On the weekend of November 7-9, Brown University hosted its unprecedented celebration of “130 Years of Jewish Life at Brown.” At some point during Shabbat dinner, between the ridiculously decadent noodle kugel and Robert Kraft’s talk about combatting antisemitism in a tent pulsing with over 1,000 Jewish Brunonians – or Jewnonians, as we say – I realized that my alma mater has become the Jewish Ivy.

As an active leader in the Brown Jewish Alumni and Friends organization, I felt compelled to attend. I had not participated in any of the planning, other than strong-arming a fellow a cappella nerd to speak on a panel. Many of my alumni friends, however, were knee-deep in orchestrating this labor of love over the course of the past two years. I came to show support for our community, to spend quality time with friends, and, if I am to be honest, with a certain degree of reservation and skepticism.

After all of the pain and trauma experienced in our alma mater over the past two years, was this truly the right moment to “celebrate”? Were we ignoring the elephant in the room, namely, the fact that college students continue to experience escalating antisemitism across the globe on a daily basis? That anti-Zionist faculty continue to peddle activism as pedagogy? That a raving antisemite had just been elected mayor of New York City merely days earlier?

The answer proved to be an unqualified yes.

With a theme of L’dor V’dor – from generation to generation – the weekend brought together Jewish alumni from as far back as the 1950s up through the present for what amounted to an intergenerational therapy session. It proved to be the great hug of Jewish pride that many of us did not realize we needed.

More than that, I realized while diving into the kosher tiramisu with the branded chocolate disc on top that this event was the most powerful flex of Jewish resilience that any university community has demonstrated. Jewish Brunonians firmly and powerfully........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)