Shabbos Kestenbaum—Harvard graduate, activist, and plaintiff in high-profile campus litigation—shares his first‑hand account of facing anti-Semitism at one of the nation’s leading universities and offers a clear blueprint for what colleges must do next to Jewish students and build a genuine intellectual community.
- What you’ll hear: a candid personal narrative that moves beyond headlines to reveal how anti-Semitism shows up in everyday campus life and how it affects students’ ability to learn, worship, and belong.
- What you’ll learn: concrete policy and community-based solutions universities can adopt now—from complaint processes and safety protocols to academic leadership and student programming—to safeguard Jewish students while preserving open debate.
- Why it matters: this is a policy-forward conversation about civil rights, campus safety, and the limits of current inclusion frameworks, aimed at students, faculty, administrators, and anyone who cares about higher education and free expression.
Join us for a provocative, solutions-driven talk followed by audience Q&A and practical next steps attendees can bring back to their campuses.
This event will feature Shabbos Kestenbaum, a Harvard Divinity School graduate, who was the lead plaintiff on a major suit against Harvard University in which he alleged that the university failed to protect its Jewish students against anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination. He has since spoken at the Republican National Convention, as well as on Fox and CNN, about his career as a Jewish activist and outspoken critic of anti-Semitism. Shabbos has also worked hard to preserve Jewish life in Poland and donated a kidney through Renewal, a Jewish nonprofit that facilitates kidney donations within the observant Jewish community. He lives in Los Angeles and recently took a job with PragerU. The event will be moderated by Benjamin Dorfman, senior researcher in anti-Semitism at the National Association of Scholars.
