The Concordia student leader offers three lessons for navigating campus antisemitism without surrendering safety, agency or independent thought
For Councillor Anastasia Zorchinsky, the first thing Jewish students should bring to university is not found on any course syllabus.
It is the determination to document what happens around them, the confidence to act when institutions fail and the intellectual independence to question whatever they are told.
In a direct message addressed to students entering every year of university, the Concordia Student Union councillor and founder of StartUp Nation Montreal presented three lessons drawn from her own experience with campus activism, student government and legal action.
Her message was not simply that Jewish students should be cautious. It was that they should arrive prepared.
A student activist shaped by the campus itself
Zorchinsky arrived at Concordia in 2022 and became increasingly involved in Jewish and Israel-related advocacy. She founded StartUp Nation, an organization intended to highlight Israeli entrepreneurship and innovation, which later expanded its presence across Concordia and McGill.
She was subsequently elected to the Concordia Student Union Council, where she represents undergraduate students and participates in decisions involving student services, funding and campus policy. In her 2026 re-election campaign, she described herself as a councillor who had completed two years without missing a council meeting. Official election results show that she secured another council seat for the 2026 mandate. Concordia Student Union elections
Her advocacy has extended beyond public statements. In May 2026, Zorchinsky proposed creating a solidarity fund that would have provided 32 bursaries of $500 to Jewish and Israeli undergraduate students with cultural connections to Israel and demonstrated financial need. The council rejected the proposal after members raised financial and logistical objections, including the absence of available money in the proposed budget line. The Link
That record gives important context to the three recommendations she now offers students.
First: Document everything
Zorchinsky’s first lesson is also the most practical: preserve the evidence.
First: Document everything · 0:27–1:25 of the original video
If a student encounters threatening language, discriminatory treatment, open support for terrorism or conduct that appears to violate university rules, she argues that the details should be recorded and securely retained.
That can include screenshots, emails, photographs, videos, dates, locations, witness names and copies of complaints submitted to university authorities.
The purpose is not to provoke a confrontation or place oneself in danger. Documentation creates a verifiable timeline. It can show what happened, who was notified and whether the institution responded.
“Make sure that your safety is number one,” Zorchinsky cautioned, adding that students must ensure any recording is lawful.
Her advice reflects the reality that social-media posts can disappear, memories can become less precise and verbal complaints may leave no permanent record. A carefully preserved file can therefore make the difference between an allegation that is difficult to assess and a report supported by contemporaneous evidence.
Concordia itself directs students who witness harassment, discrimination, threats or physical violence to contact its Office of Rights and Responsibilities. Its Code of Rights and Responsibilities applies to students, faculty and staff, including certain conduct occurring away from campus when it has a substantive connection to the university. The code is intended to address discrimination, harassment and violence. Concordia University
Documentation is most effective when it supports those formal reporting mechanisms. Students should preserve original files, avoid editing evidence, record the date of every report and keep copies of the university’s replies.
If danger is immediate, however, collecting evidence should never take priority over leaving the area and contacting campus security or emergency services.
A legal dispute over institutional responsibility
Zorchinsky’s emphasis on documentation is connected to legal proceedings involving Concordia.
She is among the students who have publicly challenged the university’s response to alleged antisemitism. The plaintiffs contend that Concordia failed to respond adequately to incidents affecting Jewish students and did not provide the safe educational environment it promised.
Those remain allegations before the courts. They have not been established as facts, and Concordia has previously declined to comment on pending litigation.
The dispute forms part of a larger legal and political debate concerning the obligations universities assume when students pay tuition and join an academic community.
A separate proposed class action filed in 2023 sought $15 million on behalf of Jewish students, faculty and staff. It accused Concordia and its student union of failing to investigate alleged antisemitic incidents, discipline responsible parties and support Jewish students. At the time of reporting, the allegations had not been proven and the proceeding still required judicial authorization. Global News and The Canadian Press
Zorchinsky describes the relationship between a student and a university as reciprocal. Students are required to meet academic and behavioural standards. In return, she argues, the institution must apply its own rules and provide an environment in which students can attend classes without intimidation.
Whether a court accepts the plaintiffs’ legal arguments is a separate question. Her broader lesson is that institutional accountability depends upon evidence.
Second: Do not wait for someone else
Zorchinsky’s second lesson is about agency.
Second: Do not wait for someone else · 1:25–2:01 of the original video
When students recognize that something is wrong, she urges them not to assume that another person, another organization or the university administration will automatically resolve it.
“Send that letter, send that email, take action, organize your friends,” she advised.
Taking action does not require becoming a public activist on the first day of university. It can mean asking a professor to address inappropriate classroom conduct, reporting a threat, requesting a meeting, consulting a student organization or helping a classmate document an incident.
It also means using established procedures before concluding that nothing can be done.
Responsible action is different from vigilantism. Students should not physically confront demonstrators, interfere with lawful expression or place themselves in dangerous situations. The most effective advocacy is usually organized, factual and persistent.
A strong report identifies the incident, cites the relevant policy, attaches the available evidence and asks for a specific response. If officials do not reply, students can follow up in writing and preserve that correspondence as part of the record.
Zorchinsky’s guiding principle is that student representation must produce action, not merely symbolic concern.
Third: University should teach students how to think
Her final lesson reaches beyond campus security.
Third: University should teach students how to think · 2:01–3:14 of the original video
Universities, she argues, should teach students how to evaluate ideas rather than prescribing what political conclusions they must reach.
That distinction matters most when the subject is controversial.
A serious university education should expose students to competing interpretations, require evidence and permit arguments to be challenged. Professors retain their own freedom of expression, but their institutional authority should not transform personal political judgments into positions that students are expected to repeat.
Zorchinsky recalled a class in which a professor announced that he did not want to become political, then proceeded to characterize Donald Trump as racist and homophobic. Her objection was not that professors must remain without opinions. It was that students should be given the tools and freedom to analyze political claims rather than being told which conclusion is intellectually acceptable.
Her criticism fits into a broader debate over academic freedom. A classroom cannot meaningfully function as a place of inquiry if students believe that disagreeing with the dominant position will bring academic or social punishment.
At the same time, intellectual independence must apply consistently. Students should scrutinize claims from the left, the right, pro-Israel organizations, pro-Palestinian organizations, elected officials, professors and social-media personalities. Critical thought is not the rejection of one ideological camp. It is the refusal to grant any camp immunity from evidence.
The wider Canadian context
The concerns expressed by Jewish students are not occurring in isolation.
According to Statistics Canada, police recorded 920 hate crimes targeting Jewish people in 2024. Jewish Canadians were the targets of approximately 70 per cent of all police-reported religious hate crimes that year, despite representing roughly one per cent of Canada’s population. The figure was slightly lower than the 959 incidents recorded in 2023, but remained dramatically above the 331 incidents reported in 2020. Statistics Canada
The federal government’s Campus Antisemitism and Student Experiences initiative similarly describes antisemitism in higher education as a national human-rights concern rather than a narrow dispute confined to individual campuses. It states that the rise of campus antisemitism conflicts with Canada’s commitments to the dignity and security of minority communities. Canadian Heritage
Those statistics do not mean that every criticism of Israel is antisemitic, nor do they erase the responsibility to confront anti-Muslim, anti-Arab or anti-Palestinian hatred. They demonstrate that Jewish students have legitimate reasons to take threats and discriminatory conduct seriously.
Protecting Jewish students and protecting open debate are not competing objectives. A university can defend political expression while drawing a clear boundary around harassment, intimidation, discrimination and support for violence.
Three principles of empowerment
Zorchinsky’s recommendations can ultimately be reduced to three principles:
Document what happens. Take responsible action. Think independently.
Together, they offer Jewish students something more valuable than a general warning. They offer a method for responding to an uncertain campus environment without surrendering either their identity or their education.
Documentation protects the truth. Action forces institutions to confront what has been placed before them. Independent thought preserves the university’s highest purpose.
These principles represent genuine student empowerment. If applied carefully and responsibly, they could materially improve the safety, confidence and participation of Jewish students on campuses across Canada.
A university worthy of its name should never require Jewish students to become investigators simply to feel secure. Until every institution consistently enforces its own standards, however, Zorchinsky’s message is difficult to dismiss:
Do not remain silent. Do not remain passive. Do not allow anyone else to do your thinking for you.
Watch the full video (3:14)