Sapphira Mohammed, Copy Editor
“I’m in a weird place right now with my Judaism when it comes to my beliefs about Israel,” an anonymous VCU student said.
The anonymous student, Jewish by ethnicity and religion, said the teachings they received about Israel before Oct. 7, 2023 only consisted of praise for the country and included no mentions of conflict with Palestinians.
“What’s happening to the Palestinian people is a genocide and I absolutely believe that the Israeli government is not right at all,” the anonymous student said. “It’s just a very thin line, because I do have a history with Israel, but my love for it is within my memories and my experiences.”
The anonymous student’s viewpoint is growing in popularity. Nearly four out of every 10 Jewish Americans believe Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, according to a September 2025 Washington Post survey. Over six in 10 believe Israel has at least committed war crimes.
“When I transferred to VCU post-Oct. 7, I have felt a bit isolated when it came to my community,” the anonymous student said. “So it’s been difficult to join any of the Jewish orgs on campus, because I don’t know where I fit in.”
VCU currently has three Jewish student organizations — Jewish Life at VCU, Hillel at VCU and the Progressive Jewish Student Union. But after the flashpoint that was Oct. 7, 2023, the genocide in Gaza and years of antiwar protests on campus, some students say they do not feel a sense of belonging in any of them.
Student organizations split in the wake of Oct. 7
On Oct. 7, 2023, the militant group Hamas executed an attack on Israel, killing around 1,200 citizens and kidnapping over 300, according to the Associated Press. In retaliation, Israel ramped up its genocide in Gaza.
It is estimated that roughly 11% of the Gaza Strip’s population has been killed or injured in the ensuing two years. While a permanent ceasefire was ordered in October 2025, there is still ongoing Israeli military action in Gaza and the West Bank.
Richmonders and VCU students began regularly protesting against the genocide in the weeks after Oct. 7, culminating in the April 2024 encampment protest that turned violent — riot gear-clad police arrested 13 people, injuring some students and spraying others with chemical irritants, according to a previous report by The CT.
Protests continued to a less-frequent extent the following academic year — after VCU changed its Campus Expression and Space Utilization policy — and another student was arrested in a demonstration echoing the 2024 encampment.
The Progressive Jewish Student Union was created in 2023, shortly after Oct. 7, as a space for those in the faith with different viewpoints on the attack.
The completely student-run organization was founded by the former presidents of Jewish Life and Hillel — both of whom left their organizations after facing exclusion and harassment for their Pro-Palestine views.
The Progressive Jewish Student Union is now led by Joseph Friedman, a fourth-year sociology student. They hold their own movie nights and holiday celebrations — on top of regularly protesting with organizations such as Students for Justice in Palestine.
“This is a point of fundamental disagreement, and so I wouldn’t affiliate with or be in an organization that supports the crimes against humanity committed by the state of Israel,” Friedman said. “We think that there should be spaces where you can be Jewish or for non-Jews that are curious about the culture and stuff that aren’t Zionist spaces.”
Zionism is defined by Merriam-Webster as “an international movement originally for the establishment of a Jewish national or religious community in the historical region of Palestine and later for the support of modern Israel.”
Hillel at VCU — which markets itself as being for “all kinds of Jewish” students — is a chapter of a Zionist organization on the national level. They provide opportunities to students such as the Birthright program, which sends students on free 10-day trips to Israel.
Sheri Rodman is the executive director of VCU’s Hillel chapter. She said they are not a hateful group.
“I’m a proud Zionist,” Rodman said. “I don’t think that makes me mean or not supportive of Palestinian people. I think that word has become derogatory and people are confused by what it is and what it means.”
Hillel, established as a non-profit organization in 2023, has been a presence at VCU for over 50 years, according to Rodman.
Rodman said she does not want Jewish students to shy away from the topics of Zionism or Palestine while attending Hillel events. Instead, she wants them to have the difficult conversations — rather than finding information online or from less-informed people.
Dylan Cohen, a second-year music student and the social chair for the chapter, believes many of the student protests have had antisemitic themes. He said students are misinformed about Jewish people as a whole.
“People pinpoint issues that involve Jewish people so that they can reflect their antisemitism in other ways that have new words like ‘anti-Zionism,’” Cohen said. “And that also hurts us.”
There has been contention between Jewish Americans on what does and does not qualify as antisemitism. Some believe common protest chants like “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” are antisemetic because they imply the erasure of Israel as a nation.
Some Jewish Americans believe Zionism is a racist movement that excludes Palestinians. For others, Zionism and Israel are inseparable from their religion and culture.
After initial protests against the genocide in Gaza, former Republican Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares opened a probe into VCU to address the “rise in antisemitism on campuses,” according to a previous report by The CT.
The following semester, Miyares sent a directive to Virginia universities that resulted in them limiting protest activities under new campus speech, expression and use of space policies.
Third-year forensic science student and Hillel intern Gabby Miller said since the Oct. 7 attacks, she has felt uneasy on campus as a Jewish student.
“I 100% support people fighting for what they believe in, but it can be difficult to know everybody else’s intentions,” Miller said. “Like a few weeks ago, I was walking in one of the residential areas, and there was some antisemitic thing written in sidewalk chalk near one of the elementary schools around here.”
Miller has been a member of Hillel since her freshman year. She felt it was a better fit for her over Jewish Life — or Chabad — which she thought was looking for conservative or Orthodox Jews. Miller is a Reform Jew.
Jewish Life is a part of Chabad Lubavitch, an international Jewish organization with approximately 6,000 emissaries. Its mission is to create homes for Jewish people around the world, according to the VCU chapter’s director, Rabbi Menachem Lessoff.
Lessoff and his wife Daniela have run Jewish Life at VCU since 2023. Lessoff, who is originally from Israel, moved to the United States after getting married. They chose to lead a Chabad in Virginia, where they have family.
The VCU chapter was previously run by the regional Chabad emissary, who left for unknown personal reasons.
“Right after Oct. 7, we felt like there was a need for Jewish voices, over politics, as a safe place for students, a place that they can feel comfortable, a place that they can identify who they are,” Lessoff said. “That’s one of the motives that told us ‘you got to go over here and create a safe space above politics, connecting between the sides and bringing every Jewish student together.’”
VCU alum and former Jewish Life chapter president Lindsey Adams said the organization has a ‘no politics’ rule if things get heated in discussion, in order to keep the peace.
“I feel really grateful to have the Rabbi we have because there are times where we’ve had students who don’t necessarily all agree on something, and he’s always made it such a vital point to ensure that everybody is included and invited back always,” Adams said. “Even if you had an issue with another student, it does not matter — you are welcome here.”
Another VCU alum, who requested to remain anonymous, correlated the divide among Jewish students on campus with the divide between Gen-Z Jews who wanted to erase their ties to Israel and those who stayed loyal to the state after the Oct. 7 attacks.
“It’s hard for people to pick sides, and Americans in particular who have listened to the stories of their parents and their grandparents, have an even harder time because of that,” the anonymous alum said. “It’s hard to digest that you can be harming another person or your people can harm another person.”
The anonymous alum is half Jewish and half Egyptian with a Palestinian stepfather. While their opinions on Israel and Palestine are complex, the reason why they never joined Jewish organizations during her time in college was simple: they are ethnically Jewish, not religiously or politically.
“They didn’t feel right to me, because most of them are either religiously or politically affiliated, which I don’t want anything to do with,” the anonymous alum said. “There’s not really a space where you can be Jewish as an ethnic Jew, without it being intertwined with Israel in some way.”
One of the anonymous former Jewish student organization leaders said they found their time on campus after Oct. 7 to be extremely difficult.
While the alum’s former organization was respectful of their pro-Palestine and anti-Zionist views, another student from another organization called them antisemitic. That student allegedly reposted their Instagram stories to an anonymous forum, where users called the alum, then a student, a terrorist.
The anonymous alum said their organization tried defending them, but asked them to act as a shadow president where they would take their contact down from their sites and have them still act as president. The alum decided to step down after the request.
“I felt deeply betrayed, because I felt deeply connected to my Jewish identity and also deeply rooted in my beliefs as an anti-Zionist, and it felt like I was being asked to choose which was more important, and like I was being pushed out for holding that belief,” the student said.
While the anonymous alum’s views can clash with other members of Jewish organizations, the alum has since gone back to attending gatherings because of their love for their religion and community.
“Ultimately, community is necessary. We need Jewish community and people need to feel like they belong, if not in one space then in another,” the anonymous alum said.
Exactly 1,543 people in the U.S. have reported antisemitic offenses in the past year, according to the FBI. Students who have been victims of hate crimes can visit https://www.justice.gov/hatecrimes/victims for help.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The CT made the decision to leave certain sources in this story anonymous to protect them from possible reprimanding or retribution from their communities and organizations.
Per a previous staff editorial, The CT style guide requires Israel’s actions in Gaza following Oct. 7, 2023 to be referred to as the “genocide in Gaza.”