Just after Hamas attacked Israel a year ago on October 7, Shai Davidai stood on the campus green at Columbia University and read his “Open Letter to Every Parent in America.” In an appeal that has since garnered nearly a quarter of a million views on YouTube alone and an interview with 60 Minutes, he warned parents that Columbia and other universities cannot protect Jewish children from antisemitism. He also called the leadership of these universities to task, arguing that some university leaders have been supporting pro-terror campus organizations. What makes this remarkable is that Shai Davidai is not a professional activist: He is an Assistant Professor within the Management Division at Columbia University. With a Ph.D. from Cornell University, some post-doctoral work at Princeton, and over a decade of research on how people make judgments about ideology, politics, and the ‘headwinds’ and ‘tailwinds’ in their lives, Professor Davidai already has a lengthy CV containing dozens of publications in leading psychology journals.
Ariella Reynolds: I think it’s fair to say that you popped onto all our devices when your video, “An Open Letter to Every Parent in America,” hit YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok just after the October 7 attack. Your message was clear: Universities cannot protect students from pro-terror student organizations because university leaders—and you cited your own at Columbia as well as those at Harvard, Berkeley, NYU, and others—are enabling and emboldening groups that, in your words, consider your two-year-old daughter a “legitimate target of resistance.” Could you please walk us through what, from your perspective, is happening? Which groups are you talking about? Whom are they targeting, and how are they targeting them?
Shai Davidai: I think the best thing to do is actually not take me in my own words but take specific organizations in theirs, and it changes from school to school. I can talk mostly about Columbia, which is where I am, but other schools have different organizations. Maybe two days after the October 7 massacre, there was a letter that came out at Columbia that was co-signed by two organizations, SJP [Students for Justice in Palestine] and JVP [Jewish Voice for Peace]. In that letter, they called the October 7 massacre a historic win, a historic day. They called it resistance. They kept referring to what Hamas did as freedom fighting and resistance. Justified resistance. This was echoed by the national SJP letter that called October 7 a justified resistance, by all means necessary, using the hashtag #Al-Aqsa Flood, which is the name given to the massacre by Hamas. When I say that these are pro-Hamas organizations, that’s what I mean: They use the rhetoric and the names that Hamas gave the massacre. They justify it, and they celebrate it. When I say that they see my two-year-old daughter as a justified target of resistance, I mean exactly that because there’s no difference between my two-year-old daughter, who’s Israeli, and the two-year-old kids that were brutally murdered in Israel on October 7. There’s no difference between my eight-year-old son and the eight-year-old kids that were kidnapped into Gaza just because they’re Israeli. They’re not soldiers, they’re not oppressors. They’re eight years old.
That’s what I mean when I say that organizations like SJP and JVP say that that is justified resistance. When I say that the university gives them support, I mean exactly that. These organizations are recognized chapters in the university. They get funding, they get space, and they get the stamp of approval just like any other organization. That’s my problem with that.
AR: You are not tenured, and I know you’ve said in other interviews that whether you lose your job over this misses the point. You said, “I am not afraid to speak up. I am speaking up because I’m afraid.” What did you mean by this?
SD: It’s hard to explain how scary it is for a parent to know that there are people at their job who see their kids as legitimate targets. It’s just a really unsettling and very scary experience. Now, just for the timeline, the things I said in that video were on October 18. The week before, I think it was October 13, it was a Friday, and that was the day when Hamas called for an international global day of resistance, meaning attacking all Israeli and Jewish targets all around the world. My son goes to a public school. My daughter goes to a daycare. That day, in New York City, my daughter could not go out to the park. They canceled all external outside trips for the kids, two-year-old kids, in New York City because there was fear that my daughter would be attacked. When I said that I’m speaking up because I’m afraid, I’m literally afraid because there are people that are calling for my kids’ demise. Even if we zoom out for a second from my own little family, there are very violent voices on campus at Columbia, and I know they’re at Brown, Harvard, MIT, and all these other schools, that are calling for the demolition of Israel.
All of my friends and family are in Israel. The fact that there are people in my university calling for their extinction is scary. It’s not something that I use as a rhetorical tool; it really is something that I feel.
AR: Has speaking up helped? For example, has the Columbia president reached out to you to try to address this fear?
SD: No, nothing. She will not meet with me. [At the time of this interview, Minouche Shafik was President of Columbia University; she resigned in August of this year]
AR: How do you stay motivated to keep going? What inspires you?
SD: Honestly, I don’t have any other choice. There are many days where I’m like, “I’m done. I don’t want this. I want the problem to go away.” Then I go on social media, and I see the rabid antisemitism. I have a few comments that I keep on my phone, people saying horrible things about me, about my family, about my daughter—my two-year-old daughter. I keep them on my phone as a way to remind myself that this is what’s happening.
I also think there are moments in people’s lives where you have to take a stand. This is the moment for me. I think a lot of the students, mostly undergraduate students at Columbia, feel like there aren’t a lot of people that have our back right now. Until someone else has our back, it has to be me. I’m not going to forsake them. I have a responsibility for students, even if they’re not in my classroom. Maybe it’s because I’m a dad, and I feel that responsibility just for any younger person, but that’s what keeps me going. It is not some zealous fire that burns in me; it is really because it’s a necessity.
AR: With groups shouting over one another, discourse seems to have degenerated. In your mind, what is the path forward? How can we protect all students on campus?
SD: First of all, I believe in discourse. I really do believe that talking is the way forward. But who is shutting down discourse? It’s predominantly one-sided. If the discourse was shut down 50/50, I would say, “Okay, we have a problem about discourse culture, and we need to figure it out.” Right now, we don’t have a problem with the discourse culture. We have a problem with prominent actors on one side that are unwilling to engage in discourse. That is a problem, but it’s not a problem that I know how to solve.
I personally went online, and I said that I would like to organize a group of Israeli, Palestinian, and American students and faculty that will call for peace and a two-state solution. I would call for a Palestinian state, and whoever’s on the other side would join me by acknowledging the existence of Israel. For me, that’s discourse. Let’s build something together. I have received multiple emails from Israelis and Jewish people saying, “I will join this,” and exactly zero emails from people on the other side that are willing to acknowledge the existence of Israel publicly. I really don’t know how to create that discourse. I think one way to move forward is to understand how you have discourse. People have this Mickey Mouse [Disney] idea of freedom of speech, as if freedom of speech is something that just happens if you allow it to happen. I don’t think that’s the case. I think because universities have not set boundaries on what can be said, the conversation is happening between people at the extremes—mostly on one end, but let’s say that it’s on both ends. That’s not how you have a conversation. You need to set some boundaries when it comes to violent rhetoric. That way, by definition, we’d move toward each other. We’d still have a lot of disagreement, but at least we wouldn’t be crossing boundaries. That’s when we’ll be able to speak. But I’ll be honest with you, it’s hard for me to have discourse with someone who celebrates Hamas because Hamas has stated a few things: They have stated that their goal is the eradication of Jews from Israel and that they will repeat October 7 however many times they need to. When someone backs that and is unwilling to say, “I despise Hamas,” I can’t have a conversation with them. It’s like asking someone to have an open conversation with the person that is executing them.
At the same time, I am still open to having those conversations.
AR: I’ve seen videos on the YouTube channel “Jubilee” that bring together certain Israelis and Palestinians and have them talk to each other. What do you think about those?
SD: I was invited to one of those, and I told them I would be happy to be there, but I do have one line that I will not cross. You cannot bring to the table extreme right-wingers from Israel who would call for senseless killing, and you cannot bring to the table people that do not acknowledge the existence of Israel. They were able to meet my first request, and they brought moderate Israelis and Jewish people from one side, but they could not find, or they say they could not find, moderate people to speak for the other side. They sent me a list of people that were going to appear, and that day, I looked at the Instagram page of one of them, which said, “From the river to the sea.” She explicitly said, “I’m going to say this because it triggers the Jews, ‘from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.’” The other person seemed like a great person. She was a chef that celebrates Palestinian culture, Palestinian food. But then she also calls for boycotting Israeli restaurants, not in Israel, but in Washington, DC, where she was active. I thought, “You’re targeting Jews and Israelis in the United States. How can we have a conversation?”
So, I told Jubilee, “What you’re doing is noble, but I don’t believe that you’ve tried hard enough to find moderates,” because the moderates exist. Now, it could be that the moderates are afraid to speak out publicly because they are being sanctioned by their own extremists. But that was depressing because I was hopeful when Jubilee Media contacted me. I really wanted to do this, but they couldn’t find someone moderate.
AR: It seems like it’s tough to facilitate productive discourse between moderates anywhere, not just on college campuses.
SD: I think so. Now, it could also be that I am asking too much. Some people talk only with extremists, and that’s fine. I don’t have the emotional strength to do so. It really is a personal thing for me. I can’t have a leveled conversation with someone who won’t acknowledge my existence.
One time, I had a conversation with a very active leader in a pro-Palestinian student organization on campus. Really great guy; we had a three-hour conversation. But at some point, we started talking about October 7 and the massacre and the raping of women. To that, he said, “Allegedly,” and I told him, “At no point in our conversation did I doubt the pain and suffering that you personally are experiencing or that Palestinians in Gaza are experiencing. I acknowledge your pain. Even if I disagree with your ideology, I acknowledge your pain. Why are you doubting my pain? Why are you casting doubt on something that has been so well-documented by Hamas itself?” The guy had no response. That shattered my hope because I thought I had found someone that I could speak with, but even this person could not acknowledge that the evil happened.
AR: It sounds like each side needs to have at least some degree of empathy to be able to communicate with the other side in a way that’s beneficial.
SD: I agree. Look, there are extremists in Israel that won’t do that for the other side. I’m not saying there aren’t many extremists in Israel. I’m not amongst them. I acknowledge the pain of Palestinian civilians. I disagree on the cause of the pain, but I acknowledge the pain. I think that’s the first step for everything.
AR: Turning to your research, I know you’ve done a good deal of work on availability bias in our identification of headwinds versus tailwinds in our lives. Essentially, we tend to remember the headwinds, the challenges, more than we remember the tailwinds, the things that helped us, which makes us more likely to believe that life is unfair. What kinds of headwinds would you say students are facing on campus today? And tailwinds?
SD: Wow, that’s a very good question. You know, one of the things we found as part of my research is that it’s very easy for us to find our own headwinds and very difficult for us to notice other people’s headwinds. It could be that this question is hard for me to answer because of the exact research, but students are scared. I want to acknowledge this: Both Israeli and Muslim students are scared. Islamophobia is there. Antisemitism is there. Students on both sides are scared. Both sides feel unheard. Both sides feel like they are being sanctioned by universities. I think those are the headwinds. I think the tailwinds are also important to acknowledge, and I can speak more to the Jewish side because I’ve been there, but I assume it’s also happening on the other side. They’re finding community. All of a sudden, many Jewish and Israeli students, faculty, and staff are finding a lot of community with each other.
I can say that as a liberal Israeli, I feel abandoned by my allies. I have been there for them in their fights, but they have completely abandoned me in my fight. They forgot the fact that allyship is a two-way street. But I also feel so strongly supported by strangers that are just supporting me, Jews and Israelis and some non-Jews. So it’s not all good, it’s not all bad. There are big problems that we need to solve, but our communities are also focusing on some positive things.
AR: Two follow-up questions: one on headwinds, one on tailwinds. First, to what extent do you think students are overweighting headwinds?
SD: The idea of the availability bias is that we judge the frequency and severity of an issue based on how easily we’ve noticed it, either in the world or in our mind, conjured up. Typically, in research, this involves overestimating the problem. For example, when people in the United States are afraid of shark attacks, that’s because they’re mentally available for different reasons, but they are not really prevalent. You shouldn’t worry that much about sharks.
When it comes to other issues, even if you are overestimating the problem, the fact that the problem exists is already a problem that should be addressed. We know many people are killed by the police, but even if one African American man was unjustly killed by the police, that’s one African American too many. Even if one member of the LGBTQ+ community is targeted for their sexual orientation, that’s one too many. And even if one Jew feels unsafe walking around, openly expressing their Jewish ethnic identity, that’s one Jewish person too many. So, even if people are overestimating the problem, it’s better to overestimate it than underestimate it. Because we know in all civil rights movements throughout history, the detractors have said, “Oh, you’re worried too much. It’s not that big of a deal.” That’s been said to every group that has fought for equality, not just Jews. My point is, even if you’re overestimating, the fact that it still exists is a real issue that should be addressed. The other thing that I say is, “Are we waiting for the problem to become too prevalent?” That doesn’t sound right. Would you be willing to take antisemitism seriously only when we have dead Jews on campus? Is that what you’re waiting for to take this seriously? Of course not. We wouldn’t want any member of any group to be targeted. That’s my view on the availability bias.
AR: So what you’re saying is that overweighting may be what is needed. But at the same time, focusing on the tailwinds now, how should we bring those into clearer focus?
SD: As I mentioned before, the flip side of the negativity was a lot of positivity. Again, I can speak more to my own personal experience in what I’m observing. What I am seeing now is a reawakening in the United States, not only among the Jewish community but also in general amongst the liberal community that is realizing that a small but violent segment of the “liberal community”—which is not really liberal, actually, but what they call the “extreme progressives”—have completely abandoned the liberal values that we all stand for. I think while it’s a negative thing, it’s a tailwind because the vast majority of moderates are starting to understand that these are wolves in sheep’s clothing. Yes, AOC [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] is great on many things. I totally support her in a lot of things. But she’s not liberal because she doesn’t care about all groups; she cares about some groups. Because the moderates are understanding this, I think we have a real chance at creating real liberal change in this society. I’ve been talking about this to people, this reawakening of Jewish ethnicity as a minority—because we are a minority. But also, this reawakening of moderates should want society to be a good place for all of us. I think that is something that hopefully we’ll see more of.
AR: Do you believe that there’s a generational gap between how many moderates there are within each generation?
SD: I don’t know if it’s a generational gap, but we definitely see an age gap. Now what do I mean by that? It could also be that 20 years from now, when you are in your 40s, you’ll look at the 19-year-olds and say, “Whoa, they are extremists.” It’s easy to be an extremist when you have nothing on the line. You can be idealistic and extremist, but when you have to make a decision, then extremism doesn’t get you anywhere. You need to be somewhat pragmatic. But there is some concern that younger people today are not just extremists—which they always are—but that they are uninformed extremists. Or I would say they’re misinformed and extremists. Again, this is not me making a judgment. You can look at the surveys of people chanting, “From the river to the sea,” most of them not knowing what river and what sea; surveys of people not knowing when the state of Israel was established; surveys of people thinking that Jesus was Palestinian even though, if we take Jesus as a real figure, all of the historical and religious records state that he was Jewish.
This is extremism that’s fueled by something else: hatred. You can be extremist on many things. You can be extremist on economic issues, very left or very right. You can be extremist on moral issues: for example, extremely pro-life, extremely pro-choice. But now, what we’re seeing isn’t just extremism. It’s hateful extremism. That’s the problem.
AR: I want to go back to what you were saying about decision-making earlier. Thirty-six student groups at Harvard signed a letter saying Israel was responsible for Hamas’ attacks. Days after those groups signed the letter, several students actually retracted their statements, with a few saying that they hadn’t even seen the letter. What are your thoughts on how this happens?
SD: I see this as a problem of identity. People in the United States, and I guess in many other Western countries now but certainly in the United States, buy into an identity and not into values. What we should be doing is thinking about all of our values. What is my stance on A, B, C, D, and E? Then, based on my stance, I would choose my political leaning. But that’s not what people do. People choose after identifying with a political leaning. I am a Democrat, and because I’m a Democrat, now I have to buy into the entire package. A, B, C, D, and E. I have to buy into it wholeheartedly because Democrats, just like Republicans, have a loyalty test. You are not a true Democrat if you are not committed to all five things. What we’re finding out now is that A, B, C, and D were good things, or good in my view as a liberal. Pro-choice, common sense gun laws, curbing climate change, stuff like that. But E was the denial of the existence of Israel. People are saying, “Oh, these are Democrats. I’ll just buy into that. I’ll sign onto the letter.” Now, this doesn’t just happen with students. My wife, who’s an alum of Columbia, had one of her professors, a very respected person, sign onto a faculty letter calling Hamas’ actions an apt military response. My wife challenged that woman at a conference: She said, “How could you have signed that letter?” And you know what she said—and this is an older woman—she said, “Oh, that wasn’t something that was supposed to go in the letter.” I was like, “You are an adult. You signed onto the letter. You signed onto every word, letter, and comma.” You don’t get a carte blanche just because you agreed with some percent of the letter. You should retract—and she hasn’t.
This identity politics has completely taken over everything. That’s a problem because that doesn’t allow for real discourse within the Democratic Party or within the Republican Party. You either are this or that, and if not, then you’re not part of us. That is just false.
AR: Finally, what projects are you currently working on? Do you anticipate that you’ll be focusing mainly on research, activism, or a blend of the two in the coming months?
SD: I would hope to just focus on my work because I love my work. But in reality, I’m doing both. I’m teaching, and I’m doing all the activism. I’m speaking to a lot of Jewish communities, mostly young people that are reconnecting with their ethnic identity—not their religious identity, with their ethnic identity—and realizing, “Hey, there’s a lot of strength. I shouldn’t be ashamed of being Jewish.” In terms of research, I’m still working on my own research on economic inequality and economic mobility, but I’m also now getting more and more engaged in research on antisemitism because we also need to understand the psychology of antisemitism, understand that this is a real problem and that it needs to be stamped out. I’m a researcher. This is how I know how to do things, so that’s how I’ll do it.
I also do things like this, talking with journalists like you and getting the word out and learning from people like you. The questions you ask teach me a lot.
*This interview has been edited for length and clarity.