Ministry Equips Students to Combat Antisemitism on Campuses

A disturbing wave of antisemitism on campuses and beyond has spread among young people since the Hamas terror attacks of October 2023. Passages CEO Zach Bauer recently shared his concerns.

“I started in this position in January,” he said. “And when I first started, our main concern was addressing antisemitism on the left, and we knew there were some factions on the right, that there was kind of boiling under the surface. We were seeing some comments made and heard from some prominent figures — some antisemitic or anti-Israel sentiments.”

So startling have anti-Jewish attacks been on campuses that a congressional hearing brought the heat to high-profile Ivy League university presidents. Their response during televised hearings resulted in several leaving office and, with the new Trump administration’s focus, a change to how they handle antisemitic incidents on their campuses..

Now, concern has now spread to both side of the political aisle. “Right-leaning students at colleges and universities, we want to make sure they’re hearing the facts,” Bauer said. “We want to make sure that they have the facts and are not going to be easily swayed to believe some of the things that they’re hearing.”

Passages, which organizes student trips to the Holy Land, is working to equip students to better understand the issue and respond.

“We had what we call our Passages DC Experience, and we had 150 students from around the country attend a conference here at the Museum of the Bible, and they heard from a variety of speakers,” Bauer said. “The main goal was to train and equip these students to be able to go back to their campuses and be effective pro-Israel advocates and to be able to identify antisemitism on their campuses.”

Passages seeks to help young people understand how this information is processed, using the debate over a photo of a child in Gaza as an example. .“A story went viral of the photo of the child in Gaza from `The New York Times,’” he said. “And it comes out later that we find out that that child had a preexisting medical condition. We need to dig deep.”

Bauer hopes participating students will be better equipped to stand up for Israel and Jewish people on their college campuses.

“While it’s great to send Christian college kids to Israel — not only for them to grow in their faith and their walk with Christ — we want to make sure that we’re sending kids there to come back and be forceful, and impactful advocates for Israel and standing up against antisemitism,” he said.

If you or a student you know, would like to join a Passages trip to Israel, visit PassagesIsrael.org.

–Dwight Widaman