As Jewish students on college campuses and advocacy groups combat antisemitism through legal and narrative battles, the Be A Mensch Foundation is focused on a different challenge: preparing students emotionally when their identity comes under attack.
The Israel-based foundation launched its new U.S. initiative, Resilience on Campus, at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., on June 15. The program seeks to equip Jewish college students—and non-Jewish allies, including Christian Zionists—with practical tools to strengthen resilience, regulate emotions and develop confidence in their identities.
“The amount of students, in the hundreds of thousands across this country and from a range of political and religious backgrounds, self-censor and do not say the things they actually believe in, who don’t speak for the truth, because they are scared of social isolation, because they are scared of academic blowback, because they are scared of professional backlash,” said Shabbos Kestenbaum, a political commentator whose discrimination lawsuit against Harvard University opened the door for other action taken against schools that failed to protect Jewish students.
Kestenbaum said the challenge extends beyond antisemitism itself.
“It’s actually a damning indictment of the American Jewish community that the only reason you have heard of my name is because out of the hundreds, if not thousands, of American Jews on Harvard’s campus alone, only one was willing to put their name on a lawsuit, and that is not because only one American Jew on Harvard’s campus experienced antisemitism,” he said. “I can only imagine if I had an organization like ROC two or three years ago, how much more effective I could have been if I was taught emotional resilience, if I was taught or being part of a community whereby we felt that we were in this together.”
Addressing attendees at the program’s launch, Yechiel Leiter, Israeli ambassador to the United States, said resilience has long defined the Jewish experience.
“The story of resilience is the story of our people,” Leiter said, adding that Jewish resilience and Jewish identity are inextricably linked.
“This resilience of ours is something so strange, something so unique, that it’s not figured out,” he said.
‘Waiting for someone to ask that question’
ROC plans to begin with a pilot program at the University of Maryland before expanding along the Eastern seaboard as it pursues funding, according to Gavriel Sanders, the initiative’s program director.
Originally conceived as an effort to distribute a book about trauma recovery in the aftermath of the Hamas-led terror attacks in southern Israel on Oct, 7, 2023, the concept evolved into a broader campus-resilience curriculum.
Rabbi Avi Landa, a trauma specialist and educator who designed the new program, told those at the embassy about a young man who confided that he felt increasingly isolated, including on his college campus.
“At one point I asked him, ‘Are you okay?’” Landa said. “And his response was nothing, just silence. He started to think deeply. Imagine 20-30 seconds of silence. And he said, ‘No, I’m not okay, and I’ve been waiting for months for someone to ask me that question.’”
Landa and Gina Ross, founder of the International Trauma-Healing Institute, developed an eight-module curriculum that incorporates clinical approaches including cognitive behavioral therapy, somatic experiencing and polyvagal theory, adapted for campus settings.
The program begins with self-awareness, emotional regulation and healthy coping strategies before progressing to self-confidence, relationship-building and communication skills. Later modules address bullying, peer support and resilience in the face of hostility, culminating in a discussion of Jewish identity and connection to Israel. Role-playing and practical exercises are woven throughout the curriculum.
“The core of the curriculum has nothing to do with Judaism per se,” Landa said. “It has to do with building a human being’s resilience to be able to withstand difficult experiences. It’s in that session eight that we come and we wrap it up in that connection to the land of Israel and to Judaism as well.”
Yael Klucznik, who works with Jewish college students and attended the launch, told JNS that the initiative’s focus on student well-being stood out.
“The people in this room weren’t just focused on building unapologetic Jewish leaders,’ Klucznik said. “They were committed to helping students develop the self-awareness, resilience and emotional tools needed to thrive during difficult times and lead with purpose.”
