Daniel: So have you felt comfortable as a Jewish leader and just as a Jew in general at Princeton over the last few months? 

Rabbi Steinlauf: Yes, I feel very comfortable as a Jewish leader, and I have also felt comfortable at Princeton. In general, when you talk to the majority of the students, most report that they do not feel that they are living in an antisemitic environment. At Princeton, even with all of the things going on after October 7th, the majority do not think they're living in an antisemitic place. Which doesn't mean that there isn't antisemitism on campus. And sometimes it's very difficult for individual students to deal with it. And I'm also not ignoring the fact that there is very problematic rhetoric that many in the Jewish community see as antisemitic, but there's a lot of debate about that in the Jewish community also. 

Daniel: And along similar lines, have antisemitic incidents on campus increased since October 7th, or just this general antisemitic rhetoric? 

Rabbi Steinlauf: You know, anecdotally, you know where we are paying attention now to more reports of students feeling uncomfortable in different situations. I would say there is a slight uptick in antisemitism, and the things I'm referring to are the really overtly antisemitic things. For example, during winter break, there was somebody who graffitied anti-Israel rhetoric on a couple of public structures here on campus. So that's an overt act that you can trace. But it all depends upon what you mean by antisemitic incidents. You can talk about students feeling very upset and uncomfortable about demonstrations that are protected under free speech, for example. And then there are things like people drawing swastikas or people making threats. We have not seen an uptick in the latter category of people directly being threatened because they're Jewish on campus. 

Daniel: Towards your point about free speech, I understand that it has been very difficult for all top universities, all universities in general, to punish people for making comments that are very clearly making Jewish students uncomfortable. You've seen what happened with Harvard, Penn, and MIT. Have Princeton administrators been making an effort to help Jewish students in this time? 

Rabbi Steinlauf: So I have to say that as the person on campus who regularly deals with people in the administration, I am pleased to report that there is a great deal of serious concern for the Jewish community and a real effort on a number of people in the administration to think of ways that we can ensure that the Jewish community first and foremost is safe and secondly that that the university can do what it can to help students navigate the challenges both in terms of mental health but also of responding to instances when students feel threatened or when there's an incident reported to take those incidents very very seriously. In addition to that, the administration has been extremely supportive of my efforts and the CJL's efforts to educate about antisemitism and how to recognize it and to respond to it, and what to do. And they have been actively encouraging different departments to invite me and another teacher to come and spend 90 minutes educating people about the history, the forms of, and the dynamics of antisemitism on campus these days. 

Daniel: Mm-hmm, that's great to hear. What strategies have you been talking about? What have you been teaching in these 90-minute sessions? Also, outside of these sessions, how have you been recommending that students who have come to you and report feeling uncomfortable or upset respond? 

Rabbi Steinlauf: Well, they're 90-minute sessions, we have very concrete things to do, like if we give them information to deal with, if you see an antisemitic incident, here's how to report it, right? And also here is how I recognize something that's antisemitic, because sometimes it's very tricky, from the river to the sea, or globalize the Intifada, you know, and we help people to understand why for many people in the Jewish community, those kinds of expressions land as antisemitic and that they need to work with people who are using those kinds of rhetoric and how to use them more skillfully. So that's the workshop. The incidents are really, you know, there's no one unified structure for reporting incidents and it's something that we're kind of working on right now. Often students will go to one of their residential college advisors if they have experienced on something and the residential college advisors have to report it to the administration in different ways or students will come to me a Rabbi Ira or Marni here at the CJL and talk about something where they were uncomfortable or whatever and then we help them deal with it in various ways and often I will then connect the students in with people in the Administration or others who can help think about what next steps they can take. So, you know, and one of the things I'm working with now is how we can streamline this so that we actually have better data about what is actually coming in and what's happening. And I think they're trying to do that and they are trying to do it well, but I think we can improve it. 

Daniel: Makes sense. Have you seen any changes in CJL engagements since October 7th? Has attendance at services increased? 

Rabbi Steinlauf: Yeah, that's an interesting question. I wouldn't say that attendance at services has been impacted so much, but other kinds of attendance have been impacted. The first and most notable thing is, particularly in the weeks immediately after October 7th, attendance at meals was noticeably smaller. And what's interesting about that is that, for example, for lunch every day, the place is usually packed with lines literally going out, out around the block. And it gets really, really busy – and now it really emptied out. And the majority of the students who come for lunch during the week are often not Jewish. So what you're seeing is a decrease in the number of non-Jews who are attending things at CJL. And that also includes Friday night on Shabbat. We were noticing that looking around the room, everybody was Jewish. Usually the Jewish students invite their roommates and their friends who might not be Jewish to come have Shabbat dinner with them at the CJL. Which we're thrilled to have non-Jewish students, and fewer of those students have been attending. So, you know, we can sort of think about why that was the case. I don't think it's antisemitism. I think it was more of a sense that this is a very difficult time in the Jewish community. First, there was a sense of the grief in the community and people didn't want to intrude and then there was the sense of the political dicey situations and people didn't want to walk into something that might be tense. So that's one thing we are monitoring and working on a sense of making sure that the CJL is a place that is inclusive for everybody. Obviously, we are supporting Israel, and we're very concerned about what's happening in Israel. And we are a pro-Israel organization. And there are Jewish people who are not pro Israel and those students are feeling alienated from the CJL. And also, in addition to being pro Israel, we are pluralists. So it's very important to us that if you're Jewish, you have a place at the CJL. And because a lot of our activities have been very significant about supporting Israel, our students are actually taking the lead now in helping to come up with structures here organizationally, but not sort of culturally, to help less moderate to left-leaning students who still love Israel but who are troubled by things that are happening. I feel like they have a voice in the CJL also. 

Daniel: That makes sense. I know our synagogue has been struggling with that as well and I've heard the same across many other synagogues. Is there anything else you'd like to add on, maybe a personal experience you've had either before after October 7th or anything else we haven't touched on? 

Rabbi Steinlauf: You know, I think one of the things I'm imagining that you are finding when you talk to Jewish professionals after October 7th is that the world has shifted tectonically for the Jewish people after this. My job is different than it was pre-October 7. My job isn't just supporting the community on campus and making sure people have wonderful Jewish engagement experiences. Now, it's often trying to manage a crisis that is ongoing and that doesn't have an end in the foreseeable future. And that changes the calculus of what we think about and how we allocate our resources and how much money we're spending on security versus programming. And this is true in synagogue life as well. And so it impacts us and it's a concern because, you know, in my role, I think about the long term and I thought about my heart goes out to you guys in your generation going to college during this time. I mean, when I was at Princeton, none of this was a reality. We didn't have to struggle with these kinds of existential questions about Israel in a way that your generation does, and so I'm doing a lot of thinking about how do we create a strong Jewish identity when, in general, our culture and our world, that identity is much more under assault than it has been even a generation back, and it's challenging. We have a BDS campaign coming up next semester, or this semester I should say, where it is likely that there will be calls for boycott divestment and sanctions. And the problem with BDS campaigns and the BDS movement is seeking to delegitimize the right of Israel to exist. And so what happens when we have well-meaning Jewish students who are troubled by the policies of the Israeli government and want to engage in boycotts to encourage the government to change its policies when they're throwing their hat in the ring with people who were actually seeking to obliterate the Jewish state entirely. And how do we make the case for that within the Jewish community? So I'm very concerned about things like escalating on campus, the politics and the political issues, tearing apart the fabric of the community in ways that can be extremely harmful for a very long time. And so that weighs on me and other Jewish professionals like me, thinking about how to hold together the Jewish community in such stressful and crisis-ridden times.