Catholic Universities Welcome Jewish Students amid Rife Antisemitism

Jewish students are being granted a warm welcome at Catholic universities, which are being deemed a “better option for Jews than an Ivy League school,” amid a surge in antisemitism on U.S. college campuses stemming from a convergence of radical anti-Israel Muslim and progressive groups in extremely tolerant atmospheres.

A recent letter published in the Wall Street Journal describes the decision of one observant Jewish family to send their daughter to Saint Louis University, one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious Catholic universities, valuing its faith-centered environment where decency is respected.

“We are an observant Jewish family who chose the Catholic, Jesuit Saint Louis University for our daughter, and she has been delighted,” the girl’s father wrote. “She decided she’d rather be in an environment where strong faith mattered, and people walked the walk, rather than one where piety and morality are unimportant, mocked or even scorned.”

He expressed his appreciation for the university’s commitment to accommodating his daughter’s religious dietary needs.

“The school agreed to install a kosher kitchen for her (and other students who may come) so that she could have a seat at the table, literally,” he wrote. “They said no one had ever asked for it before, but since then, she has met a number of other students whose families had made the same decision.” 

The author of the letter concludes that, “In today’s ominous campus atmosphere, a strong Catholic university may be a better option for Jews than an Ivy League school.”

The letter, which appeared in the paper’s print edition in January, was written in response to an essay in December by Greg Weiner, president of Assumption University, a private Catholic liberal arts institution. 

In it, he offered a critique of elite universities fostering antisemitism and failing in moral and intellectual education, contrasting them with Catholic institutions prioritizing open inquiry and the pursuit of truth.

According to Weiner, “Menacing mobs on campus suggest an absence of what has, since Socrates, been recognized as the essential prerequisite for learning: a readiness to acknowledge one’s ignorance,” adding that students on campuses had once “aspired to learn what they didn’t know.”

He also notes that the Catholic intellectual tradition is one of “open inquiry,” explaining that “like its Jewish counterpart, it sees human beings as oriented toward reason expressed in language with one another.”

Anti-Israel students began staging pro-Hamas demonstrations on college campuses across the United States following the U.S.-designated Islamic terror group’s October 7 massacre of Jews in Israel, the worst attack in Israel’s history, in an operation stemming from its radical beliefs, including its open calls for the murder of Jews and the elimination of the Jewish state through relentless jihad.

The multi-pronged October attack saw some 3,000 terrorists burst into Israel by land, sea, and air and gun down participants at an outdoor music festival while others went door to door hunting for Jewish men, women, and children in local towns who were then subject to torture, rape, execution, immolation, and kidnapping.

The massacre, which drew parallels to scenes from the Nazi-era Holocaust, resulted in more than 1,200 dead inside the Jewish state, over 5,300 more wounded, and at least 241 hostages of all ages taken — of which more than 135 remain captive. The vast majority of the victims are civilians and include dozens of American citizens.

Since then, a steep rise in antisemitism has surfaced throughout U.S. college campuses.

In response, Franciscan University, a Catholic school in Ohio, announced it was offering a “safe haven” for Jewish students facing rising antisemitism, providing scholarships, an “expedited transfer process,” and support for those affected by “antisemitic discrimination and violence on campuses across the United States.”

Franciscan University President Father Dave Pivonka said:

Our community will welcome them with generosity and respect. Our religious differences will not cause any conflict. On the contrary, at Franciscan, our radical fidelity to Christ and the Catholic faith demands of us fraternal charity toward our Jewish brothers and sisters, as it does toward all people.

Dr. Stephen Hildebrand, vice president for academic affairs and a theology professor at Franciscan, told the Catholic News Agency that Jews “obviously have a special place in the Christian heart and the Christian mind, the Christian dispensation.”

In addition, Walsh University, a Catholic school in North Canton, Ohio, announced that it was joining Franciscan University in “providing a safe place of refuge for any Jewish college student experiencing antisemitism by providing direct admittance to Walsh University.”

“Harassment and anti-Semitism in this country, and particularly on college campuses, is unacceptable and in stark contrast to Walsh University’s Catholic mission and Judeo-Christian values,” said President Tim Collins. “We believe that human life is sacred and that the dignity of the human person is the foundation of a moral vision for society. Our Jewish brothers and sisters seeking a safe haven have a place here on our campus.”

Rev. Dennis Holtschneider, head of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities and former president of DePaul University, told the Jewish News Syndicate in November that numerous Catholic universities originated amidst immigration periods involving both Catholics and Jews.

“When other universities were putting enrollment caps on Jewish admission, our Catholic universities were welcoming them,”  he noted.

The matter comes as university campuses worldwide face scrutiny after the presidents of Harvard, MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania delivered a disastrous testimony in December before Congress regarding antisemitism.

During the congressional hearing, the presidents infamously declined to declare whether advocating for the genocide of Jews violates their schools’ rules of bullying and harassment. 

American universities, originally intended to serve as hubs of free exchange of ideas and debates, have become breeding grounds for antisemitic ideologies among students, with a recent survey revealing nearly equal college student support for Hamas — designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. and EU — and Israel, amid the current conflict. 

In response, there have been several cases of Jewish students suing universities over allegations of antisemitism. They include Carnegie Mellon University, McMaster University, New York University, Rutgers University, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Pennsylvania. 

On Saturday, the Jewish daughter of UK Secretary of State for Defense Grant Shapps expressed feeling unsafe at the University of Leeds due to “antisemitic” chants and protests on campus in light of Hamas’s brutal massacre.