Orthodox students say it’s possible to maintain a Jewish identity at university and prepare for anti-Zionist agitation, but Jewish campus professionals say there are still challenges to overcome, attendees to a Jan. 16 panel event titled “Jews on Campus” heard.

About 40 people came out to Beth Avraham Yoseph of Toronto Congregation Saturday night to hear from Rabbi Aaron Greenberg, director of the Jewish Learning Institute on Campus (JLIC) – Canada; Zac Kaye, former executive director Hillel of Greater Toronto and the interim executive director of Hillel at Cornell University; York University students Josh Aziza, Leora Karon and Shaili Perez; and Ryerson University student Ariel Shields.

Each of the students, who all graduated from Jewish high schools, said it isn’t hard to maintain a Jewish identity on campus if someone decides to do so.

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“The extent to which somebody chooses to remain involved in their Jewish identity is a personal decision,” Aziza said.

“Whether they are in a dorm with a bunch of non-Jewish roommates in Maryland or they are at York University or Yeshiva University, if they are involved and they chose to go to shul, or they choose to go to a shiur, that’s going to be a personal decision.”

But Kaye said he’s witnessed first hand “the erosion of Orthodox Jewish life on campus” and said students are generally not prepared for their new reality.

“We probably have at Cornell something like 300 or 400 students who describe themselves as Orthodox, yet the Orthodox minyan is probably about 40 or 50 people.” He said students’ practice levels tend to decline when they live on campus.

But Rabbi Greenberg said, “I have yet to meet a student in the 14 years I’ve been on campus who all of a sudden took some religious studies class and stopped keeping Shabbat and eating non-kosher. That usually doesn’t happen.”

Rabbi Greenberg, who taught at the Bnei Akiva high schools for about 10 years and currently teaches a course at the Anne and Max Tanenbaum Community Hebrew Academy of Toronto, said Jewish high schools are working to better prepare students for life outside of the Jewish bubble, though there’s always more that can be done.

“Just like the Jewish community has to provide different entry points and opportunities, whether it’s social or whether it’s learning, we have to provide those opportunities to students,” Rabbi Greenberg said.

Elliott Malamet, Torah in Motion co-founder and the panel moderator, pointed to a recent Times of Israel article by York student Ben Shachar, who wrote about “a concerted campaign to vilify and intimidate Jewish students and institutions on campus.”

“Debating about Israel an ‘unwinnable’ battle”

Karon said students mostly turn a blind eye to the few people who protest against Israel on campus.

“People just want to go about their lives and go to class and go home, but it is important that people know how to answer a question [about Israel] if people ask about it. If you’re not knowledgeable, you should know how to respond to it,” she said.

Shields said debating about Israel is “an unwinnable battle.”

“[Anti-Israel students] are not educated and frankly… they’re not going to change their minds, so it’s not worth getting into a fight with them,” Shields said.

But Aziza said the battle shouldn’t be for those who’ve already formed strong opinions, but to inform people who are unaware of the conflict and educate them about the issues.

“The strategy should be to get involved and… put what you want to say out there, so that the vast majority of people who aren’t educated and don’t have any prior political convictions on the matter will hear what you have to say.”

Kaye recalled student leaders who wouldn’t come to campus on a day there was going to be an anti-Israel demonstration.

“These are things that students shouldn’t have to fear. The only way to resolve it was to open a dialogue with the administration to change the atmosphere that made it uncomfortable for Jewish students to be there… I think we’ve done a lot to change the way the administration saw that Jewish students were intimidated and challenged by what was going on there.”