Interview 03: Matt Karofsky, Tufts University
"I think that if there’s an effective solution to antisemitism it's responding with pride."
This is the third in a series of ten interviews I conducted with American Jewish college students in the summer of 2023. My questions focus on:
Who my interviewees are as it relates to politics and Judaism.
What their campus political culture is like.
If they have faced antisemitism and if so, what it looks like.
What they think is and is not working in the fight against antisemitism on campus and beyond.
*In the wake of Hamas’s October 7th attacks, I plan to conduct followup interviews to see how their thoughts have changed since summer 2023.
Please enjoy my interview with Matt Karofsky, a Spring 2023 graduate of Tufts University.
Isaac: Hi Matt, great to be speaking with you. To start off, please introduce yourself.
Matt: I’m Matt Karofsky, I’m 22-years-old and am from Wellesley, Massachusetts in the Boston area. I just graduated pre-med from Tufts University and will be starting medical school at Tufts this summer.
Isaac: Ok, great and congrats on medical school by the way.
For your first difficult question, what's your political affiliation?
Matt: I’m registered as an independent.
Isaac: Perfect. Okay, now for your first long-form question: can you tell me about what you’ve done during your college career at Tufts, Jewish or Israel-related?
Matt: My pro-Israel involvement began with Tufts Friends of Israel. I started off as a member there and eventually worked my way up to become their political director.
I also got connected with the Israel on Campus Coalition (ICC) during my sophomore year when they were helping us combat a deadly exchange referendum that sought to limit Tuft's relationship with Israel.
The deadly exchange resolution also really propelled me to get more involved in the pro-Israel space in general and the next year I studied abroad in Israel. I came back from Israel really fired up about staying involved in the pro-Israel space. That led me to intern at AIPAC in summer of 2022 and to go on ICC’s Geller trip to Israel and to the United Arab Emirates in winter 2023.
Isaac: Awesome, thank you for that. And I'm interested, you mentioned the sophomore year deadly exchange referendum and how it propelled you to get more involved. What was it about it that got you fired up?
Matt: I felt throughout my college experience, and I think this is true of a lot of Jewish students and I think it's certainly true at Tufts, that it's really easy to walk through campus and feel unsettled and not super wanted by a lot of different student organizations.
Tufts is incredibly progressive and in the vein of intersectionality, there are a lot of student organizations that don't make Jews who have a strong connection to Israel - or even any connection to Israel - feel the most welcome.
I think this undercurrent materialized in the form of that deadly exchange resolution my sophomore year and this finally gave me a way to speak up for the Jewish community.
Isaac: Okay, got it. And would you say that this feeling of being unwanted because you support Israel is the main characteristic of antisemitism found at Tufts?
Matt: I would say so. I came out of high school really passionate about a lot of different social justice causes. I really wanted to get involved with climate justice and I showed up to a few meetings my first week of freshman year and was told explicitly that no Zionists were allowed.
To me this is a pretty thinly veiled way of saying, “we're okay with Jews being in these organizations, just only a certain type of Jew.”
That being said, I do also think there’s also a lot of academic antisemitism at Tufts. For instance, there was a course taught during my first semester at Tufts called “Colonizing Palestine.” It was taught by a known academic who is not the biggest fan of Israel and who lashed out at a lot of Jewish students who opposed the class being taught.
Isaac: Did you have any experiences with far-right antisemitism during your time at Tufts?
Matt: There was stuff before I got to Tufts. I know our Hillel was plied with pictures of pigs with swastikas on them at some point, but I didn't see much of that when I was at Tufts. It was definitely more of the other.
Isaac: Interesting. Ok, now to go bigger picture. There's currently a discussion of whether antisemitism is getting better or worse. Do you have any thoughts on that?
Matt: I definitely think it's gotten worse just in the time I've been in college and it's been really easy to see that. For example, just at the beginning of this year we had Kanye and his denial that today's modern Jews are connected to the Jews that lived in ancient Israel. That I found particularly shocking.
I think it's also undeniable that we've seen politics getting increasingly polarized and I definitely believe in the horseshoe theory of politics and that Jews are a political football of the two political extremes. I think that as politics continues to get more and more partisan Jews will continue experiencing antisemitism from both sides.
Isaac: So it's interesting, because when you talked about antisemitism on your campus, you talked about Israel, and then when you talked about it more on a national level, you brought up more far-right figures like Kanye West. Would you say that's a reflection of your opinion that it's equally bad on both sides? Or do you think that one type of antisemitism is worse than another?
Matt: I think that it's really easy to look at the far-right's version of antisemitism and call it out. Everyone can see a swastika and say, that's bad, that's antisemitic, but not everyone can look at a speech by Ilan Omar and say it’s antisemitic. I think that as our generation matures, gets into politics, and takes the main stage, we may see a lot more left-wing antisemitism, and it's going to be increasingly difficult to call it out.
Isaac: So that actually leads right into my next question. What will concern you most when our generation gets into positions of power?
Matt: I’m concerned about a lot of people in our generation continuing to espouse anti-Israel sentiment. I’m also concerned that until we agree on a definition of antisemitism, Jews will find it difficult to call anything antisemitism and see the appropriate consequences enacted.
Isaac: So you think our generation will undermine support for Israel, but how about support for American Jews? Do you think that American Jews will come under fire as well?
Matt: I think so. I will say that for all I was saying about Tufts, we had the real good fortune of having an administration that stood up for us a lot of the time, which was really appreciated. It concerns me that we may get to a point where we don't have those power structures in place.
Isaac: When our generation becomes the power structures.
Matt: Exactly. It concerns me and if the trends continue, I do foresee that happening.
Isaac: So I've asked this in a couple of different ways at this point, but just to be clear - in 20 years, when today's college students are in positions of power, are you more concerned about their anti-Zionism or their far-right antisemitism?
Matt: I think the anti-Israel stuff absolutely. I think it's more prevalent and can spread far-right antisemitism as well.
Isaac: Okay. So now let's talk about strategies that organizations are implementing to combat antisemitism. What have you seen that you like?
Matt: I think that if there’s an effective solution to antisemitism it's responding with pride and not letting our survival hinge on the support of any external group.
I think that a way to inculcate that pride is by focusing on the next generation of Jews. By reminding them that our identity isn't only defined by our oppression - that there's a lot more to the Jewish religion and culture than that.
A generation of Jews grew up viewing their Judaism through the lens of the Holocaust happened to us, these things have happened to us, and not, "I have a rich culture and religion and past to share with the rest of the world." Internalizing this makes it so that when people say things like, “you guys control the world, you're a cabal, whatever,” we have the strength to say no, and we actually know exactly who we are and where we come from.
I think that kind of internal response is the best way to respond.
Isaac: Interesting, I really love that positive approach. Really love it. On top of that, do you think there are any external things we can be doing as well?
Matt: Of course. Even though I just said that change needs to come from within, I think that it's also really important to build networks outside the Jewish community.
For example, something that I loved about ICC’s Geller trip was how many non-Jews there were. I know people who came out of that trip, people who didn't come in identifying as pro-Israel, with at least more understanding, which is really critical, because we're not a lot of Jews and not a lot of people understand what we're going through.
Isaac: So you think multicultural trips are an effective strategy?
Matt: Definitely. It's easy to build relationships on these trips because they’re fun and you're gonna make incredible memories with incredible people.
Isaac: Last question for you. To take it super broad and super hypothetical - if right now you were gifted the CEO position of a major pro-Jewish or pro-Israel organization, what would you do?
Matt: I would want to expand programming to teach about the Jewish experience as more than just the Holocaust.
I think it's really important to paint Jews in a light that doesn't define them by their oppression and while I think that the amount of Holocaust education that kids receive in schools is great, it’s the only real discussion of Jews they have. This means that it’s really easy to grow up not knowing a lot about Jews, which I think is when it's really easy for antisemitism to take hold because if you don't know someone I think it's difficult to empathize with them.
In the Israel context, if all your knowledge about Jews is that there was a genocide against them, you then don’t understand the connection Jews have to Israel and it becomes really easy to look at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and say, “who are these white Europeans coming from Poland that say that they have some sort of stake in this land in the Middle East?” It makes it difficult to empathize with the Israelis.
Isaac: Wow, again I really love this positive approach, you have been really amazing.
Before we end, do you have any final reflections for the audience?
Matt: I think that if I had any one message it would be that Jewish students by and large don't feel incredibly comfortable where they go to college. I think that a lot of antisemitism is normalized. It's coming from the right, definitely, and that's easy to call out, but increasingly, we're seeing it come from the left and this is very hard to call it out. Without a definition of what antisemitism is it will always remain that way.
Isaac: Thanks for your time Matt and good luck in med school!
Feel free to connect with Matt on LinkedIn here