JTA — Three different women have taken turns as Columbia University’s president, over the course of ongoing turmoil surrounding the handling of pro-Palestinian protests on the New York City campus. Now, Columbia has invited a fourth — and the first to be Jewish — to try her hand at running the Ivy League school.

Jennifer Mnookin, the chancellor of the University of Wisconsin, has been chosen as Columbia’s next president, the co-chairs of the school’s board of trustees announced on Sunday. She will be the school’s first Jewish leader since October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led terrorists launched a bloody invasion of Israel, triggering a war in Gaza and a student protest movement in the United States of which Columbia was an epicenter.

Mnookin, a legal scholar, served as dean of the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law before moving to Wisconsin in 2022. At least two other candidates reportedly declined the Columbia position prior to her selection.

She takes the helm at a delicate time for Columbia as it continues to reel from the fallout of the student protests, which included penalties from the Trump administration, rapid leadership changes, and ongoing fear and anxiety among many Jewish students.

“I am honored and thrilled to join Columbia University at this important moment,” Mnookin said in a statement released by the university. “Columbia is defined by rigorous scholarship, a deep commitment to open inquiry, world-class patient care, and an inseparable and enduring connection to New York........

© The Times of Israel