Organized Jewish world embraces self-defense

Nearly a year ago, in the wake of the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in southern Israel, we watched in dismay as Jewish students at Cooper Union College in New York were forced to take shelter from an antisemitic mob in a campus library. This alarming incident underscored the perilous predicament Jewish students increasingly found themselves in all over college campuses in the United States.

Jewish organizations are mobilizing resources to ensure that our students’ voices are heard — through education, litigation, advocacy and one crucial element has long been overlooked —self-defense training as a vital tool for building confidence among Jewish students.

The spring semester marked a significant turning point with the launch of our new initiative, “Krav and Kesher” designed to empower Jewish students by offering complimentary Krav Maga training.

The program equips them with the skills to defend themselves and also fosters a deeper connection to their Jewish identity through meaningful peer discussions. Despite our varied backgrounds — one of us an entrepreneur in educational technology, and the other who was deeply embedded in campus life for AEPi, our nation’s largest Jewish fraternity — we both recognized a fundamental truth: Jewish students must be able to defend themselves to confidently and proudly embrace their identity on campus.

Quietly rolled out at six college campuses and training 85 students over multiple weeks, the results speak for themselves. A staggering 100% of surveyed participants felt more physically safe after completing the training. Additionally, 100% felt more confident in publicly identifying as Jewish.

The history of “Krav Maga” dates to the late 1930s when European Jewry had no choice but to be as equipped as possible to defend itself from riots and other precarious situations rooted in vehement antisemitic animus.

Across the country since the Oct. 7 massacre by Hamas against Israel, Jewish students have been harassed, intimidated, bullied, physically harmed and threatened. In Krav Maga training, we teach how to defend against a number of different scenarios in which a perpetrator is seeking to inflict harm. Basic training may have prevented injuries (and maybe something worse) in this troubling scenario.

We wish that our focus could be channeled elsewhere and that we didn’t have to live in a world where self-defense training is necessary, but the reality faced by Jewish students compelled us to act. We quickly learned that there was one organization that fully aligned with our vision of proud and confident Jews on campus, and which has, in fact, been working for more than a decade to create that mindset in the community at large.

This is why we agreed to merge our Krav and Kesher program with the Community Security Service (CSS). A national 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, CSS has trained thousands of community members in professional-grade security techniques to help protect their own synagogues and community events. The data, along with anecdotes we hear firsthand, is why CSS decided to expand its mandate from synagogues and events to the college campus with a key component of its expansion being self-defense training.