A former boss at Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s firm Archewell has launched a web site, along with a group of Jewish students, to help fight antisemitism on campus.
Mandana Dayani, 23-year-old Yasmeen Ohebsion and campus leaders have put together Our CampUs United, which offers tools such email templates for campaigns and scenario-based guides, like what to do if a professor singles out a Jewish student or uses antisemitic tropes.
Ohebsion testified in front of Congress last year about the antisemitism she faced while a student at Tulane University.
“As a mother, activist, and a human being – witnessing the violence and unabashed, coordinated attacks against Jewish students across the country has been both heartbreaking and deeply disturbing,” Dayani, a member of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, tells Page Six. “The silence of my peers and communities around the world against this vile hate is inexcusable, especially when we know where this dehumanization leads.”
She said that student leaders on campuses “who showed up in the hardest imaginable time with the conviction, courage, and moral clarity to confront the violent rhetoric” thrown at them “have truly been my heroes.”
Student founder Ohebsion says she is sick of the double standard applied to Jewish students and says they are just seeking equal treatment.
“What we need to see from administrations on campuses is that all students are treated fairly and equally,” Ohebsion tells us.
According to the ADL, more than 1,400 antisemitic incidents occurred on campus during the 2023-2024 academic year, a 500% increase over last year.
Ohebsion, who was president of the Movement to Address Antisemitism at Tulane, tells us she experienced unchecked hatred first hand while in school.
“I was chased across campus by a person — student or not, it was hard to tell — who screamed at me ‘F-ck you Jew.’ I literally ran into the Jewish studies building crying my eyes out,” she told us.
At the time the university characterized the slur as “political speech.”
It apologized after she testified, she says.
“I had a students scream in my face ‘I f-cking love Hamas,’” Ohebsion tells us. “Direct terror support. People would consistently call me a ‘Nazi’ and ‘Baby killer.’ There was a student in class who refused to do a project with me because he said he would rather fail than work with a Zionist.”
In addition to harassment on campus, she also dealt with it online, telling us she was “consistently met by hostility.”
She says and hopes that the new platform will help all students be able to get an education without fear.
Just this week, masked students took over Barnard’s Milbank Hall and assaulted a school employee while protesting the expulsions of two students who stormed a Columbia University “History of Modern Israel” class and distributed flyers, including one depicting a boot stomping on a Star of David.
The Department of Justice announced this week that it is sending a federal “task force to combat antisemitism” to 10 U.S. college campuses including Columbia, New York University, UCLA, USC, George Washington University, Harvard, to investigate “allegations that the schools may have failed to protect Jewish students and faculty members from unlawful discrimination.”
“I have hope over time the issue will get better,” Ohebsion says. “I want Jewish students to know we have your back and you are not alone. This is a place you can come to connect, to find answers and solutions and learn how to engage, where being Jewish is something to be proud of.”
Other founding members of the site include Alyssa Wallack (USC), Amanda Silberstein (Cornell), Balzhana Lavine (Tulane), Ben Sherman (UT Austin), Eden Yadegar (Columbia), Einav Tsach (Maryland), Jasmine Beroukhim (UCLA), Noa Fey (Columbia), Shabbos Kestenbaum (Harvard), and Talia Khan (MIT).
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