NEW YORK — Jonathan Dekel-Chen, the father of former Israeli hostage Sagui Dekel-Chen, will join the faculty at Columbia University, the school announced on Monday.

Terrorists abducted Sagui Dekel-Chen from Kibbutz Nir Oz during the Hamas-led invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023. He was released by Hamas during a ceasefire in February 2025 after 498 days in captivity.

His father was a vocal advocate for his release and attended rallies for the hostages in New York City.

He is also a professor in the Jewish history department at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and will now take a position at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, the school announced.

The appointment is especially notable because, after the start of the war in Gaza, Columbia became the epicenter of the anti-Israel campus protest movement in the US. The campus has been relatively quiet in recent........

© The Times of Israel