How Columbia Hamas Supporters Led Me To Convert to Judaism
A petition against Israel I refused to sign lit the fuse of anger in my peers at Columbia.
When I began studying at Barnard College of Columbia University in 2015, I was on a full-ride scholarship. Coming from a foster-care type upbringing, I had no family. No friends in NYC. And no support system. But I was full of hope, excitement and dreams to study.
But when a student knocked on my door my after I moved in with a Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions (BDS) petition against Israel, I paused. Was this a friend or foe? What was this about?
I had only vaguely heard of Israel and Palestine, and I didn’t feel comfortable signing the petition. Geopolitics wasn’t my strong suit. And I barely heard about Israel or Palestine before. So, I told the girl that I couldn’t sign it till I did more research, and she left, seemingly ok with that response.
Days later, she again asked me to sign the BDS petition.
I still hadn’t researched the conflict, so I declined again. Then next day, I recall that the girl had tagged me in the Barnard and Columbia Class of 2018 Facebook pages, which had each hundreds of members, that “Toni Airaksinen is an apartheid supporting Zionist who doesn’t care about Palestinians and people of color.” I was aghast.
I never said any of that. What’s a Zionist?
Suddenly, new acquaintances turned into vicious enemies. In searching for help, I learned that to Barnard students, Israel and Zionism was antithetical to the social justice orthodoxy they fought for.
Palestine and Hamas supporters and their allies targeted me, banged on my door at night, sent me thinly veiled death threats through Tumblr and Facebook, and stalked me through the campus grocery store, often hurling slurs under their lips.
I was forced to stop eating at the Barnard dining hall because students would “accidentally” bump into me, making me drop my tray. Instead, I found refuge at Columbia University’s dining halls and began taking all my classes at Columbia instead, where the students didn’t know me and it was easier to blend in, at least for a few months.
By not agreeing with students on Palestine, I was branded a hater of people of color, a supporter of “apartheid” and “segregation” – basically, evil.
It was the late 2010s, and the activist zeitgeist revolved around “trigger warnings”, decrying the “wage gap” and “microaggressions”, the #MeToo movement, and fighting “apartheid” in Israel — mostly through petitions to ban Sabra Hummus and calls to divest the endowment from Israeli-related stocks such as Raytheon.
The campus zeitgeist had no place for me.
At some point during my freshman year, I made a Facebook post about the harassment I was getting. An SOS. A desperate plea for help. I was terrified.
I didn’t know what help I needed.
But after that post, I woke up to dozens of messages and friend requests. Who were these people? I wondered. Since I had grown up atheist in a small town, I had only a vague idea of who Jewish people were. But in droves, they came to my rescue.
One Jewish Upper West Side mom literally came to my dorm the same day with a care package. She gave me her phone number for emergencies. She was a Barnard alumna, and was shocked at what I told her.
Other Jewish strangers soon invited me to Shabbat dinners on the Upper West Side and in Brooklyn. They gave me advice — mostly, “Stay quiet” and “The college is not on your side.”
Many texted me occasionally, to check in. Many of them, and my peers, assumed I was Jewish. But I wasn’t.
Not yet.
My new Jewish acquaintances brought me into their circles. Soon after, I started schlepping to Brooklyn every weekend, hanging out with Jewish college students, lighting shabbat candles, studying for exams and trying not to worry about school.
But things took a turn for the worse in my sophomore year.
Residential Life admins assigned me to live in the “Social Justice House” at Barnard. Why? I don’t exactly remember.
The Social Justice House was built on kindness and respect, but I didn’t realize it was a political hotbed until I began meeting my housemates. My folly.
My roommate, Fatimah, was Palestinian and a member of SJP. My other suitemate was a leader of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), a Barnard anti-Israel club that works in lockstep with SJP. A Lebanese-Palestinian girl was down the hall. I shuddered as every other weekend, they and other pro-Palestine students from Barnard and Columbia held activist style meetings in my dorm’s kitchen while smoking reefer and hookah, giggling about me in hushed tones.
I had no clue how I got placed with them. Perhaps Barnard officials thought I would change my mind on Israel?
But when I asked my resident assistant if I could change dorms, I recall her asking something along the lines of: “Have you considered learning more about Israel’s apartheid?”
I later learned she too was an SJP supporter.
Slowly, I learned more about Israel and Palestine. As a student journalist covering campus politics nationwide for websites like USA TODAY and PJ Media, I covered stories about Jewish college students and antisemitism across the country. I thought I was doing something helpful. But the harassment continued.
Again, I appealed on Facebook. What should I do? Help?
Over the next week, more Jewish students, New Yorkers and Columbia alumni reached out. This time not by the dozens, but by the hundreds. They were appalled at what I was facing, but nobody had the power to do anything.
Nevertheless, they became almost like a family to me. During the weekends, summer, and winter breaks, Jewish rabbis and moms in Brooklyn graciously opened their homes to me when I had nowhere else I felt safe to stay.
They drove me to doctor appointments, connected me to journalism opportunities at Jewish-allied media companies, taught me about Halacha, how to cook meals for large parties and so much more. For all that, they asked me to sign nothing.
Once, while staying with a rabbi during my sophomore year in the summer, after a year of living with Palestinian activists, I asked whether I should convert to Judaism.
I was already learning the basics of keeping kosher, some of the Shabbat prayers, and bits and pieces of Halacha (Jewish law). So why not convert? Plus, wouldn’t this make my “landlords” happy?
Nay, the rabbi’s wife said. “We adore you.. You don’t have to convert to stay here. There’s no pressure.” Phew.
But that was less of a deterrent as it was an inspiration. I continued studying Judaism anyway, hanging out in shuls in Crown Heights and Midwood with my friends to study Torah and Yiddish words, and observing the Jewish holidays in a rudimentary way.
Over at Barnard — during the school week — I joined the school newspaper.
But one night, after I published a column in The Columbia Spectator, the Columbia University newspaper, a young man named Benjamin reached out to applaud one of my articles. I was excited. He was cute. Over on Twitter, I had built up over 18,000 followers, and my articles were going viral. That’s how he found me: Twitter. Of all places. I had pledged not to meet my fans, but something was different about him. But eventually, we fell in love.
I soon arranged my Columbia classes so that I could leave campus on Thursday night to see Benjamin in New Jersey, and come back Monday or Tuesday morning. The less time I spent on campus, the less I was harassed. The less I was seen, the less harassment I heard. The less I said about the harassment, the less bullies felt empowered to intimidate me.
Sometimes, the most gracious thing you can do in the face of hate: is to stay silent.
At one point during junior year: I had read enough. I didn’t support the chants of “to the river to the sea”, the catchphrases about “globalizing the intifada” and knew I didn’t support Palestinian’s vision of “Israel” without Jewish people.
I continued publishing stories about Jewish students and antisemitism. Meanwhile, I mostly kept quiet about my own harassment, not wanting to invite extra attention, scared that I would anger more hate to descend on me.
My senior year, I skipped the keffiyah-fest known as graduation, scared to be seen on campus. When I got my 2018 graduation yearbook in the mail: my name was suspiciously absent. But I’m cautious to point the finger: it could have been a mistake. But I doubt it.
Later, when Benjamin and I moved to Boca Raton in 2023 after the October 7th attack on Israel, I felt ready: I felt called to Judaism. To me, converting wasn’t a choice. It was my destiny. There’s absolutely no other way I felt I could live my life without Judaism. By then, Jews were more of my family than the “family” I had grown up with.
So when I moved to Boca Raton, I had no choice. I needed to convert.
This was no easy task. I was prone to agoraphobia and self-doubt. We narrowed down our choices to a few temples. I liked the rabbi and cantor at Temple Sinai of Palm Beach County. And when I met the temple co-president, the first thing I blurted out was, “I’ve wanted to convert for almost a decade, but I’m too scared to talk to the rabbi.”
That determined lady dragged me by the ear into the rabbi’s office and told the rabbi, “She wants to convert but thinks she can’t do it.” Red in the face, I admitted to social anxiety. No problem, the rabbi said. And that started my formal journey to convert to Judaism at the temple.
After about two years of direct study — perhaps many more if you count the years of unofficial studying I did in temples in Brooklyn and the fact that I had already been observing Jewish holidays for the past decade, I did it. I converted.
When I finally spoke to the Beit Din and completed my mikveh, I felt anew. I was ecstatic. After more than 10 years of harassment from peers who were fighting for “peace” in Palestine by attacking and harassing their ideological enemies, I found a home among my temple family.
Without the Jewish people who kindly stepped up to help me in college, I would have never made it this far. I shudder what to think would have happened had I suffered for so long in silence.
After being faced with so much hate, vitriol, and harassment by people claiming to be for peace, I countered it with love for my fellow Jews, who metaphorically picked me off the floor when I was at my lowest. Without them, I don’t know where I’d be.
The campus Hamasniks at Barnard still exist. In fact, last year, 90.99% of voting Barnard students condemned Israel and supported Hamas. When I was a student 10 years ago, the campus body was much less radical, with only about 50-60% of Barnard and Columbia students voting to condemn Israel.
Reacting to hate with even more hate never works. The situation always escalates. But love, kindness, and goodwill — work on a two-way street.
The campus hysteria we’ve seen this past year at Barnard College and Columbia is a testament to how anger and hate achieve only chaos and destruction.
Love is stronger than evil. Bravery is dangerous in the face of hundreds who chant “Globalize the Intifada.” But without the evil and harassment I faced, I would have never opened my eyes to Judaism, the very religion many of my classmates hoped to destroy.
Peace is a core tenet of Judaism. That’s why many Jews say “Shalom.” It is with that energy that I hope to continue reporting on antisemitism and Jew hate, raising awareness of the October 7th attack on Israel, and ultimately — simply trying to be the best person, the best Jewish woman, I can be.
This was originally published on Times of Israel.
This piece was brought to you by Toni Airaksinen, Senior Editor of Liberty Affair and a journalist based in Boca Raton, Florida. Follow her on X @Toni_Airaksinen, and on Instagram.
Email: tonimaeairaksinen@gmail.com
This is a truly touching story. As a Jew I wish you in the words of the rabbis that you go from strength to strength.
You are a lady of courage. Inspiring.