Zahava Feldstein, a former Ph.D. student at Stanford who left her program due to what she described as antisemitic harassment from classmates, told J. that the university still doesn’t believe that she experienced repeated incidents of anti-Jewish bias.
Feldstein filed a complaint last fall against the university with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights before withdrawing from her program in December.
(Courtesy StandWithUs)
On July 22, StandWithUs, a national nonprofit that advocates for Israel and fights antisemitism, signed on as co-complaintant and filed a supplement to Feldstein’s original complaint. It alleges that she experienced antisemitic intimidation, marginalization and discrimination from her Stanford peers, professors and advisers.
Feldstein spoke about her reasons for bringing the complaint against Stanford in an interview with J. on Thursday.
“When I left Stanford, I was truly heartbroken both because it wasn’t the place I imagined it would or could be, and because I was forced to walk away from what I thought was going to be my career stepping stone,” Feldstein said.
Feldstein, an Atlanta resident, began her Ph.D. program in Jewish studies and education at Stanford in September 2023, just weeks prior to the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre in Israel. Feldstein said her classmates, none of whom was Jewish, Arab or Palestinian, were aware of her Jewish heritage and Jewish identity because she told them she’d grown up as the daughter of a rabbi. She said that following Oct. 7, her classmates began to ostracize her and insert her Jewish identity into class conversations, no matter the topic.
In the supplemental filing to her civil rights complaint, Feldstein describes an incident when she was presenting a project to her cohort about educational pedagogy — without any reference to Israel or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A classmate responded that Feldstein simply speaking to the class reminded them of “settler colonial violence” and “genocide.”
Her professors and advisers, whom she turned to for support, made matters worse, the complaint alleges.
One professor characterized Feldstein as merely a “white person in a position of power,” according to the filing, while another suggested Feldstein avoid talking to her classmates about her Jewish identity in order for them to like her more.
Feldstein contends she was targeted by her peers based on her Jewish identity, not her politics or her beliefs around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Ironically, she noted that her progressive political beliefs tended to align with those of her peers.
“I am a scholar of ethnic studies, critical race theory and Jewish history. I agreed with my classmates on so many baselines for understanding the world, meaning the harassment I faced wasn’t about my politics, it was about my Jewish identity,” Feldstein said in a statement issued by StandWithUs on July 23. “Unless I was willing to advocate for the murder of Jews in the process of ‘decolonizing Palestine,’ I would never be allowed into their social justice collective.”
Feldstein described the antisemitism she experienced as a “fusion of ancient stereotypes with modern progressive language, repackaged through social justice discourse.”
Moreover, the complaint alleges that Stanford did not intervene on Feldstein’s behalf while the antisemitism was occurring. According to the filing, an internal investigation shared with Feldstein after she left Stanford contends that it was Feldstein’s “expressed views” and not her Jewish identity that made her a target among her peers. J. has not reviewed the findings of the internal investigation.
In a statement emailed to J. on July 24, a Stanford spokesperson confirmed that the internal investigation had taken place and noted that corrective actions were taken.
“Stanford takes any allegation of antisemitism very seriously. Upon learning of the student’s concerns in this case, the university conducted an investigation by an investigator from outside the student’s school. It found that the claims of discrimination were not supported by the evidence, but based on the report the school implemented multiple changes,” Luisa Rapport, director of Stanford media relations, wrote to J.
Feldstein’s complaint seeks to correct Stanford’s assessment.
“It’s an unfortunate situation when a student is forced to continuously advocate for themselves in any useful forum they can find because the institution refuses to believe their lived testimony,” Feldstein told J.
The supplemental filing requests that the Department of Education open an investigation into Feldstein’s allegations and hold Stanford accountable for violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits harassment and discrimination based on race, color, national origin and shared ancestry.
The filing also requests that Stanford make an official statement that unequivocally vows to protect Jewish students at Stanford, condemns all forms of antisemitism and emphasizes that Zionism is an “integral component of Jewish identity for most Jewish people.”
Following her exit from her Ph.D. program, Feldstein applied her course credits toward a master’s degree from Stanford’s School of Education, which she received in early 2025. Feldstein also has a master’s degree in divinity, focused on the history of Judaism, from the University of Chicago.
Over the past year, she has written several op-eds about her experiences at Stanford in Moment Magazine and the Times of Israel.
Feldstein is now working on a doctorate in antisemitism studies at Gratz College in Pennsylvania and joining the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism Postgrad Fellows.