At YU graduation, top honor goes to Stefanik

Rep. Elise Stefanik, one of the leading voices in Congress denouncing Jew-hatred, received Yeshiva University’s highest honor — its presidential medallion — during the school’s commencement exercise last Thursday at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens.

“You understand that neutrality in the face of evil is complicity,” YU President Rabbi Ari Berman commended Stefanik, a Republican whose district covers several counties in update New York and who is weighing a challenge to Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul next year. “Because you refuse to stay silent, you became one of the fiercest defenders of the Jewish people in American public life today.”

“You remind us that true allies do not waiver with political wins but rise with moral resolve,” Rabbi Berman said.

Stefanik told the crowd that d efending Jews “was a moral question, not a political one.” 

She drew overwhelming cheers and applause from the audience, including graduates, as she recounted how, during congressional hearings, she asked university presidents tough questions about whether calling for the genocide of Jews runs afoul of their schools’ codes of conduct.

“One after the other after the other answered, ‘It depends on the context’,” she told graduates. “Let me tell you. It does not depend on the context.”

Rachel Goldberg-Polin, whose son Hersh Goldberg-Polin was murdered in Hamas captivity and whose body was recovered and laid to rest in September 2024, delivered a commencement address and was conferred an honorary doctorate.

“Thank you for being with us and with all the hostage families since day one,” Goldberg-Polin said, pausing briefly to cry. “You looked at what connects us. You said, ‘Your agony is my agony. Your pain is my pain. Your son is my mother’s son, and so your son is my brother’.”

In honor of Hersh’s memory, Rabbi Berman announced that Yeshiva had created an Or Shel Hersh award — meaning “Hersh’s light” — to be given to two graduating students annually to honor those who embody Hersh’s character and value of bringing people together and seeing the good in others.

Not everyone was pleased with YU’s decision to honor Stefanik, with 83 faculty members signing a document in opposition.

“In Judaism, truth — emet — is recognized as a sacred principle, woven into the fabric of ethical conduct and moral leadership,” wrote the professors, many of them at Yeshiva’s graduate schools and some of them anonymous. “According to the Talmud, it is the very seal of the divine.”

“To award Stefanik the presidential medallion is, effectively, to endorse dishonesty, an act that runs counter to the Jewish values of integrity and righteousness that Yeshiva professes to uphold,” they added.

In their letter denouncing Yeshiva’s senior leaders for opting to “politicize this meaningful occasion,” the professors stated that Stefanik was one of the Republican House members to support overturning the 2020 presidential election and that she referred to those arrested after the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the US Capitol as “hostages.”

The term “hostages” is one that “we have all come to feel acutely should be reserved for actual cases of abduction and not applied to legitimate criminal prosecutions,” they wrote.

A Yeshiva spokesperson told JNS that Stefanik is “a staunch supporter of the State of Israel, a champion in the fight against hate in America and the leading congressional voice in holding universities accountable for unconscionable expressions of antisemitism on college campuses.”

Caleb Gitlitz, of Baltimore, who graduated in January with a psychology degree and participated in commencement on Thursday, told JNS that Stefanik “works tirelessly” for the rights of Jews and Americans to live peacefully and freely.

“We, as the flagship Jewish university who take deep pride and gratitude in our American roots and identities as well, are so grateful for Congresswoman Stefanik and all she does,” Gitlitz said.”

David Benhamu, of New York, who majored in physics and attended graduation on Thursday, told JNS that the professors “overreacted” in their letter.

“The honor of receiving the medallion isn’t about accepting and approving every policy that politician believes in, but rather recognizing something that they did that we are especially grateful for,” Benhamu said.

“This year, for Stefanik, it was in appreciation of her continuing to combat antisemitism across American life, especially on college campuses,” he said. 

“People are too invested in politics and in which ‘side’ they are on,” Benhamu said. “They can’t recognize something positive someone did if that person doesn’t agree with them on all other issues.”

“Yes we may disagree on a lot of things, but in the end what matters is that we can appreciate each other for the positive work we agree on, respect each other in the rest where we disagree and come together as one united country,” he added.

Emily Goldberg, who received her degree at last week’s YU commencement, was editor-in-chief of The Observer, a YU student newspaper.