There is a Hebrew phrase that captures this moment: gam ve gam — both this and this. It is both the best time and the worst time to be a Jewish student on campus today.

Let’s start with the worst.

In the years before October 7, Ontario campuses saw roughly 50 reported incidents of antisemitism annually. In the year that followed, that number exploded to more than 500. The numbers have since come down slightly, but they remain five to six times higher than historical norms. Student governments pass motions condemning the Jewish state while rationalizing the massacre of its civilians. Faculty members use their podiums to label Zionism a colonial crime and cast Jewish students who support Israel as defenders of genocide. In large swaths of the humanities, viewpoint diversity has all but collapsed. And, the very Diversity, Equity and Inclusion structures that were designed to protect minority students have too often gone silent — or worse – when it comes to Jews.

Jewish students are not imagining this hostility; they are living it. They have lost friendships and been pushed out of social spaces. They debate whether it is worth the social cost to wear a Magen David necklace or publicly identify as Zionist. Many tell us their mental health has suffered — not because they hold controversial ideas, but because their identity itself has been reframed as a provocation.

And yet that is only half the story.

Jewish campus life in Ontario is not shrinking. It is surging.

When I came to Hillel Ontario in 2020, we were engaging just over 3,000 unique students annually. This year, we are on track to engage more than 6,300 across some 25 campuses, representing more than 30,000 annual touchpoints; and we have plans to reach 10,000 students within the next three-to-five years.

At a time when some predicted Jewish retreat, we are seeing Jewish renaissance. Students are showing up to havdallah in central campus fields and organizing minyanim in the heart of environments that often feel hostile. They are filling Birthright buses. Last spring, we hosted the largest Jewish student Yom Ha’atzmaut celebration in the country. For the first time in twenty years, we convened a national Hillels of Canada Shabbaton, bringing together 300 students from across the country. Jewish students are not hiding; they are clarifying who they are.

My first day of university was September 11, 2001. Being on campus, and being confronted with vicious hatred in the weeks and months after that tragedy drew me into Jewish community and ultimately into this work. Crisis can fracture identity, but it can also forge it. For today’s students, October 7 has played that role. It has been traumatic and destabilizing, and it has exposed the moral confusion of many institutions that claim to stand for inclusion until Jews are the minority in question. But it has also catalyzed something powerful. Students who once floated at the periphery of Jewish life now feel an urgency to belong, to learn, to defend, to celebrate, and to build.

Observers who focus only on the hostility miss the deeper shift. It is gam ve gam. The Jew-hatred is measurable. The intellectual climate in parts of the academy is deeply broken. The hypocrisy of institutions that speak the language of equity while marginalizing Jewish identity is undeniable. And yet Jewish life on campus in Ontario is alive, growing, and unapologetic.

Growth, however, does not happen by accident. What was sufficient five years ago is not sufficient now. The demands are higher, the threats sharper, and the emotional toll heavier. Meeting this moment requires investment — in professional staff, in security, in leadership development, in Jewish education and activism, and in mental health support.

Supporting robust Jewish campus life is not a four-year investment; rather it is the down payment on the forty after that. The student who shows up to havdalah today becomes the federation leader, synagogue board chair, philanthropist, and Jewish parent of tomorrow.

We must – and we will – meet this moment with clarity and courage, and our history will record that October 7 did not silence Jewish students; it strengthened them. That is the paradox of this moment — the best and worst time to be a Jewish student. It is gam ve gam.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)