Rachel Sandalow-Ash
Over the past year, Rachel Sandalow-Ash reports being called an anti-Semite, a kapo, and a self-hating Jew. But the hate has deterred neither Sandalow-Ash, 21, nor Open Hillel, the organization she leads, from their mission: opening the conversation about Israel at Hillel, the Jewish campus organization, to more critical voices.
The group protests Hillel International’s Israel guidelines, which prohibit campus Hillels from sponsoring or hosting events with anti-Zionist speakers or clubs, or those who call for boycott, divestment and sanctions against the Jewish state. In 2012, as a Harvard sophomore, Sandalow-Ash founded Open Hillel along with then-senior Emily Unger, after Harvard Hillel pulled out of an event co-sponsored by a BDS-supporting, pro-Palestinian club.
In the past year, Sandalow-Ash, Unger and others have shepherded three campus Hillels into their movement, at Swarthmore, Vassar and Wesleyan. The moves caused handwringing in the Jewish community: Some praised the movement, while many worried it was symbolic of growing disaffection with Israel among American Jewish youth.
Sandalow-Ash, Open Hillel’s internal coordinator, also dreamed up the group’s first conference, held in October, which drew 350 people and national attention. A self-described product of the Jewish establishment, the Brookline, Massachusetts, native attended Solomon Schechter Day School and Camp Yavneh, and says she didn’t learn about the Palestinian narrative until arriving at Harvard. As an atheist, Sandalow-Ash feels Hillel has created a pluralistic religious space. “Hillel is really wonderful and accepting to people of all kinds of beliefs,” she said. “But we come up against this wall when it comes to Israel-Palestine.”
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we need 500 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Our Goal: 500 gifts during our Passover Pledge Drive!
