By Howard Feldman
I spoke this week to a professor of English literature at Bar-Ilan University about a new Canadian survey examining antisemitism on university campuses.
The findings are staggering. Ninety-six percent of the Jewish students surveyed said they had experienced or witnessed at least one form of antisemitism during the previous year. Eighty-four percent regarded antisemitism as a serious problem on their campus. Seventy percent believed their universities were not taking it seriously enough.
I asked the professor what advice he would give Jewish students considering their futures.
His answer was immediate: study in Israel.
I understood the response. There is something appealing about telling a Jewish student that they need not spend the most formative years of their life defending their identity, explaining Zionism to people who have learned everything they know from Instagram, or calculating whether wearing a Star of David will turn an ordinary walk across campus into a political confrontation.
There is comfort in Israel. A Jewish student in Israel can argue about politics, religion, history and the government without first having to establish their right to be in the room.
And yet, his answer troubled me.
Not because Israel should not be an option. But when the proposed answer to antisemitism in Canadian universities is that Jewish students should leave Canadian universities, we need to ask what has actually been solved.
The antisemites remain on campus. The Jews go elsewhere.
The conversation struck a nerve because I have been thinking about a similar development in my own profession. Jewish and openly Zionist writers increasingly find that certain publications are no longer interested in their voices. Sometimes the rejection is explicit. More often it is disguised as editorial judgment, a change in direction or a concern about “tone.” The reality is that we sometimes make editors uncomfortable.
The response has been understandable. Jewish publications publish Jewish writers. Jewish radio stations interview the guests others will not. Jewish organisations create their own platforms, podcasts, newsletters, events and cultural spaces.
I am part of that world. I run a Jewish radio station. I understand why these institutions matter. When the general media gets Israel wrong, Jewish media provides context. When antisemitism is dismissed or reframed as legitimate activism, Jewish platforms allow those affected to describe what is actually happening. When the wider public square becomes hostile, our own institutions offer community, solidarity and protection.
We need them.
But we must also recognise the danger.
The first Jewish ghetto was formally established in Venice in 1516. Jews were forced into a confined district whose gates were locked at night. Over time, similar ghettos appeared elsewhere in Europe. Jews lived together, traded with one another, built synagogues, schools and charities, and created extraordinary intellectual and religious life under punishing circumstances.
The walls kept Jews in. They also kept Jewish voices out.
The twenty-first-century ghetto may not have gates. It may have websites, private schools, community radio stations, Jewish universities, protected social spaces and WhatsApp groups. Its boundaries may be cultural rather than physical. But the underlying danger is familiar: Jews gradually disappearing from the institutions in which the wider society is formed.
The modern version does not always begin with someone ordering us to leave. Sometimes it begins with us deciding that remaining is too exhausting.
If we send our children only to Jewish schools only because other schools feel unsafe; if we encourage students to study in Israel only because foreign campuses feel hostile; if we write for Jewish publications only because mainstream editors no longer welcome us; or speak only on Jewish platforms only because other broadcasters regard the Jewish experience as controversial, we will be headed towards disaster.
A society in which Jews speak only to Jews is one in which everyone else learns about Jews from people who dislike them.
That is the great danger of retreat. The vacuum we leave behind will not remain empty. It will be filled by activists, ideologues and professional explainers who are very happy to describe who Jews are, what Zionism means, what antisemitism looks like and which forms of Jewish fear deserve to be taken seriously.
When Jewish writers disappear from mainstream publications, readers do not stop reading about Jews. They simply read about us without hearing from us.
When Jewish students disappear from universities, antisemitism does not disappear. It becomes easier. There is no Jewish classmate to complicate the caricature, no Jewish lecturer to challenge the lazy historical analogy, and no Jewish friend whose existence makes hatred socially uncomfortable.
Segregation has always allowed fantasy to flourish. It is easier to believe monstrous things about people one never meets.
This places Jewish institutions in a difficult position. They must be strong enough to shelter us without becoming places in which we hide. They must nurture Jewish confidence and then send that confidence outward. A Jewish school should prepare a child to enter the world, not fear it. A Jewish publication should strengthen Jewish writers, but it should not become the only place they are permitted to appear. A Jewish radio station must serve its community while insisting that the community’s voice belongs in the national conversation too.
We should build Jewish spaces with doors.
None of this means asking Jewish students to tolerate abuse. Universities have a basic obligation to protect their students and to apply their rules consistently. Jewish students should not have to choose between physical safety and full participation in academic life. Nor should writers be expected to accept exclusion politely while publications congratulate themselves on diversity.
There will be students for whom Israel is the right choice. There will be writers who are happier publishing within the Jewish world. There are moments when retreat is not cowardice but survival.
But we should at least understand the price.
A ghetto can provide warmth, belonging and safety. That was true even in Venice. Jewish life flourished behind those walls because Jews are extraordinarily good at turning limitation into community.
Our task is not simply to create places in which Jewish people can speak freely among themselves. It is to ensure that Jewish people remain visible, audible and unapologetically present in the societies to which they belong.
The walls of the new ghetto may be invisible. Which makes them even more dangerous.