Education
Chicago-Area Jewish Community Reacts to Trump Administration’s Focus on College Campuses
President Donald Trump has made good on his promise to freeze federal funding to elite universities, citing a rise in antisemitic attacks and institutions’ inadequate response to fight against the hateful rhetoric and acts.
While there is skepticism among some in the Jewish community over the sincerity of the administration’s policies, others are welcoming the actions as a positive step forward and the nation’s most aggressive push against anti-Jewish hate yet.
Northwestern University is one such institution to take a hit as $790 million in federal funds sits in limbo.
Shana Bernstein, a clinical associate professor of legal studies at Northwestern, co-wrote a statement admonishing the Trump administration’s mission to use “anti semitism as a tool or cudgel to dismantle universities like Northwestern.”
Bernstein also signed the March 11 “Not In Our Name” letter denouncing federal attacks on higher education and “violating the rights of people who are entitled to due process,” said Bernstein, in reference to students like Mahmoud Khalil.
Antisemitism is on the rise nationally, according to an audit from the Anti-Defamation League released last week, which found that the Midwest experienced a 68% year-over-year increase in anti-Jewish incidents from 2023 to 2024.
With Illinois seeing a 59% spike in antisemitic incidents from 2023 to 2024, with all major incidents relating to Israel.
Rabbi David Chapman of Congregation Beth Shalom says his congregants have felt the material impact.
“I serve a community that has felt — not just felt — that has been unsafe,” said Chapman. “I’ve heard stories of college students that have been harassed and attacked just trying to live their lives as students and they haven’t been able to pursue their studies in the way that they would like to. And so I think it’s more than a perception, especially in the year and a half since Oct. 7, I think it’s become a real critical issue.”
Encampments and Free Palestine rallies started popping up all over university campuses shortly after the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks on Israel and subsequent war in Gaza that has so-far claimed over 1,700 Israeli lives and more than 50,000 Palestinian lives.
On DePaul University’s campus, students Owen Howard and Ezra Adamski both took part in pro-Palestine protests and helped create the group Jews 4 Justice, an anti-zionist group for Jewish students.
“We shouldn’t be, you know, flocking to a political identity that is predicated on the displacement and genocide of indigenous Palestinian people,” said Howard. “I think that’s quite antithetical to the experiences that Jewish people have faced in our history. And I think it’s a moral and spiritual obligation that Jewish people have.”
Adamski likened the government’s aim at higher education as an assessment and doesn’t believe the funding freezes have anything to do with the safety of Jewish populations but are instead more about control of curriculum and academic programs.
“We are failing miserably,” said Adamski. “I think universities right now face a test. They face a choice of whether or not to surrender, to let this administration kind of have their way with higher education.”
David Goldenberg, the Anti-Defamation League’s Midwest regional director, maintains that criticism of Israeli policy or the war in Gaza is not the concern, but something more sinister and tangible.
He notes that 90% of polled Americans are in favor of Israel remaining a safe haven for Jewish people, including a higher number of American Jews.
“When you’re out there calling for the elimination of Israel, that’s a problem,” said Goldenberg. “When you’re calling for violence against Jews, that’s where you’ve crossed the line as well. And when you’re ultimately suggesting that Jews are more loyal to Israel than that we are to our home country that also is antisemitic, and we see all of that in all these rallies.”
