Columbia professor on front lines of PR battle

(JNS) — Testimonials and photo and video footage on social media showing men donning tefillin and women wearing Stars of David or lighting Shabbat candles have emerged amid a Jewish great awakening after the Oct. 7 terror attacks. Add Shai Davidai, the Columbia Business School professor who has been one of the most prominent defenders of Israel on campuses and beyond, to that trend.

Davidai, 41, who is Israeli-American and a self-described atheist, told JNS that he has largely stopped using his phone on Shabbat since the Oct. 7 attacks, and in recent years he has said Kiddush with his family on Friday night.

“Post-Oct. 7, a lot of people are looking for ways to connect with their Judaism. I have been especially intentional about it, because I want to find a way to connect my Jewish identity and values with my atheist identity and values, without feeling that I am compromising any aspect of who I am,” Davidai told JNS. 

“It’s definitely complicated and something that requires a lot of thought and some flexibility, but it’s something that our people have been doing for generations,” the assistant management professor added. “Above all, Judaism is about peoplehood, and people are just looking for ways to connect with the larger notion of us as a tribe.”

Davidai told JNS that he has been reading about religious thought and practice, “just from a place of, if I’m going to strongly try to unite our community, I need to understand all aspects of our community.”

He just finished reading a biography of the 12th century Spanish rabbi, philosopher and physician Moses Maimonides, whose writings are among the most influential in Jewish history.

“I realized, if as a kid I read his biography, rather than was told what he said, I would have been more connected right to the story and the history,” he said. 

“It’s very hard for non-Jews to understand that what Jews have is this extra layer in the middle of community, where we don’t just act to further our self-interests. We have a responsibility to other Jews,” he added. “When non-Jews ask how we can care about a Jew we’ve never met in our life, someone who lives halfway around the world, it’s because we’re of the same tribe.”