Shai: Fighting for Jewish Students

Meet Shai.

An accidental activist for Jewish students on college campuses across America (and Canada, Australia, and throughout Europe).

Before he became well known across the Jewish world for the impromptu and impassioned speech given on Columbia’s campus at a vigil after October 7^th, Shai Davidai was an Israeli living and working in America. He was a son, husband, and father. An associate professor at Columbia Business School.

He moved to the USA when he was 27 to pursue his graduate degree at Columbia. His wife, who at the time was his girlfriend, came with him and also got her master’s degree at Columbia.

“That is our identity. My wife is a writer and a translator. I am an academic, a professor. That’s how we put ourselves out into the world. But since October 7^th we’re Jewish. We’re Israelis. That is our identity.”

Like many Jews, he recognized that we are part of the chain of our ancestors – who were Jewish first and foremost and were treated as such. “We were under an assumption, probably an implicit assumption, that it ends with us. Whatever it is, it ends with us. Diaspora life ends with us. Antisemitism ends with us. The wars of Israel end with us. And then realizing that we are a piece in a much larger chain that is still unfolding. For me, I don’t so much care if your grandfather was Jewish, but I do care if your grandchild will be Jewish.”

“It’s a very weird thing to all of a sudden see your role and your life in the context of the history of a nation. We are a chapter in a much larger book that is still unfolding. I have found that fascinating and comforting, but comes with a lot of responsibility.”

Shai is a social psychologist by training. He is a professor of psychology. He chose to teach at Columbia Business School because he wanted to have a more direct impact on the world. The research that he conducted had the potential to be less ephemeral and theoretical, and more down to business. By teaching students in business school he was able to have an impact on the future trajectory of the world. He had been with the business school for five years, and felt at home there.

Everything changed on October 7^th. “I had one identity until October 7^th, and another once since October 7^th.  I’m not sure what the one since October 7^th is. I think we are all trying to understand ourselves going through such a traumatic experience.”

All of a sudden he felt like a stranger in his own “home” of New York, Columbia University, the United States, and North America. Fighting for belongingness has been a large part of his mission since October 7^th.

On October 7^th, Shai, much like the rest of the global Jewish community, was in shock. “We were confused. For us, it was like we were experiencing it, but we’re not really experiencing it. In Israel everyone was in the shelters and physically experiencing it. We’re experiencing it emotionally and it feels physical. But we were helpless.”

For the first few days he and with his wife spent their time volunteering, getting ceramic vests and helmets to Israel, talking to soldiers on the front lines. On October 9^th he realized that the world wasn’t reacting the way he thought it would. “Instead, they celebrated. The world saw and said ‘yeah that’s what Hamas is all about. F*** you guys.’ That was a huge shock for me, and it was something that I didn’t have the mental schemas to categorize and understand.”

Shai started speaking his mind. He had never before been a political figure or activist, especially publicly.

On October 14^th there was a memorial service at the JCC in Manhattan. “It was so heartbreaking, like  punches in the gut. I spoke up for the first time. It resonated with people. I screamed my heart out, my pain out, and it resonated with people. That was my way of dealing with the trauma. There was no other goal other than shouting. We are here. See us. Accept us.” Shai was screaming his pain out as an Israeli first, not as a Jew. The hatred in the streets had yet to morph into the overt antisemitism that has reared its ugly head globally.

The following week saw Shai’s life change forever when a video of him screaming his heart out at a rally against terror at Columbia University went viral. “That is the moment where my life went from being one thing to being another thing. My phone wouldn’t stop ringing for weeks. I talked with every journalist I could. My goal was just to tell our story, to make the world listen, to make the world notice. When I came up for air, probably around mid to late November, everything had already changed.”

By that point college campus encampments had sprung up nationwide. Protests had gripped the streets of every global capital. The rhetoric had changed dramatically. It was far more vehement, vitriolic, and outwardly antisemitic.

By the end of December, it changed again. “I realized that it’s not just against Israel. It’s not just against Jews. It’s against Western society. They started chanting in support of terrorist organizations. They started burning American and Canadian flags. They started hating on the places where they lived, that allows them the freedoms to do so. We all have an obligation to  protest our countries, but not the core values, the freedoms that are given to us. It’s okay if your end goal is to build things up and make things better. It’s not okay to tear things down.”

Throughout history there have been many, many atrocities that happened while the majority of people were good people. "How do we deal with the people that are all around us, that are good, nice people, that are well meaning, and yet they are looking the other way when these things are happening to us? I don’t know the answer. That’s one of the things that I’m struggling with."

“When you look at the people that are actively in the [campus] protests, I wouldn’t say that they are necessarily good people. There’s a weird mind-bending thing that happens with antisemitism, but does not happen with any other prejudice, which is that you can signal your virtuousness by signaling your antisemitism. A lot of probably decent people, probably well meaning people, have bought into this. It’s ironic that it’s become a positive thing.”

Protestors who walk around shouting for an Intifada Revolution, From the River to the Sea either have no idea what they are saying, or they do and are evil, stupid, or uneducated. “I’m not going to tell you what you are. Are you evil or uneducated?”

Shai has the ability to look at things from his unique perch as a professor. “If they are uneducated, which is, by the way, what you’re supposed to be when you go to college, then have the humility to say ‘I’m uneducated but I will learn, I will open my mind.’” In this event, Shai is happy to have the conversation. He is not there to convince anyone, rather just to talk. However, when people are uneducated and close their minds, they are inching towards evil. “To me, that is a problem.”

“Their goal is to build a utopian society which can never work because one person’s utopia is another person’s dystopia. They’ve bought into the story that revolutions are always good, the cost doesn’t matter, and the ends justify the means, therefore by any means necessary. You need to lack basic empathy for who is on the other side to make that work. They are attacking groups of people rather than ideas. They have a deep hatred towards a specific group of people.”

People are drawn towards a movement because of the values that it claims to represent. However, any movement eventually gets hijacked by one or more organizations that have the potential to be far more dangerous than just well-meaning people protesting a cause they resonate with. “If we as citizens are not attentive, our voices could be coopeted to movements that we don’t agree with.”

Despite all of the hardships that has come his way since October 7^th, he still can find happiness in the small things. “Seeing babies and kids and puppies makes me so happy. They are pure. They do not know the depths of evil in the world. I almost see my goal as keeping them pure. I love seeing kids on the street. When I meet Jewish parents and Jewish women who are expecting -it makes me so happy in a weird way that I’ve never been before. It’s the continuation, the next generation. It’s a little bit of resilience, that ‘we’ve got this’.”

Unlike the protestors that Shai has found himself up against, he still can see the humanity in the people affected by the war within Gaza. He credits Israeli defense system, the iron dome, for keeping Israelis safe, for keeping Israel from looking like Gaza. “I can’t imagine what goes through the minds of parents and kids in Gaza. At the same time, it’s not normal to live like we do in Israel. It’s not normal, but we’ve normalized it.”

Despite his assertion that he is just a normal person, people often stop Shai in the streets to thank him for his voice. He is getting used to his new celebrity status. “A lot of people just want to talk, they want to be heard. They feel like no one’s listening to us, and having the ability to tell people that we are in this together is helpful. We probably disagree on politics, religion, on a million different things, but we’re the same, we’re together. I think it gives people hope and strength; it gives me strength.”

Shai is adamant that his story is not special. He isn’t someone unique or courageous or especially brave. He is just someone who “ended up doing this thing.” He hopes that people will draw inspiration and strength from him to realize that they too can do this. “If there were 1000 or 10,000 of us speaking up, then it wouldn’t take courage. It wouldn’t take bravery.”

Shai’s story is largely tied to the events that transpired on the campus of Columbia University. What started as a plea to the community became fighting for the safety, security and rights of Jewish students on campus. What happened – and continues to happen – on campuses throughout the West is unconscionable. “We’ve seen a degradation of things. We’ve seen the rhetoric become more and more violent; the protests become more and more extreme. The university’s response become more and more lacking in power and morals. Every time I think we’ve finally hit rock bottom, something worse happens. First they chanted for Hamas, and I thought the world would wake up, but they didn’t. Then they began chanting for ‘Death to the Zionist state.’ There were events on campus with actual terrorists. Then there were the illegal encampments. Then the president of the University gave her testimony in Washington, and that went horrible. Then the protestors took over a building and took a hostage in Hamilton Hall. They protested outside of the Nova exhibit. I thought that that was rock bottom – it was like protesting outside of Auschwitz. Then videos surfaced of subway cars full of protesters trying to identify and remove Zionists. We keep hitting what should be rock bottom, and the world doesn’t wake up.”

As Jewish students on campus were left struggling, Shai was their voice, often confronting administrators and the executives of Columbia for their inaction and their endangerment of Jewish students. “When we think of the most public trial of a Nazi criminal, we think of Adolph Eichman. The thing about him was that he was a bureaucrat. He could have been the COO of Columbia, and he would have been amazing at it. He kept the numbers straight, he knew who to talk to to get things done. I’m not saying the COO of Columbia is even close to Eichman, but I’m saying his role required the same skills and abilities. More than that, it takes the same self perception of ‘I’m just doing my job, and I’m doing it in the best way possible.’ The administration has been very morally bankrupt.”

Unfortunately, there will be many more ‘rock bottoms’ to come before the world returns to its axis.

As a result of his tireless work, Shai was invited to testify in Washington in front of Congress. His bravery of speaking up and speaking out ultimately led him to be able to share his story with some of the most powerful people in America, who hopefully would be able to affect change.  “I hope they follow through. I hope that most elected representatives or people running for office want to make this country a better place and preserve the values that make America.”

Columbia University barred Shai from campus for “repeatedly harassing and intimidating university personnel.” While he was kept off of campus for making “threats of intimidation, harassment, and other threatening behaviour,” the anti-Jewish rhetoric continued on campus, as did celebrations and endorsement for Hamas by Columbia staff and students alike. Jewish students continued to be assaulted, harassed, intimidated, and in some instances, kept from their classes by fellow students. The global Jewish community watched as this echoed the sentiment towards Jewish students and academics in 1930s Europe. “The only professor that was suspended is the Jewish Israeli professor who called out the support for terrorism on campus.”

An investigation was opened against him by the university. He compared it to the infamous Dreyfus Affair. “Nothing I have done in my advocacy has been about any protected class. Unless they want to claim that supporting terrorism is a protected class, there is no grounds for this investigation.” He went public with the investigation, and fully cooperated.  It was ultimately closed without finding any wrongdoing on his part. The investigation was carried out by Columbia’s Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action. After his name had been cleared, he decided to leave the university after losing respect for the institution and his colleagues, for it being a place that was unwilling to change without threat of the government or money.

Shai continues to use his voice and the platform he amassed to draw attention to the growing threat of antisemitism globally, to advocate for the return of the hostages taken from Israel on October 7^th, to speak for a future of peace and coexistence, advocating for Palestinian rights as well. He travels the world speaking and advocating for diasporic Jewish communities. He has launched a podcast, Here I am with Shai Davidai which tackles complex issues impacting the modern Jewish world. He encourages other people to use their voices and to amplify others in the modern fight against antisemitism. “Being a professor is not the only way to educate people.”

It is his hope that his grandchildren will not understand what antisemitism is about. That they know peace. That the hatred ends with this generation. “I hope that we make antisemites social pariahs, just as we have for racists and homophobes and transphobes. Everyone can believe what they want, and hold their opinions, but there is a consequence. I hope that Israel lives up to its democratic ideals, and that Israel can one day live in peace beside a Palestinian state.”