Toward the Last Encampment: Campus Culture and the Jews Before and After October 7

Thirteen leading scholars examine the eruption of antisemitism on university campuses in the wake of October 7 and its devastating impact on Jewish students, faculty, staff, and the mission of higher education itself.

In the wake of the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, campuses across America and Europe became flashpoints for a crisis that goes far beyond protest. Within hours of the October 7 Hamas attack, student groups blamed Israel for its own victimization, and within months, “Gaza Solidarity” encampments had spread to more than 150 colleges and universities. Jewish students, faculty, and staff were harassed, excluded, and threatened. Some faculty fueled the fire, and administrations were unprepared for the developing tumult.

In this essential collection, thirteen distinguished scholars from the United States, Europe, and Israel lay bare what, how, and why it happened. They trace the ideological roots of campus anti-Zionism, document its impact on Jewish life at institutions from Harvard to Humboldt University, and expose how foreign funding, faculty radicalism, and institutional apathy have corrupted the educational mission of the modern university. Toward the Last Encampment is both a reckoning and a call to action.