Antisemitic Encampment Demand to Remove Chabad at Drexel Brings Jewish Students Together

by Faygie Levy Holt – chabad.org

On Wednesday night, the anti-Israel encampment at Drexel University in Philadelphia was ordered disbanded by the local police department. Protesters left ahead of police action, and did so without their many demands being met, including that the school terminate its relationship with Chabad and Hillel at Drexel, and with Jewish pride stronger than ever.

“I grew up secular, and throughout my life, I felt myself moving further away from Judaism,” said Brian Tsymbal, an engineering student at Drexel. Something changed for the 20-year-old this past September.

That’s when Tsymbal reached out to Rabbi Chaim Goldstein, who directs Chabad-Lubavitch serving Drexel with his wife, Moussia. “I don’t want to lose the Jewish aspect of my life,” Tsymbal recalls telling the rabbi. “But there are things I don’t know and things I’m uncertain of.”

Goldstein’s response was a simple one: “Brian, let’s start learning!” he told him. The pair began a weekly study session, reviewing the Torah portion and then discussing how it could be applied to day-to-day life.

“Then, unfortunately, the horrific acts of Oct. 7 caused me and many of my fellow students to start congregating in the Jewish centers on campus,” said Tsymbal. “I stopped going to the library and started studying for school at Hillel. I spent more and more time studying Torah at Chabad. The pace in which I was learning accelerated.”

Tsymbal was among a group of students who last week traveled with the Goldsteins on a trip to Crown Heights in Brooklyn, N.Y., home of Chabad headquarters. The group also headed to Queens to visit the Ohel, the resting place of the Rebbe— Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory. It was there that they learned virulently anti-Israel protesters had taken over the Korman Family Quad at the center of campus, and were demanding Drexel University “immediately terminate” Chabad and Hillel on campus.

Tsymbal and his fellow students could hardly believe their eyes: Fellow students at Drexel were unabashedly calling for the banishment of all Jewish life on campus.

“I was dumbfounded,” Tsymbal said. “When I heard that they wanted to defund and disband Chabad and Hillel, that was just so completely ridiculous, it was hard to take in.”

In addition to these blatantly antisemitic demands, the “Drexel Palestine Coalition” behind the encampment called on the university to accuse Israel of genocide, stop cooperating with Israeli universities and hospitals, cease “campus-wide use of Hewlett-Packard (HP) printing and computing services” and close the Starbucks Cafe on campus.

‘No One on the Other Side to Talk to’

For his part, Rabbi Goldstein hadn’t paid much attention to the anti-Israel encampment when it popped up on his campus a few days earlier.

The Goldsteins have been the Chabad emissaries at Drexel for 13 years, and are a part of the fabric of the campus community. In 2022 Moussia Goldstein gave the invocation at the graduation ceremony for the Drexel University College of Nursing and Health Professions, while her husband did the same at the university’s LeBow College of Business. Busy with their work, they had plenty of other things on their plate: the trip to Crown Heights, ongoing classes for students, and a big May 20 event with sushi and pizza to celebrate Jewish pride on campus. Plus, they are gearing up for their biggest event of the year: their Mega-Shabbat with more than 200 Jews on campus that will be held on the first Shabbat in June.

The rabbi, too, was surprised by the ugly demands, but says he is heartened by the response from the students, the school and parents. “University president John Fry has been vocal in his opposition to this lawless encampment and his support for the Jewish people,” said Goldstein.

When a former student called him on Monday afternoon and asked if they could get together so the young man could put on tefillin, Goldstein didn’t hesitate, even though their meeting spot was near the encampment. Soon a few other students also came over to put on tefillin.

When Goldstein tried walking into the encampment, i.e. the Quad, to offer Jewish students he knew inside the opportunity to put on tefillin, he was blocked from accessing the public space by student enforcers.

“They said they would let me enter on the condition that I agreed with the slogan ‘From the river to the sea … ,’” Goldstein recounted.

The genocidal chant was obviously a nonstarter for the rabbi, who has family and friends living in the Holy Land. “The Land of Israel has been the Jewish homeland for millenia,” Goldstein said. “G‑d promised this land to the Jewish people in the Torah, the Jewish Bible. Chanting that it must be emptied of Jews, and that Jews have no connection to the land, is wrong on every level.”

At that point Jewish Drexel students, including brothers from the AEPi Jewish fraternity, confronted the anti-Israel protesters and told them they had no right to prevent the rabbi from doing his job.

“You could see in the way they faced toward him and angled themselves that they were not going to let him in,” said Tsymbal, who coincidentally had been studying at a nearby coffee shop and ran over when he saw the commotion. “We began to disengage and started to wrap tefillin with some of the other students who were there supporting him instead.”

“I am so proud of our students,” said Goldstein. “They were so passionate and proud; unfortunately, there was no one on the other side to talk to.”

With the encampment now cleared, everyone hopes that life at school will go back to normal. For the Goldsteins, that means gearing up for the Mega-Shabbat next week, which is open to students, their parents and faculty, as well moving forward on the construction of a new Chabad center on campus, which will include a synagogue, mikvah, residential dorms and kosher restaurant.

For Tsymbal, that new normal includes putting tefillin on every day, learning Torah and continuing his work towards a degree in mechanical engineering.

“When I came to school three years ago, people said you will either lose your faith or become your faith,” said Tsymbal. “This year, I found my home at Chabad. It was really the keystone to my Jewish reconnection, a rekindling. I don’t think I would be the same person today if not for them.”