3 Ways Jewish College Students are Building Strength Amid Hate

"Our duty as Jewish youth is paving the way for ourselves. Sometimes we may feel alone . . . But the most important thing is for us as youth to pave the way for ourselves, to take action, to speak out. Even if it's hard or difficult.”

As American Jewish college students head back to their campuses this fall, we talk to three leaders on AJC's Campus Global Board about how antisemitism before and after the October 7 Hamas terror attacks revealed their resilience and ignited the activist inside each of them.

Jonathan Iadarola shares how a traumatic anti-Israel incident at University of Adelaide in Australia led him to secure a safe space on campus for Jewish students to convene. Ivan Stern recalls launching the Argentinian Union of Jewish Students after October 7, and Lauren Eckstein shares how instead of withdrawing from her California college and returning home to Arizona, she transferred to Washington University in St. Louis where she found opportunities she never dreamed existed and a supportive Jewish community miles from home. 

*The views and opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views or position of AJC.

Key Resources:

• AJC Campus Global Board

• Trusted Back to School Resources from AJC 

• AJC’s 10-Step Guide for Parents Supporting Jewish K-12 Students

• AJC’s Center for Education Advocacy

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Transcript of the Interview:

MANYA: As American Jewish college students head back to their campuses this fall, it’s hard to know what to expect. Since the Hamas terror attacks of October 7, maintaining a GPA has been the least of their worries. For some who attend universities that allowed anti-Israel protesters to vandalize hostage signs or set up encampments, fears still linger. 

We wanted to hear from college students how they’re feeling about this school year. But instead of limiting ourselves to American campuses, we asked three students from AJC’s Campus Global Board – from America, Argentina, and Australia – that’s right, we still aim for straight A’s here. We asked them to share their experiences so far and what they anticipate this year.

We’ll start on the other side of the world in Australia. With us now is Jonathan Iadarola, a third-year student at the University of Adelaide in Adelaide, Australia, the land down under, where everything is flipped, and they are getting ready to wrap up their school year in November.

 Jonathan serves as president of the South Australia branch of the Australian Union of Jewish students and on AJC’s Campus Global Board. Jonathan, welcome to People of the Pod.

JONATHAN: Thank you for having me.

MANYA: So tell us what your experience has been as a Jewish college student in Australia, both before October 7 and after.

JONATHAN: So at my university, we have a student magazine, and there was a really awful article in the magazine that a student editor wrote, very critical of Israel, obviously not very nice words. And it sort of ended with like it ended with Death to Israel, glory to the Intifada. Inshallah, it will be merciless.

So it was very, very traumatic, obviously, like, just the side note, my great aunt actually died in the Second Intifada in a bus bombing. So it was just like for me, a very personal like, whoa. This is like crazy that someone on my campus wrote this and genuinely believes what they wrote. So yeah, through that experience, I obviously, I obviously spoke up. That's kind of how my activism on campus started. I spoke up against this incident, and I brought it to the university. I brought it to the student editing team, and they stood their ground. They tried to say that this is free speech. This is totally okay. It's completely like normal, normal dialog, which I completely disagreed with. 

And yeah, they really pushed back on it for a really long time. And it just got more traumatic with myself and many other students having to go to meetings in person with this student editor at like a student representative council, which is like the students that are actually voted in. Like student government in the United States, like a student body that's voted in by the students to represent us to the university administration. 

And though that student government actually laughed in our faces in the meeting while we were telling them that this sort of incident makes us as Jewish students feel unsafe on campus. And we completely were traumatized. Completely, I would say, shattered, any illusion that Jewish students could feel safe on campus. And yeah, that was sort of the beginning of my university journey, which was not great.

MANYA: Wow. And that was in 2022, before October 7. So after the terror attacks was when most college campuses here in America really erupted. Had the climate at the University of Adelaide improved by then, or did your experience continue to spiral downward until it was addressed?

JONATHAN: It's kind of remained stagnant, I would say. The levels haven't really improved or gotten worse. I would say the only exception was maybe in May 2024, when the encampments started popping up across the world. Obviously it came, came to my city as well. And it wasn't very, it wasn't very great. There was definitely a large presence on my campus in the encampment. 

And they were, they were more peaceful than, I would say, other encampments across Australia and obviously in the United States as well. But it was definitely not pleasant for students to, you know, be on campus and constantly see that in their faces and protesting. They would often come into people's classrooms as well. Sharing everything that they would like to say. You couldn't really escape it when you were on campus.

MANYA: So how did you find refuge? Was there a community center or safe space on campus? Were there people who took you in?   

JONATHAN: So I'm the president of the Jewish Student Society on my campus. One of the things that I really pushed for when the encampments came to my city was to have a Jewish space on campus. It was something that my university never had, and thankfully, we were able to push and they were like ‘Yes, you know what? This is the right time. We definitely agree.’ So we actually now have our own, like, big Jewish room on campus, and we still have it to this day, which is amazing. 

So it's great to go to when, whether we feel uncomfortable on campus, or whether we just want a place, you know, to feel proud in our Jewish identity. And there's often events in the room. There's like, a Beers and Bagels, or we can have beer here at 18, so it's OK for us. And there's also, yeah, there's bagels. Then we also do Shabbat dinners. Obviously, there's still other stuff happening on campus that's not as nice, but it's great that we now have a place to go when we feel like we need a place to be proud Jews.

MANYA: You mentioned that this was the start of your Jewish activism. So, can you tell us a little bit about your Jewish upbringing and really how your college experience has shifted your Jewish involvement, just activity in general?

JONATHAN: Yeah, that's a great question. So I actually grew up in Adelaide. This is my home. I was originally born in Israel to an Israeli mother, but we moved, I was two years old when we moved to Adelaide. There was a Jewish school when I grew up. So I did attend the Jewish school until grade five, and then, unfortunately, it did close due to low numbers. And so I had to move to the public school system. 

And from that point, I was very involved in the Jewish community through my youth. And then there was a point once the Jewish school closed down where I kind of maybe slightly fell out. I was obviously still involved, but not to the same extent as I was when I was younger. And then I would say the first place I got kind of reintroduced was once I went to college and obviously met other Jewish students, and then it made me want to get back in, back, involved in the community, to a higher level than I had been since primary school. 

And yeah, then obviously, these incidents happened on campus, and that kind of, I guess, it shoved me into the spotlight unintentionally, where I felt like no one else was saying anything. I started just speaking up against this. And then obviously, I think many other Jews on campus saw this, and were like: ‘Hang on. We want to also support this and, like, speak out against it.’ and we kind of formed a bit of a group on campus, and that's how the club actually was formed as well. 

So the club didn't exist prior to this incident. It kind of came out of it, which is, I guess, the beautiful thing, but also kind of a sad thing that we only seem to find each other in incidences of, you know, sadness and trauma. But the beautiful thing is that from that, we have been able to create a really nice, small community on campus for Jewish students. 

So yeah, that's sort of how my journey started. And then through that, I got involved with the Australsian Union of Jewish Students, which is the Jewish Student Union that represents Jewish students all across Australia and New Zealand. And I started the South Australian branch, which is the state that Adelaide is in. 

And I've been the president for the last three years. So that's sort of been my journey. And obviously through that, I've gotten involved with American Jewish Committee. 

MANYA: So you're not just fighting antisemitism, these communities and groups that you're forming are doing some really beautiful things. 

JONATHAN: Obviously, I really want to ensure that Jewish student life can continue to thrive in my city, but also across Australia. And one way that we've really wanted to do that is to help create essentially, a national Shabbaton. An event where Jewish students from all across the country, come to one place for a weekend, and we're all together having a Shabbat dinner together, learning different educational programs, hearing from different amazing speakers, and just being with each other in our Jewish identity, very proud and united. It's one of, I think, my most proud accomplishments so far, through my college journey, that I've been able to, you know, create this event and make it happen. 

MANYA: And is there anything that you would like to accomplish Jewishly before you finish your college career?

JONATHAN: There's a couple things. The big thing for me is ensuring, I want there to continue to be a place on campus for people to go and feel proud in their Jewish identity. I think having a Jewish space is really important, and it's something that I didn't have when I started my college journey. So I'm very glad that that's in place for future generations. 

For most of my college journey so far, we didn't have even a definition at my university for antisemitism. So if you don't have a definition, how are you going to be able to define what is and what isn't antisemitic and actually combat it? So now, thankfully, they do have a definition. I don't know exactly if it's been fully implemented yet, but I know that they have agreed to a definition, and it's a mix of IHRA and the Jerusalem Declaration, I believe, so it's kind of a mix. But I think as a community, we're reasonably happy with it, because now they actually have something to use, rather than not having anything at all.

 And yeah, I think those are probably the two main things for me, obviously, ensuring that there's that processes at the university moving forward for Jewish students to feel safe to report when there are incidents on campus. And then ensuring that there's a place for Jewish students to continue to feel proud in their Jewish identity and continue to share that and live that while they are studying at the university. 

MANYA: Well, Jonathan, thank you so much for joining us, and enjoy your holiday.

JONATHAN: Thank you very much. I really appreciate it. 

MANYA: Now we turn to Argentina, Buenos Aires to be exact, to talk to Ivan Stern, the first Argentine and first Latin American to serve on AJC’s Campus Global Board. A student at La Universidad Nacional de San Martin, Ivan just returned to classes last week after a brief winter break down there in the Southern Hemisphere. 

What is Jewish life like there on that campus? Are there organizations for Jewish students? 

IVAN: So I like to compare Jewish life in Buenos Aires like Jewish life in New York or in Paris or in Madrid. We are a huge city with a huge Jewish community where you can feel the Jewish sense, the Jewish values, the synagogues everywhere in the street. When regarding to college campuses, we do not have Jewish institutions or Jewish clubs or Jewish anything in our campuses that advocate for Jewish life or for Jewish students. 

We don't actually need them, because the Jewish community is well established and respected in Argentina. Since our terrorist attacks of the 90s, we are more respected, and we have a strong weight in all the decisions. So there's no specific institution that works for Jewish life on campus until October 7 that we gathered a student, a student led organization, a student led group. 

We are now part of a system that it's created, and it exists in other parts of the world, but now we are start to strengthening their programming and activities in Argentina we are we now have the Argentinian union with Jewish students that was born in October 7, and now we represent over 150 Jewish students in more than 10 universities. We are growing, but we are doing Shabbat talks in different campuses for Jewish students. We are bringing Holocaust survivors to universities to speak with administrations and with student cabinets that are not Jewish, and to learn and to build bridges of cooperation, of course, after October 7, which is really important. So we are in the middle of this work. We don't have a strong Hillel in campuses or like in the US, but we have Jewish students everywhere. We are trying to make this grow, to try to connect every student with other students in other universities and within the same university. And we are, yeah, we are work in progress.

MANYA: Listeners just heard from your Campus Global Board colleague Jonathan Iadarola from Adelaide, Australia, and he spoke about securing the first  space for Jewish students on campus at the University of Adelaide. Does that exist at your university? Do you have a safe space? 

So Hillel exists in Buenos Aires and in Cordoba, which Cordova is another province of Argentina. It's a really old, nice house in the middle of a really nice neighborhood in Buenos Aires. So also in Argentina another thing that it's not like in the U.S., we don't live on campuses, so we come and go every day from our houses to the to the classes. So that's why sometimes it's possible for us to, after classes, go to Hillel or or go to elsewhere. And the Argentinian Union, it's our job to represent politically to the Jewish youth on campus. To make these bridges of cooperation with non-Jewish actors of different college campuses and institutions, as I mentioned before, we bring Holocaust survivors, we place banners, we organize rallies. We go to talk with administrators. We erase pro- Palestinian paints on the wall. We do that kind of stuff, building bridges, making programs for Jewish youth. We also do it, but it's not our main goal.

MANYA: So really, it's an advocacy organization, much like AJC.

IVAN: It's an advocacy organization, and we are really, really, really happy to work alongside with the AJC more than once to strengthen  our goals.

MANYA: October 7 was painful for all of us, what happened on university campuses there in Argentina that prompted the need for a union?

So the impact of October 7 in Argentina wasn't nearly as strong as in other parts of the world, and definitely nothing like what's been happening on U.S. campuses. Maybe that's because October here is finals season, and our students were more focused on passing their classes than reacting to what was happening on the Middle East, but there were attempts of engagements, rallies, class disruptions and intimidations, just like in other places. That's why we focused on speaking up, taking action.

So here it's not happening. What's happening in the U.S., which was really scary, and it's still really scary, but something was happening, and we needed to react. There wasn't a Jewish institution advocating for Jewish youth on campus, directly, getting to know what Jewish students were facing, directly, lively walking through the through the hallways, through the campus, through the campuses. So that's why we organize this student-led gathering, different students from different universities, universities. We need to do something. At the beginning, this institution was just on Instagram. It was named the institutions, and then for Israel, like my university acronym, it's unsam Universidad national, San Martin unsam. So it was unsam for Israel. So we, so we posted, like every campaign we were doing in our campuses, and then the same thing happened in other university and in other universities. So now we, we gathered everyone, and now we are the Argentinian Union of Jewish students. 

But on top of that, in November 2023 students went on summer break until March 2024 so while the topic was extremely heated elsewhere here, the focus had shifted on other things. The new national government was taking office, which had everyone talking more about their policies than about Israel. 

So now the issue is starting to resurface because of the latest news from Gaza, So we will go where it goes from here, but the weight of the community here, it's, as I said, really strong. So we have the ability to speak up. 

MANYA: What kinds of conversations have you had with university administrators directly after. October 7, and then now, I mean, are you, are you communicating with them? Do you have an open channel of communication? Or is are there challenges?

IVAN: we do? That's an incredible question there. It's a tricky one, because it depends on the university. The answer we receive. Of course, in my university, as I said, we are, we are lots of Jews in our eyes, but we are a strong minority also, but we have some Jewish directors in the administration, so sometimes they are really focused on attending to our concerns, and they are really able to to pick a call, to answer back our messages, also, um, there's a there's a great work that Argentina has been, has been doing since 2020 to apply the IHRA definition in every institute, in every public institution. So for example, my university, it's part of the IHRA definition. So that's why it was easy for us to apply sanctions to student cabinets or student organizations that were repeating antisemitic rhetorics, distortioning the Holocaust messages and everything, because we could call to our administrators, regardless if they were Jewish or not, but saying like, ‘Hey, this institution is part of the IHRA definition since February 2020, it's November 2023, and this will be saying this, this and that they are drawing on the walls of the of our classrooms. Rockets with Magen David, killing people. This is distortioning the Jewish values, the religion, they are distortioning everything. Please do something.’ 

So they started doing something. Then with the private institutions, we really have a good relationship. They have partnerships with different institutions from Israel, so it's easy for us to stop political demonstrations against the Jewish people. We are not against political demonstrations supporting the Palestinian statehood or anything. But when it regards to the safety of Jewish life on campus or of Jewish students, we do make phone calls. We do call to other Jewish institutions to have our back. And yes, we it's we have difficult answers, but we but the important thing is that we have them. They do not ghost us, which is something we appreciate. But sometimes ghosting is worse. Sometimes it's better for us to know that the institution will not care about us, than not knowing what's their perspective towards the problem. So sometimes we receive like, ‘Hey, this is not an antisemitism towards towards our eyes. If you want to answer back in any kind, you can do it. We will not do nothing. 

MANYA: Ivan, I’m wondering what you’re thinking of as you’re telling me this. Is there a specific incident that stands out in your mind as something the university administrators declined to address?

IVAN: So in December 2023, when we were all in summer break, we went back to my college, to place the hostages signs on the walls of every classroom. Because at the same time, the student led organizations that were far left, student-led organizations were placing these kind of signs and drawings on the walls with rockets, with the Magen David and demonizing Jews. So we did the same thing. So we went to the school administrators, and we call them, like, hey, the rocket with the Magen David. It's not okay because the Magen David is a Jewish symbol. This is a thing happening in the Middle East between a state and another, you have to preserve the Jewish students, whatever. And they told us, like, this is not an antisemitic thing for us, regardless the IHRA definition. And then they did do something and paint them back to white, as the color of the wall. 

But they told us, like, if you want to place the hostages signs on top of them or elsewhere in the university, you can do it. So if they try to bring them down, yet, we will do something, because that this is like free speech, that they can do whatever they want, and you can do whatever that you want. So that's the answers we receive. 

So sometimes they are positive, sometimes they are negative, sometimes in between. But I think that the important thing is that the youth is united, and as students, we are trying to push forward and to advocate for ourselves and to organize by ourselves to do something.

MANYA: Is there anything that you want to accomplish, either this year or before you leave campus?

IVAN: To keep building on the work of the Argentinian Union of Jewish Students is doing bringing Jewish college students together, representing them, pushing our limits, expanding across the country. As I said, we have a strong operations in Buenos Aires as the majority of the community is here, but we also know that there's other Jewish students in other provinces of Argentina. We have 24 provinces, so we are just working in one. 

And it's also harder for Jewish students to live Jewishly on campus in other provinces when they are less students. Then the problems are bigger because you feel more alone, because you don't know other students, Jews or non-Jews. So that's one of my main goals, expanding across the country, and while teaming up with non-Jewish partners. 

MANYA: You had said earlier that the students in the union were all buzzing about AJC’s recent ad in the The New York Times calling for a release of the hostages still in Gaza.Are you hoping your seat on AJC’s Campus Global Board will help you expand that reach? Give you some initiatives to empower and encourage your peers. Not just your peers, Argentina’s Jewish community at large. 

IVAN: My grandma is really happy about the AJC donation to the Gaza church. She sent me a message. If you have access to the AJC, please say thank you about the donation. And then lots of Jewish students in the in our union group chat, the 150 Jewish students freaking out about the AJC article or advice in The New York Times newspaper about the hostages. So they were really happy

MANYA: In other words, they they like knowing that there's a global advocacy organization out there on their side?

IVAN: Also advocating for youth directly. So sometimes it's hard for us to connect with other worldwide organizations. As I said, we are in Argentina, in the bottom of the world. AJC's worldwide. And as I said several times in this conversation, we are so well established that sometimes we lack of international representation here, because everything is solved internally. So if you have, if you have anything to say, you will go to the AMIA or to the Daya, which are the central organizations, and that's it. And you are good and there. And they may have connections or relationships with the AJC or with other organizations. But now students can have direct representations with organizations like AJC, which are advocating directly for us. So we appreciate it also.

MANYA: You said things never got as heated and uncomfortable in Argentina as they did on American college campuses. What encouragement would you like to offer to your American peers? 

I was two weeks ago in New York in a seminar with other Jewish students from all over the world and I mentioned that our duty as Jewish youth is paving the way for ourselves. Sometimes we may feel alone. Sometimes we are, sometimes we are not. But the most important thing is for us as youth to pave the way for ourselves, to take action, to speak out. Even if it's hard or difficult.

It doesn't matter how little it is, but to do something, to start reconnecting with other Jews, no matter their religious spectrum, to start building bridges with other youth.

Our strongest aspect is that we are youth, Not only because we are Jewish, but we are youth. So it's easier for us to communicate with our with other peers. So sometimes when everything is, it looks like hate, or everything is shady and we cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel. We should remember that the other one shouting against us is also a peer.

MANYA:. Thank you so much, Ivan. Really appreciate your time and good luck going back for your spring semester.

IVAN: Thank you. Thank you so much for the time and the opportunity. 

MANYA:  Now we return home. Campus Global Board Member Lauren Eckstein grew up outside Phoenix and initially pursued studies at Pomona College in Southern California. But during the spring semester after the October 7 Hamas terror attacks, she transferred to Washington University in St. Louis. She returned to California this summer as one of AJC’s Goldman Fellows. 

So Lauren, you are headed back to Washington University in St Louis this fall. Tell us what your experience there has been so far as a college student.

LAUREN: So I've been there since January of 2024. It has a thriving Jewish community of Hillel and Chabad that constantly is just like the center of Jewish life. And I have great Jewish friends, great supportive non-Jewish friends. Administration that is always talking with us, making sure that we feel safe and comfortable. I'm very much looking forward to being back on campus. 

MANYA: As I already shared with our audience, you transferred from Pomona College. Did that have anything to do with the response on campus after October 7?

LAUREN: I was a bit alienated already for having spent a summer in Israel in between my freshman and sophomore year. So that would have been the summer of 2023 before October 7, like few months before, and I already lost some friends due to spending that summer in Israel before anything had happened and experienced some antisemitism before October 7, with a student calling a pro-Israel group that I was a part of ‘bloodthirsty baby killers for having a barbecue in celebration of Israeli independence.

But after October 7 is when it truly became unbearable. I lost hundreds of followers on Instagram. The majority of people I was friends with started giving me dirty looks on campus. I was a history and politics double major at the time, so the entire history department signed a letter in support of the war.

I lost any sense of emotional safety on campus. And so 20 days after October 7, with constant protests happening outside of my dorm, I could hear it from my dorm students going into dining halls, getting them to sign petitions against Israel, even though Israel had not been in Gaza at all at this point. This was all before the invasion happened. I decided to go home for a week for my mental well being, and ended up deciding to spend the rest of that semester at home.

MANYA: What did your other Jewish classmates do at Pomona? Did they stay? Did they transfer as well?

LAUREN: I would say the majority of Jewish students in Claremont either aren't really–they don't really identify with their Jewish identity in other way, in any way, or most of them identify as anti-Zionist very proudly. And there were probably only a few dozen of us in total, from all five colleges that would identify as Zionists, or really say like, oh, I would love to go to Israel.

One of my closest friends from Pomona transferred a semester after I did, to WashU. A few other people I know transferred to other colleges as well. I think the choice for a lot of people were either, I'm going to get through because I only have a year left, or, like, a couple years left, or I'm going to go abroad. 

Or I'm just going to face it, and I know that it's going to be really difficult, and I'm only going to have a few friends and only have a few professors I can even take classes with, but I'm going to get through it.

MANYA: So have you kept in touch with the friends in Pomona or at Pomona that cut you off, shot you dirty looks, or did those friendships just come to an end?

LAUREN: They all came to an end. I can count on one hand, under one hand, the number of people that I talked to from any of the Claremont Colleges. I'm lucky to have one like really, really close friend of mine, who is not Jewish, that stood by my side during all of this, when she easily did not need to and will definitely always be one of my closest friends, but I don't talk to the majority of people that I was friends with at Pomona.

MANYA: Well, I’m very sorry to hear that, but it sounds like the experience helped you recognize your truest friend. With only one year left at WashU, I’m sure plenty of people are asking you what you plan to do after you graduate, but I want to know what you are hoping to do in the time you have left on campus.

LAUREN: I really just want to take it all in. I feel like I haven't had a very normal college experience. I mean, most people don't transfer in general, but I think my two college experiences have been so different from each other, even not even just in terms of antisemitism or Jewish population, but even just in terms of like, the kind of school it is, like, the size of it and all of that, I have made such amazing friends at WashU – Jewish and not –  that I just really want to spend as much time with them as I can, and definitely spend as much time with the Jewish community and staff at Hillel and Chabad that I can.

I'm minoring in Jewish, Islamic, Middle Eastern Studies, and so I'm really looking forward to taking classes in that subject, just that opportunity that I didn't have at Pomona. I really just want to go into it with an open mind and really just enjoy it as much as I can, because I haven't been able to enjoy much of my college experience. So really appreciate the good that I have.

MANYA: As I mentioned before, like Jonathan and Ivan, you are on AJC’s Campus Global Board. But you also served as an AJC Goldman Fellow in the Los Angeles regional office this summer, which often involves working on a particular project. Did you indeed work on something specific? 

LAUREN: I mainly worked on a toolkit for parents of kids aged K-8, to address Jewish identity and antisemitism. And so really, what this is trying to do is both educate parents, but also provide activities and tools for their kids to be able to really foster that strong Jewish identity. Because sadly, antisemitism is happening to kids at much younger ages than what I dealt with, or what other people dealt with. 

And really, I think bringing in this positive aspect of Judaism, along with providing kids the tools to be able to say, ‘What I'm seeing on this social media platform is antisemitic, and this is why,’ is going to make the next generation of Jews even stronger.

MANYA: Did you experience any antisemitism or any challenges growing up in Arizona?

LAUREN: I went to a non-religious private high school, and there was a lot of antisemitism happening at that time, and so there was a trend to post a blue square on your Instagram. And so I did that. And one girl in my grade –it was a small school of around 70 kids per grade, she called me a Zionist bitch for posting the square. It had nothing to do with Israel or anything political. It was just a square in solidarity with Jews that were being killed in the United States for . . . being Jewish. 

And so I went to the school about it, and they basically just said, this is free speech. There's nothing we can do about it. And pretty much everyone in my grade at school sided with her over it. 

I didn't really start wearing a star until high school, but I never had a second thought about it. Like, I never thought, oh, I will be unsafe if I wear this here. 

MANYA: Jonathan and Ivan shared how they started Jewish organizations for college students that hadn’t existed before. As someone who has benefited from Hillel and Chabad and other support networks, what advice would you offer your peers in Argentina and Australia?

LAUREN: It's so hard for me to say what the experience is like as an Argentinian Jew or as an Australian Jew, but I think community is something that Jews everywhere need. I think it's through community that we keep succeeding, generation after generation, time after time, when people try to discriminate against us and kill us. I believe, it's when we come together as a people that we can truly thrive and feel safe. 

And I would say in different places, how Jewish you want to outwardly be is different. But I think on the inside, we all need to be proud to be Jewish, and I think we all need to connect with each other more, and that's why I'm really excited to be working with students from all over the world on the Campus Global Board, because I feel like us as Americans, we don't talk to Jews from other countries as much as we should be.

I think that we are one people. We always have been and always will be, and we really need to fall back on that.

MANYA: Well, that's a lovely note to end on. Thank you so much, Lauren.

LAUREN: Thank you.

MANYA:  If you missed last week’s episode, be sure to tune in for my conversation with Adam Louis-Klein, a PhD candidate at McGill University. Adam shared his unexpected journey from researching the Desano tribe in the Amazon to confronting rising antisemitism in academic circles after October 7. He also discussed his academic work, which explores the parallels between indigenous identity and Jewish peoplehood, and unpacks the politics of historical narrative. 

Next week, People of the Pod will be taking a short break while the AJC podcast team puts the finishing touches on a new series set to launch August 28: Architects of Peace: The Abraham Accords Story. Stay tuned.