Room No. 2024 at Old Dominion University’s Batten Arts and Letters Building is a hub for Jewish students. The modest space on the campus in Norfolk, Va., offers a safe zone to decompress. Perhaps just as importantly, it boasts a credenza full of snacks.
The de facto meeting area for ODU Hillel doubles as the office of Amy Milligan, director of the Institute for Jewish Studies and Interfaith Understanding. Milligan, 44, also director of the ODU Hillel, recently received the Academic Engagement Network Faculty Changemaker Award for her leadership in combating antisemitism and fostering a welcoming environment for Jewish students.
Those students have weekly get-togethers, usually at a Starbucks, though Milligan also regularly hosts them in her office. The coffeehouse atmosphere is familiarly known as the Am Yisrael Chai Café.
On Sept. 3, Milligan and 12 Jewish students gathered for a casual nosh-and-chat, the first one of the new academic year. She was wearing her custom-designed Nike Air “Am Yisrael Chai” sneakers, which in English means “The Jewish Nation Lives.”
The dozen or so Jewish teens feasted on shawarma and talked on topics ranging from weighty issues like antisemitism to practical cooking tips. Kyle Ratner, a sophomore majoring in computer security, said he had baked challah for his non-Jewish dorm friends using three packets of yeast. “The loaves were massive!” said the 19-year-old.
What’s not massive at ODU is the Jewish student body. About 75 Jewish students attend out of a total university enrollment of 25,000. Being in a minority like that can be overwhelming for a young person who’s living away from home for the first time. Milligan strives to give those students an opportunity to feel like they’re part of a community, even if it is small.
“There are experiences and interactions that you haven’t had before, and you’re trying to figure out your peers in a new space, especially if you’re a first-year student,” Milligan said. “The pressure is really high.”
‘What we were experiencing’
During the café get-together, the conversation turned to the ever-present specter of antisemitism.
The students shared recollections of an ugly incident in late 2025. Every year during homecoming, nearly 100 student groups and clubs paint crowns (the ODU symbol) on the sidewalks near the student center.
Shortly after the ODU Hillel students painted the crown with a Star of David, it was vandalized with droplets of red paint, symbolizing blood. Milligan and a group of 25 people (including Christian students) quickly mobilized to repaint it. Milligan said such bigotry was evident before the Hamas-led terror attacks in southern Israel on Oct, 7, 2023, but then things changed significantly.
“It amplified, and the support felt different—I think because we saw who really understood what we were experiencing and who maybe didn’t,” she said. “Some unexpected allies have stepped up, which has been an amazing part of this, too.”
One student shared with the group that he was in a club where other students made frequent anti-Jewish jokes.
“He just chose to try not to listen to them anymore,” Milligan said. “We have students who have left those clubs when they don’t feel like it’s an environment that they want to be in, and others who are trying to stay in them. It’s a tough decision, especially when you’re a young adult. They’re adults, but they’re also adulting for the first time. You are trying to handle things on your own, and you don’t always want to run to your mom and dad.”
The pressures of college—academic and social—combined with knowing that antisemitism always looms, can be emotionally exhausting for a young person. That’s why Milligan always has a large basket of kosher chips and candy available for kids who drop by the café.
Noah Brokowski, 20, a mechanical engineering major from Fredericksburg, Va., said he looks forward to meeting with fellow Jewish students there.
“It’s a community,” Brokowski said. “I can meet with a bunch of like-minded individuals and people who share something in common with me.”
Creating a community is Milligan’s goal. She said some students seek out the group because they know about Hillel and want to join.
“Other times they come because when they get to ODU, they think it doesn’t matter that they don’t know other Jews,” she said. “Then suddenly, they’re away from home for the first time, and they miss that connection or the community, or they feel different in some way.”
‘I don’t care about their politics’
Growing up in Philadelphia, Milligan attended Elizabethtown College, then earned a Ph.D. at Penn State and a master’s degree at Duke University, followed by a Fulbright year at Phillips University in Germany. She is now in her 10th year at Old Dominion and says she loves what she does.
At the same time, she says campus life has gotten more difficult for Jewish students since Oct. 7. That just makes her more committed to creating an environment where they can gather and be themselves.
“There’s a moment every spring when we have a graduation Shabbat dinner, and I just like look at them,” she said. “That’s always when I think, ‘We did it—we did another year. And I see them experiencing Jewish joy.”
Laughing, she continued: “This sounds very Hallmark movie, but there’s something about looking at young adults, walking alongside them, both for the year and for their time at ODU, and seeing them at the end just really proud to be Jews. That’s my goal. I don’t care about their observance level. I don’t care about their politics. I want them to be proud to be Jews in the way that is Jewishly them.”
