Scholar and author Linda Maizels has joined the Yale Program for the Study of Antisemitism as its inaugural managing director, the university announced on Monday.
“We are so fortunate to have hired someone like Linda, who, first of all, has a Ph.D. in antisemitism, which is very rare,” said YPSA Director Maurice Samuels. “With Linda on board, we’re poised to do so much more.”
Maizels earned her doctorate—focused on the historical roots of contemporary antisemitism on college campuses—at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She is a member of the advisory council for the Brandeis University Presidential Initiative to Counter Antisemitism in Higher Education and most recently worked in the U.S. Department of State for the Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy.
As managing director, Maizels will work with the program to “expand its efforts in response to the growing problem of contemporary antisemitism” and develop “new resources to address the challenges of the present moment and beyond,” according to the university.
“We want to find new ways to involve Yale undergraduate students,” she said. “We can provide resources and research support to them, but we also want to be a resource: a spot students can come to comfortably discuss issues related to antisemitism.”
A recent poll showed that almost three-quarters of Jewish college students believe that antisemitism is a serious problem on campus.