efforts to build bridges with other communities on campus in order to contribute to healing the major ruptures that emerged last academic year — through expanded interfaith and intergroup programs, and skill-building for our professionals and student leaders in mediating dialogue across difference. 

Fourth, we are preparing for the full range of social, educational, community service, leadership development, wellness, and ritual experiences that represent the core of Hillel’s work. While not as likely to garner media attention, the daily, core work of Hillel professionals in supporting and empowering students through these meaningful and joyful experiences and relationships is critical to the overall campus experience and well-being of the students we’re privileged to serve.

Simply put, we will be pursuing every possible avenue we can to ensure a safe, welcoming, and supportive environment for Jewish students during the upcoming academic year. 

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Adam Lehman is the President and CEO of Hillel International, the largest Jewish campus organization in the world.