‘You’re Going to Harvard – Now?’

As the third of six siblings, I’ve always looked up to my oldest sister to set the bar. During high school, she was the captain of the varsity tennis team – now I’m on varsity basketball. She was the first kid in the family to ski a double black – I caught up as quickly as possible. When she decided to start working out at the gym, I soon followed.

This past month, she started as a freshman at Harvard University.

This has been a dream of hers for years. I watched her stay up every night until 2 a.m. studying and doing homework; dedicating any free time she had to volunteer work and extracurriculars. With the amount of time and hard work she dedicated to getting accepted to such a competitive program, you’d think that when she finally got the news of her acceptance, her response would have been obvious. The one thing she was striving for her whole high school career was staring her right in the face. But, instead of just grabbing her dreams and future, she had to think twice if Harvard was the right choice for her –  a safe choice.

Since October 7, 2023, college campuses have become ground zero for some of the most egregious displays of antisemitism and anti-Zionism in recent history. As the situation in the Middle East worsened, protests on college campuses became increasingly audacious. Jewish students found themselves bombarded by protesters on their way to class or the library; flyers with pictures of the hostages were torn down and graffitied with hateful messages, such as “kidnap the Zionists.” It seemed the more devastating the news, the rowdier the crowds.

Elite institutions were among the worst: protesters at Harvard, MIT, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Brown, Cornell, and Stanford blamed Israel for Hamas’ atrocities, recycled and repeated age-old anti-Semitic tropes and during certain protests went so far as to call for the genocide of Jews.

In a study published in November 2023 by the Anti-Defamation League’s Center for Antisemitism Research, the group compared how Jewish people felt on college campuses before and after October 7. An abundance of Jewish college students said they feel increasingly unsafe on college campuses. The study found that 73 percent  of Jewish college students experienced or witnessed some form of antisemitism since the beginning of the 2023-24 school year. Additionally, students were asked about how they felt about being known as a Jew and if they felt safe. Prior to the war, 66.6% of Jewish students said they felt “very” or “extremely” physically safe on campus; after the war began, that number dropped by more than a third.

When my sister got into Harvard, she was aware of all of the antisemitism present on college campuses. She had heard about anti-Israel student groups and the intense protests decrying Zionists and the Jewish homeland. She started to have some doubts about if this was the right decision.

As I was headed to bed one night, I walked into my sister’s room curious about what she was doing. When I came in, I saw her eyes glued to the computer screen as she scrolled through posts about the latest incident – a Jewish student wearing a kippah and a Magen David necklace had been stopped outside the library building by a group of masked protesters and bombarded with questions about his position on the war and accusations of harming innocent people. The look on my sister’s face said it all: she was wondering what she would do if she faced a situation of religious adversity.

In the end, my sister decided to attend Harvard. This decision has been met with skepticism from people within our community. “Harvard – why would she want to go there, now?” people ask when I tell them where my sister is studying. People even ask me about her decision – and if it’s a path I want to emulate.

For me, I’m not yet sure about my college plans – I’m just trying to survive my sophomore year of high school. But what I do know is that I’m proud of my sister. She realized that no matter where she goes in her life, there will be people rooting against her. She decided not to let the hate get in the way of her future and career dreams.

Watching her make this difficult decision, I learned that you can’t let factors outside your control dictate your decisions. Do what is best for you. Don’t get scared of what could happen and focus on what you can make happen.

I, for one, plan to visit my sister at Harvard and wear the crimson alongside my blue and white.