UC Berkeley will expand antisemitism education to all incoming students beginning this fall, after pro-Palestinian protests over the Israel-Hamas war fueled anxieties among many Jewish campus members, Chancellor Carol Christ announced this week.
For the first time, the campus will provide a five-year funding commitment to widen the educational effort, which began on a much smaller scale in 2019, to all new students, leaders of official student organizations and residential assistants. Berkeley will also strengthen the Center for Jewish Studies with a new designation that will allow it to have its own endowed chairs and faculty members and launch faculty searches. A new Israel Studies minor, which has been in the works for years, will begin this fall.
The new programs will aim to counter the “deeply disturbing” rise in antisemitism at Berkeley and elsewhere since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack in southern Israel, Christ said in a letter to members of her advisory committee on Jewish student life and campus climate.
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