Kalaniyot faculty network strengthens campus ties to Israeli scholars, fights academic boycotts

Dr. Yossi Sheffi has been a defining fixture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Serving as the director of the Center for Transportation and Logistics, the engineering professor has managed multi-million-dollar research portfolios, authored foundational texts, and launched a steady stream of successful technology startups.

"I am the number one influencer in my field in the world," Sheffi noted, reflecting on a career in which his name alone sold books and his global influence was well established. By all conventional standards, his place within the elite institution was secure and celebrated.

"And then on October 7 everything changed," Sheffi recalled. Describing himself as "what you might call an October 8 Jew," he admitted that prior to the Hamas attacks, while he knew antisemitism existed, he never expected to encounter it himself. In the wake of the atrocities committed in Israel, MIT, like many elite North American universities, was swept up in an unprecedented wave of intense agitation and rising hostility. 

Describing the collapse of institutional norms, Sheffi noted that "law and order disintegrated" at MIT, as a wave of antisemitism and anti-Zionism swept the campus and transformed corridors that once resonated with scholarly debate into environments of intimidation where classes were disrupted, research laboratories were targeted with graffiti, and Jewish and Israeli students and faculty members faced open vitriol.

Jewish, Israeli students, faculty targeted by pro-Palestine students

Recalling the nature of the campus demonstrations, Sheffi pointed to the hostile rhetoric of the student protesters, shouting slogans "from the river to the sea" without knowing which river or sea they meant. He noted that these agitators immediately began shouting "Kill the Jews" and demanding that "Palestine should be free," alongside what he described as "the big lie, the genocide," adding that they "started screaming about genocide and writing about genocide."

Sheffi explained that he started with helping Jewish students who were "completely traumatized." He noted that these students were "shunted from study groups," attacked, vilified, and "threatened with bodily harm." The atmosphere of fear became so acute that students started walking with pepper spray and constantly looking behind their backs.

Sheffi also highlighted specific incidents of intimidation targeting faculty, recalling how one Israeli faculty member had pictures of the hostages put up right inside her office, only for hostile supporters to enter the workspace, threaten her, and strip everything off the walls, while the department allegedly told neighbors and victims never to call campus police again.

The hostile climate led to departures from the institution. Sheffi pointed out that about 12 students left MIT without finishing their studies due to the unbearable environment, alongside professors who were also driven out by antisemitism.

Expressing profound shock regarding the fallout of the high-profile congressional hearings in late 2023, where university leaders were questioned by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce regarding surging campus antisemitism and their failures to protect Jewish students, Sheffi underscored the stark double standard.

He noted with disbelief how university presidents at Penn and Harvard lost their jobs after evasive, legalistic exchanges regarding whether calling for the genocide of Jews violated campus codes of conduct, yet MIT's leadership managed to evade similar accountability.

Expressing deep frustration, Sheffi emphasized: "Unlike Penn and Harvard, where the presidents had to step down after failing to give straight answers to Elise Stefanik’s questions, at MIT there was no investigation into antisemitism whatsoever; they completely managed to dodge any formal inquiry or institutional reckoning."

For Sheffi, the administrative response was the ultimate breaking point. "That was one of the most shameful things that got me over the edge," Sheffi stated, pointing directly to "the response of the administration."

Rather than protecting vulnerable scholars, administrators routinely downplayed the hostility, offering empty bureaucratic pronouncements while avoiding decisive disciplinary action against disruptors. Reflecting on the institutional response, Sheffi noted that the administration was "still trying to shove it under the carpet."

Sheffi documents MIT antisemitism in Unsafe at MIT: A Chronicle of a Campus War on the Jews

Determined to ensure that these incidents were permanently recorded rather than swept aside, Sheffi channeled his investigative background into writing Unsafe at MIT: A Chronicle of a Campus War on the Jews. Drawing on extensive interviews with dozens of students, postdocs, and professors, the book serves as a rigorous historical ledger of institutional failure.

To ensure the text was bulletproof against potential legal challenges and bad-faith denials, Sheffi subjected the manuscript to strict pre-publication legal vetting. Sheffi entirely self-funded the book, and the university made it clear it would not fund any promotion or distribution of the work.

Amid the isolation felt by Jewish students at MIT, Sheffi fostered a vital support system by creating and building a community through the MIT Israel Alliance. What began quietly as informal, bi-weekly lunch gatherings organized to offer safe spaces for shaken students soon transformed into a robust, proactive initiative that provided peer support, shared resources, and a united front against campus hostility.

Realizing that isolated student support was only part of the solution, the network expanded into a new initiative called Kalaniyot.

Named after the Hebrew word for anemone flowers - regarded as Israel's national flower, which mark the rejuvenation of Israel's southern deserts following winter rains - Kalaniyot evolved into a constructive counter-infrastructure designed to directly strengthen institutional ties with Israeli researchers. Bypassing institutional inertia, the initiative successfully secured independent funding from private donors who refused to watch academic centers capitulate to radical elements.

At its core, Kalaniyot focuses on bringing top-tier Israeli scientists, postdoctoral fellows, and visiting researchers to universities across the continent on one- or two-year fellowships in order to counter academic boycotts. By pairing them with sympathetic local faculty mentors, the network establishes a secure pipeline for professional collaboration, mentorship, and financial protection that deepens binational academic ties and keeps high-level scientific cooperation thriving.

Kalaniyot spreading to other major educational institutions

"Kalaniyot was the response to the BDS," Sheffi explained. "And it's going very well. It's now in several universities and growing, bringing Israeli scientists and creating science collaboration with Israeli engineers and scientists."

Sheffi emphasized that a major success of Kalaniyot is its growth into a national organization that began at MIT and has since expanded, with formal chapters established at other major institutions, including Harvard, Dartmouth, Penn, Columbia, USC, and Cornell.

Looking ahead, Sheffi shared that the ultimate big dream for Kalaniyot is to scale this infrastructure into a permanent, nationwide network embedded across every major research university in North America, ensuring that Israeli academics always have a secure, well-funded home abroad regardless of shifting political tides or administrative hostility.

For Sheffi and the leaders driving Kalaniyot, the overarching lesson is clear: when institutional leadership falters and university bureaucracy turns a blind eye, the only path forward is to take matters into your own hands, standing up for academic excellence, refusing to wait for permission, and building lasting, constructive safeguards that ensure Israeli scholarship continues to thrive globally.