As a consumer of ADL’s Campus Crisis Alerts, I’m not just a journalist running a Jewish news organization; I’m also a Jewish mother of twins heading to college in the fall.
Last week, I joined other parents and students at Shomrei Emunah, the conservative synagogue in my town of Montclair, N.J., to talk about Jewish life on campus. The shul’s rabbi, Julie Roth, who previously spent 18 years running the Hillel at Princeton, helped us make a list of things to consider when picking schools: the number and percentage of Jewish students; the vibrancy of the Hillels and Chabads; availability of kosher food; Jewish studies courses; Jew-ish fraternities. The political climate was the literal last thing mentioned.
The ADL sent a “special edition” of its Campus Crisis Alert newsletter on Monday to share its second annual Campus Antisemitism Report Cards. Of the 135 schools reviewed, eight earned As (up from two last year); 41 got Bs (up from 18); there were 45 Cs (compared to 32 in 2024); 28 Ds (24); and 13 Fs (8). Certainly looks like a crisis if you’re used to the grade inflation at top colleges and universities.
Those Ds include the University of Pittsburgh, where my son, Lev, and I attended an admitted students day last week — and where we found a warm and welcoming Hillel, he joined a Shabbat dinner at Chabad and then watched a poker game at the Sigma Alpha Mu frat house (better known as Sammy). Jewish life seems like one of Pitt’s selling points, hardly a crisis.
I’m a professional skeptic, not a glass-half-full kind of person. But given the constant barrage of Campus Crisis Alerts, when I saw a recent survey by the American Jewish Committee in which about a third of Jewish college students and recent graduates said they’d experienced antisemitism on campus, I found myself feeling buoyed by the fact that two-thirds had not.
I asked Todd Gutnick, ADL’s spokesperson, whether the group had considered changing the subject line of its campus emails, given how much things had calmed since the newsletter was launched last May. “We believe the title still fits,” he said, given the recent hubbub at Barnard, where two students who disrupted an Israeli professor’s class in January were expelled, prompting protests that included the takeover of a campus building.
Gutnick also told me that the Campus Crisis Alerts have the highest open rate of all ADL newsletters — more than 50% average over the 125 sends since it launched amid the encampment crisis last May. That’s 100,000 people clicking on those red siren emojis every day.
Thankfully, the newsletter is slowing down for spring break next week, so there will only be crises on Tuesday and Thursday. | 