More than 300 Jewish students and allies from universities across the globe, community leaders, influencers and officials gathered in Midtown Manhattan on Sunday for the Combat Antisemitism Movement’s (CAM) “Rise & Respond: Global Student Summit Against Antisemitism.” The event provided a platform for students to share their personal experiences and confront the troubling rise in antisemitic incidents taking place at higher education institutions in North America and beyond.
At the summit, CAM launched the FACE Antisemitism Initiative, which calls for ten strong steps for faculty, and lawmakers to combat antisemitism. Some of the steps include, calling for all campuses to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, developing a transparent, accessible process for reporting antisemitic incidents, including a clear point of contact for students, staff, and faculty, implementing mandatory educational programs on antisemitism for all students, faculty, and staff, and requiring the disclosure of all funds received from foreign governments and NGOs, including the conditions attached.
Other steps include calling on university administrations to take a clear and public stance against the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, and that they must actively investigate and document the activities of campus groups deemed hate organizations, including Students for Justice in Palestine, Faculty for Justice in Palestine, American Muslims for Palestine, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) and Dissenters.
CAM also unveiled the HEAT Map & Advocacy Platform, which is designed to systematically identify and expose the professors, administrators, and academic influencers responsible for promoting antisemitism and anti-Israel rhetoric and disrupting their ability to indoctrinate and intimidate. This initiative will not merely track antisemitism on campuses—it will name and document the individuals enabling it, ensuring they are held accountable.
The platform will provide real-time visualization tracking these individuals across institutions, offering detailed profiles of their ideological impact and actions, with a dynamic database cataloging verified incidents, linking them to individual professors, administrators, and departments responsible for fostering antisemitic and racist ideologies.
“The Rise & Respond emergency summit represented a crucial advancement in the global effort to combat antisemitism,” said CEO of CAM Sacha Roytman Dratwa.
“Through the FACE Antisemitism Initiative, we have created an unprecedented plan of action that demands accountability from university leaders and administrators and safety and security for Jewish and pro-Israel students.”
“We have provided the tools to make sure the anti-Semitic encampments, the storming of buildings and classes to silence Jewish professors and students are a thing of the past, and ensure university campuses are places where all can learn safely and securely. It is now up to the universities to adopt this plan of action in order to get back to the places of learning, rather than scenes of conflict and battlegrounds, that they are meant to be.”
Summit attendees discussed strategies to counter antisemitism and advocate for meaningful change, a challenge that has escalated to a terrifying degree since Hamas’ October 7th attack on Israel.
The Antisemitism Research Center at CAM has documented 742 antisemitic incidents on American campuses in 2024, marking a 120.8 percent increase from the 336 reported in 2023.
The summit was particularly timely and relevant, given the ongoing antisemitism crisis at Columbia University and the historic federal action being led by the new Trump administration to hold Columbia and other schools accountable for their failures to protect Jewish students and faculty from discrimination, harassment, and even violence.
The summit also recognized and honored Michael Kaminsky, a junior at DePaul University, with CAM’s Student Activist Award. Kaminsky was physically assaulted on his campus by masked assailants in broad daylight last year, while a safety officer employed by the university stood mere feet away – and did nothing. Since his horrifying experience, Kaminsky has amplified his advocacy for the Jewish community, and urged others in attendance to stand up to hate and remember their people’s legacy of resilience and strength in the face of adversity:
“That day, I understood the hardships my family had endured [under Nazi and Soviet oppression] and decided I must use the strength they passed down to me,” Kaminsky said. “Instead of hiding, I spoke out…History will remember those who stood up to fight for our civil rights and will hold those accountable who were complacent in the face of atrocities, for we are not Jews with trembling knees.”
US Congresswoman Claudia Tenney (NY-24) expressed strong support for federal action against campus antisemitism and emphasized the critical importance of standing up against hatred, displaying a wristband given to her by Holocaust survivor Helen Sperling that reads, “Thou Shall Not Be a Bystander.”
Other featured speakers at the Rise & Respond summit included Jewish community and business leaders, activists, and local and global officials who discussed the rising threat of antisemitism, the critical need to confront it, and the challenges faced by the Jewish people.
“When your universities refuse to protect you, make them answer to you. When student governments push anti-Israel resolutions, challenge them. Fight them. When they try to erase the truth or the facts, remind them that we are here…. The Jewish people have never backed down from a fight, and we will not start now” said Danny Danon, Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations.
“You were born for this moment. You carry thousands of years of survival, resilience, and beauty in your blood. You are part of a story that will never be erased. And your voice—your one voice—can make all the difference” added Montana Tucker, social media influencer and pro-Israel activist.
