Jews and Antisemitism on Campus: A Century of Discord

Jews and Antisemitism on Campus: A Century of Discord
Tuesdays 5/7 - 5/28 from 12:00pm - 1:00pm Pacific Time

Join Mark Oppenheimer on a journey through the history of antisemitism on college campuses from the 1920s to today.

We are delighted to offer this class for free. But to ensure we can keep making Jewish education accessible at no charge, will you make the suggested donation of $36 (or more, if you are so moved)? Thank you for your generosity!

Just after World War I, the trustees of Columbia University conspired to limit the number of Jews on their campus, instituting concepts like “geographical diversity” to more easily recruit Gentile students from outside the New York area. In the century since, restrictions on Jews at
schools like Columbia, Harvard, and Stanford came and went—and some worry that campus climates have turned hostile again. We’ll learn the truth—and explode some myths—in this four-part course, ranging over 100 years of higher education.

This class meets the following Tuesdays at 12:00pm -1:00pm PT: 

May 7

May 14 

May 21 

May 28 

Mark Oppenheimer received his B.A. in history from Yale in 1996 and his Ph.D. in American religious history from Yale in 2003, the year that he published his first book, Knocking on Heaven’s Door: American Religion and the Age of Counterculture.
Since then, Oppenheimer has taught at Stanford, Wellesley, NYU, Boston College (where he was the Corcoran Visiting Professor in Christian-Jewish Relations), and Yale, where for sixteen years he directed the Yale Journalism Initiative. From 2010-2016, he wrote The Beliefs column, About Religion, for The New York Times. He is the author of numerous magazine articles and five books, the most recent of which is Squirrel Hill: The Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting and The Soul of a Neighborhood.
A popular speaker and lecturer, Oppenheimer is the creator of two podcasts: Unorthodox, about Jewish life and culture, which he hosted from 2015-2023 and while had over seven million downloads, and Gatecrashers: The Hidden History of Jews in the Ivy League (2022). He is currently writing biographies of author Judy Blume and newspaper columnist Ann Landers.