Two generations, one story: a conversation at Harvard Hillel
In 2022, a Harvard senior named Sabrina Goldfischer began interviewing 60 Jewish students and staff for her thesis, “The Death of Discourse: Antisemitism at Harvard College.” What she found was striking: nearly 69% of her interviewees said their Judaism or connection to Israel had caused them to self-censor, and over 62% had experienced antisemitism firsthand. Sabrina documented a campus where being openly Jewish or Israeli often meant navigating real social costs – long before 10/7 – and won Harvard’s Starr Prize for her work. So when, on the afternoon of 10/7 and in the following weeks, Harvard students’ primary reaction was to blame Israel and shun their Jewish peers, Sabrina wrote, “I wish I was surprised by my Harvard peers, but their response was written in the data.”
Sabrina is a former Harvard Hillel Student Board President and Antisemitism Response Coordinator, who later worked at the White House as Special Assistant to Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff on efforts to combat antisemitism. Now a 2L at Harvard Law School, she serves on the boards of the Jewish Law Students Association and the Alliance for Israel at HLS. She is, in many ways, the embodiment of a generation that decided not just to be on the leading edge of recognizing a problem, but also to be doing something about it.
“My work began as an effort to understand why so many Jewish students felt pressure to hide parts of themselves, at a time when many did not fully recognize the depth of the problem. What I learned made the sharp rise in antisemitism after October 7 devastating, but not surprising. It also strengthened my conviction that our response cannot be retreat, but pride: the quiet, steady decision to stand fully in who we are, openly and without apology. That is what I have tried to embody ever since.” – Sabrina Goldfischer
Months ago, in her role as JLSA speakers co-chair, Sabrina suggested a speaker she thought our community needed to hear. This past Monday night, her proposal materialized: Sabrina moderated a conversation at Harvard Hillel with someone who came to many of the same questions from a different direction and a different generation: Sarah Hurwitz ’96, JD ’00, author of the New York Times bestseller As a Jew, and former head speechwriter for Michelle Obama.
Sarah spoke with remarkable candor about how her understanding of antisemitism evolved through deeper study, about visiting roughly 30 college campuses since October 7, and about being both an American patriot and a Zionist while remaining critical of leadership in both countries.
She had spent years asking why the Judaism she’d grown up with felt so thin, and what had been lost through centuries of Jews reshaping themselves to fit in. Where Sabrina documented the cost of that pressure on today’s campus, Sarah traced its roots across history. Sarah closed with a powerful thought inspired by her friend and former classmate Dara Horn: that Judaism has always been “uncool,” and that there is something important about being comfortable with Jewish distinctiveness rather than going out of our way to fit in.
After the talk, people didn’t want to leave. Many stayed to keep chatting as Sarah signed copies of As a Jew. One couple ran to Harvard Book Store to grab a copy and came back for a signing. As one community member, Dara S. Manoach, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology at MGH/HMS, put it:
“In these truly frightening times of rising authoritarianism and antisemitism/antizionism it is a relief to come to these community events where I can let down my guard to socialize and learn in a space that feels safe and unapologetically and vibrantly Jewish. It reminds me that none of us can or should try to carry this on our own.”
When we think about Harvard and antisemitism, I don’t want us to stop at the question of whether campus is safe for Jews. I want us to ask what it looks like for Harvard to be a place where our community is an example of leadership in confronting antisemitism. That’s what Sabrina was doing when she wrote her thesis and went to the White House. That’s what Sarah is doing with her writing and speaking tour. And that’s what we’re building together at Harvard Hillel: a community that thinks, organizes, and acts.
Each of us is a part of that effort. These evenings aren’t one-offs. They’re part of a growing rhythm of programming for students, alumni and faculty, and I hope you’ll continue to be part of it, both on campus and in your conversations and work throughout the world. From Cambridge to Washington to each of your communities, we share and build bonds that give us courage and cause for hope.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Elisha Gechter
Senior Director of Community Engagement