Login
The New School investigates student leaders who voted to strip Hillel of funding over genocide complicity
This story originally appeared in Prism on June 04, 2026.
When members of The New School’s Student Senate were faced with a report detailing how Hillel International was providing material and logistical support to Israel’s atrocities in Gaza, they voted on May 1 to cut all ties with their campus chapter of the national Jewish college network and to strip its funding. The student leaders hoped the school’s administration would go on to investigate Hillel’s presence on its New York City campus.
Instead, after an intense pressure campaign by pro-Israel groups, advocates, and elected representatives, the university’s administration is now investigating the student senators who voted to cut ties with Hillel.
“We were hoping that the university would act on the the evidence provided by the Student Senate report about Hillel’s complicity in genocide. They are investigating us instead,” said Ryder Glickman, who is chair of The New School Student Senate and helped produce the report.
The Student Senate acted upon the recommendations of the Registered Student Organizations (RSO) Compliance Committee, which presented a comprehensive report about the ways in which Hillel had assisted the Israeli military during its ongoing genocide in Gaza.
The report found that students from The New School and a host of other New York City-based schools volunteered at the Israeli military’s Hatzerim Air Force Base in January 2024, as part of the Hillel on Base program. “Our students are packaging a days worth of rations to our soldiers,” stated an Instagram story by Hillel at Baruch College, the umbrella organization of Hillel at The New School, alongside a photo from the airbase, according to the report.
The Hatzerim airbase reportedly has been used by the Israeli Air Force for hundreds of airstrikes in Gaza, with F-15s from the base dropping bombs in civilian areas.
In the days following the publication of the report and the Student Senate vote to terminate funding to The New School’s Hillel, the university’s administration acted swiftly to discredit the findings.
“To avoid any misunderstanding, the University Student Senate does not have the authority to determine official status, funding eligibility, or the recognition of RSOs. Our Hillel chapter remains, as it always has been, in good standing, eligible for funding, and supporting Jewish life at The New School,” said an schoolwide email sent to from the university signed by President Joel Towers, Provost Richard Kessler, and Vice Provost Robert Mack.
“By distorting a qualified student organization and characterizing it as something it is not,” the statement continued, “the [University Student Senate] is using its platform to target fellow students in a misguided attempt to hold those students responsible for the acts of governments.”
On May 3, two days after the vote, Ilya Bratman, the executive director of Hillel at Baruch College, wrote in an email to Towers and other members of The New School’s leadership that the Student Senate’s actions were “a direct attack on Jewish students.” Bratman bcc’d the Student Senate email address, and members shared the email with Prism.
“We hope to meet with you in the coming days so that you can hear directly from the students affected by this action, and so that we can better understand the university’s plan of action moving forward. The [University Student Senate] has shown no indication that it intends to step back from these egregious and deeply troubling actions,” Bratman wrote.
The New School administration and Hillel at Baruch College did not respond to Prism’s inquiry about whether university leadership and Hillel officials had the meeting.
Days later, on May 8, Glickman received an email, viewed by Prism, from The New School’s office of Student Equity, Accessibility & Title IX. The email said that the school was investigating him for an allegation that the Student Senate’s decision to cut ties with Hillel was in “potential violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 on the basis of race, color, or national origin in any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.” The administration later clarified to Glickman that the university is investigating all student senators involved in the vote.
External pushback
The university launched its investigation into student senators following a string of social media activity by pro-Israel groups, advocates, media, and elected representatives attacking the report.
Glickman was called a “virulent anti-Israel activist” in an X post by Canary Mission, the secretive group notorious for doxing and targeting pro-Palestinian activists.
A string of articles by pro-Israel publications, including The New York Post and The Times of Israel, reported on The New School administration rejecting the Student Senate vote while omitting the details and evidence found by the RSO about Hillel’s ties with the Israeli military.
Two New York members of Congress took to social media to denounce the report. Rep. Dan Goldman—who recently marched in New York’s Israel Day parade featuring Israeli cabinet ministers who are wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes or have made genocidal statements about Palestinians—said the students were engaged in “hateful and vile antisemitism.” Rep. Ritchie Torres also condemned the vote, calling it “shameful” and “discrimination against Jewish individuals and institutions.” Goldman and Torres are heavily backed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
“The fact that there was such open repression and universal condemnation of the report shows that the administration’s response was coordinated with Zionist organizations accusing us of antisemitism,” Glickman told Prism. “This is extremely worrying when we made a very basic case about international law.”
Students volunteering with the Israeli military
Hillel at Baruch, which organized trips to Israel, acts as an umbrella organization for chapters in multiple New York schools in addition to The New School, including Fordham University, John Jay College, and City College.
“Volunteer on an IDF (Israeli Defense Force) base in Southern Israel, wear IDF uniform, give back to the community on base, and explore Israel!” reads a description about the program on Hillel at Baruch’s website.
The 38-page report by the RSO compliance committee found that Hillel at Baruch organized several trips between May 2022 and January 2025 for students to volunteer at multiple Israeli army and air force bases. Hillel International also operates the Onward Israel program which organizes internship trips for American students to Israel and facilitates volunteering opportunities within the Israeli military.
The report further found that in July 2024, another post from Hillel at Baruch and New School Hillel’s Instagram account said, “Tonight, some of our onward students had the incredible opportunity to volunteer at the Tze’elim army base, where they helped prepare a barbecue for over 700 soldiers from the Oketz, Kfir, Golani and Handasa units in the IDF.”
Soldiers of the Golani Brigade’s 631st Reconnaissance Battalion were behind the March 24, 2025, killing of 15 Palestinian emergency responders that included Red Crescent ambulance workers in Rafah, according to an investigation by Haaretz.
In May 2024, a BBC analysis found that 11 soldiers of the Kfir brigade were responsible for posting photos and videos of Palestinian prisoners being abused.
By registering for the Hillel on Base program, participants also automatically register for the Volunteers for Israel (VFI) program, the report found.
“VFI is the ONLY organization that creates opportunities for American students to volunteer in Israel on IDF bases,” says a description of the program, which includes activities such as packing medical supplies and repairing machinery and equipment for military units.
The VFI program is run by Sar-El, an Israeli volunteer nonprofit organization under the direction of the Israeli Logistics Corps, a support branch of the Israeli military, establishing direct collaboration between Hillel and the Israeli government, according to the report.
“I am nauseated by the fact that I have classmates who have provided direct material and logistical support to genocide,” Glickman said.
According to official sources, over 75,000 Palestinians, including over 35,000 women, children, and the elderly have been killed by the Israeli military since Oct. 7, 2023—which the United Nations Human Rights Council, Amnesty International, and multiple Israeli human rights groups have concluded constitutes a genocide. Experts have estimated the actual death toll could be much higher.
A week after The New School vote, the student leadership of the Hillel chapter of Middlebury College, Vermont, voted to change its name to the Jewish Association at Middlebury, after growing demand from its members to disaffiliate from Hillel International and its activities, according to reporting by the school’s newspaper.
Editorial Team:
Sahar Fatima, Lead Editor
Lara Witt, Top Editor
Rashmee Kumar, Copy Editor
