As colleges and universities grapple with rising antisemitism, many institutions are searching for effective ways to educate students and foster belonging. But what happens when efforts to address antisemitism on campus begin by centering the experiences of Jews of Color?
That is the question driving Leveraging the Experiences of Jews of Color to Combat Antisemitism in Higher Education, a project led by Ellen VanDyke Bell. Using Yale as a case study, the project explores how the lived experiences of Jews of Color can inform new approaches to antisemitism education and ultimately shape a prototype curriculum that can be adapted across higher education settings.
The project, which is using surveys to gather data on JoC experiences at Yale, honors the multiple identities that Jews of Color simultaneously navigate. The goal is to better illuminate how the assumptions about race, religion, and belonging intersect, and how addressing those intersections may strengthen efforts to combat antisemitism for everyone.
For VanDyke Bell, this work grew out of her own experiences on campus as a graduate student at Yale Divinity School and has guided her goal of creating spaces for authentic dialogue. She founded a student group called Unapologetically Jewish, in her words, “to bring people together, to give Jewish students at the Divinity School a voice, to have interfaith relationships, and to sit down so we can have conversations and learn about each other.”
In gatherings with Unapologetically Jewish, many participants learned to both value differences across faiths and identities while also recognizing commonalities. “You start to see that even though we have different faith traditions,” VanDyke Bell says, “we all have the same emotions of connection and togetherness when we celebrate holidays. Maybe we’re not that different.”
The emphasis on relationship-building and shared humanity continues to shape VanDyke Bell’s current work. While students across the country encounter hate speech, discrimination, and biased viewpoints, she believes lasting change requires examining where those attitudes originate, and interrupting their ripple effects in higher education.
“I want to get at the heart of how people think about antisemitism, where these thoughts come from, and then create a curriculum to educate folks.”
VanDyke Bell’s research points toward a challenge that often precedes overt acts of discrimination: deeply rooted assumptions about Jewish identity.
“Misunderstandings about what Judaism is, who Jewish people are, misinterpretation of our holy scriptures,” she said, all contribute to the persistence of antisemitism. “Unconscious biases are based upon ideas people have grown up with or things others have said to them that they never fully investigated.”
For Jews of Color, those assumptions can take on additional dimensions. Jews of Color often navigate assumptions about race, religion, identity, and belonging at the same time. “How do the experiences we have as Jews of Color differ from white-presenting Jews, and what is our take on how we can address antisemitism based on our own experiences?” VanDyke Bell asks.
Some of the JoC in VanDyke Bell’s case study shared that they have been asked to explain or prove their Jewish identity. Others have encountered situations in which antisemitic stereotypes were expressed in their presence because people assumed they were not Jewish. Some describe experiencing racism in Jewish spaces and antisemitism in non-Jewish spaces. These experiences can provide insight into how assumptions about who Jews are continue to shape interactions on campus and beyond.
Because people often assume that Jews are white and Ashkenazi, the experiences of Jews of Color may reveal forms of bias that are not otherwise immediately visible. These experiences highlight how narrow perceptions of who Jews are can obscure the diversity of Jewish communities and enable stereotypes to persist. The case study at Yale explores how experiences of Jews of Color can help educators better understand antisemitism, identity, and belonging, and how those insights might inform the development of educational resources for higher education.
VanDyke Bell and others posit that as more people recognize the diversity within the Jewish community, long-held assumptions and stereotypes become harder to sustain.
“We are a diaspora. The more that other people see that there are JoC—Black Jews, Latino Jews, Asian Jews, multiracial Jews—then the more we can create a paradigm shift away from stereotypes or big assumptions about who Jews are as a people.”
This approach is echoed in other projects in the JoCI’s Addressing Antisemitism Through a JoC Lens cohort, including efforts by Tzedek America and the Shalom Curriculum Project. As part of that cohort, VanDyke Bell has connected with leaders of other projects that are honing in on the possibilities for change in the education sector.
VanDyke Bell’s project also emphasizes dialogue as an essential component of change. “I want to be in spaces where we have conversations with each other and build bridges,” she said. “Part of that is we have to understand the language that we’re using and how it’s being received by the other party.”
Grounded in student experiences at Yale but designed with broader application in mind, the project aims to develop a prototype curriculum that can help universities create more informed, inclusive responses to antisemitism.
Ultimately, the project’s goal is to support higher education in broadening its understanding of both antisemitism and Jewish identity. “You should never feel like you don’t belong based on your identity,” VanDyke Bell says. By centering the experiences of Jews of Color, her project challenges stereotypes, invites deeper conversation, and offers a framework for helping campuses support not only Jewish students, but students of all identities.
