Jewish university's enrollment sees massive spike amid campus anti-Semitism epidemic

Enrollment at Yeshiva University in New York City has risen by roughly 52% this year, according to university officials.

Much of this increase has been fueled by transfer applications from students at colleges with anti-Israel protests and anti-Semitic attacks.

In the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks against Israel, enrollment has increased dramatically at one of the largest Orthodox Jewish universities in the United States.

Enrollment at Yeshiva University in New York City has risen by roughly 52% this year, according to university officials. Much of this increase has been fueled by transfer applications from students at colleges with anti-Israel protests.

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“After Oct. 7, every time I walked into class, it felt like someone was giving you a dirty look,” Ethan Oliner, a student who transferred to Yeshiva from Cornell this year, told ABC7 New York. Oliner also said that, unlike Cornell, Yeshiva has offered him “a safe environment where you’re able to focus on your actual studies and not focus on fighting antisemitism every day.”

In an interview with FOX Business, university president Rabbi Ari Berman criticized other large schools for mishandling anti-Israel protests, condemning their apparent failure to meaningfully educate students about the conflict.

“What we’re seeing right now is … these students have been indulged,” Berman said of students at other institutions. “They’ve been coddled, they’ve been acting inappropriately and scaring their fellow Jewish students since Oct. 7. And the college campuses that haven’t educated the truth about the clear and unambiguous — a sense of Hamas being a terrorist organization — this is a fight against people who represent the greatest evil that has been committed to the Jewish people since the Holocaust.”

In the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks, Berman founded the Universities United Against Terrorism coalition, a group of more than 100 schools that affirm that “Hamas is a terrorist organization and the Palestinian people are not represented by Hamas. In fact, they are being harmed by Hamas.” During his interview with FOX Business, Berman endorsed the coalition’s member schools to Jewish students considering going to college.

“Our enrollment has expanded greatly,” Berman said of his own school, “but we can’t take in every Jew in this country.”

Even before the October 7 attacks, enrollment at Yeshiva was up 13% from 2022, which the school attributed to its new programs offering degrees in fields relating to A.I., biotechnology, and cybersecurity. Graduate programs at Yeshiva have also kept pace.

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“We are galvanizing the next generation of students to not only lead lives of great success but also lives of impact and leadership,” Berman said last year. “Our graduate programs lay the groundwork to actualize these ideals, with an expert faculty, life-changing research, and curricula that address the ever-evolving needs of today’s most competitive fields.”

Campus Reform has reached out to members of the administration and student body at Yeshiva University for comment. This story will be updated accordingly.