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History

Gatecrashers

by Mark Oppenheimer
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Latest episodes

  • Introducing Dreyfus: A Very Modern Affair

    October 15, 2024 · 15 min

    Dreyfus: A Very Modern Affair is an October 7th story, but one that begins not in 2023, but in October of 1894 with the arrest of French military officer Alfred Dreyfus, who also happened to be a Jew. The implications of his framing…

  • Introducing: Covering Their Tracks

    January 30, 2024 · 6 min

    Covering Their Tracks is the extraordinary story of a young man’s escape from a moving train bound for the Auschwitz concentration camp during the Holocaust, and his fight to hold the French national rail company, the SNCF, accountable for…

  • Harvard and the End of the Jewish Ivy League

    October 25, 2022 · 46 min

    In the 1990s, Harvard’s student body was said to be nearly a quarter Jewish. According to the Harvard Crimson’s 2020 survey of the freshman class, 6.7 percent of respondents identified as Jewish. On the final episode of this series, we…

  • Penn and the Great Sorority Coup of 1987

    October 18, 2022 · 56 min

    By the late 1980s, most Ivy League schools were a fifth or a quarter Jewish—and the University of Pennsylvania was more Jewish than most. For starters, unlike several other Ivies, Penn was never a Christian divinity school. It’s located in…

  • Cornell and its Off-Campus, Off-Kilter Jewish Commune

    October 11, 2022 · 43 min

    In the fall of 1970, a group of Jewish Cornell students did something radical. Energized by a Freedom Seder on campus led by Arthur Waskow and the countercultural movement sweeping a country, they created a Jewish communal house. The…

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  • Brown University and Mrs. Smith’s Kosher Kitchen

    October 4, 2022 · 41 min

    While today most American universities offer all sorts of dining accommodations, the on-campus dining scene in the 1950s was far less welcoming for students with specific dietary needs. For students who observed the Jewish dietary laws…

  • Yale and the Slow Death of Quotas

    September 23, 2022 · 45 min

    It’s accepted as gospel—or at least reliable urban legend—that at nearly every Ivy League school in the mid-20th century, there were limits on the number of Jews admitted each year. The Jewish population, it was said, was capped at 10…

  • Dartmouth and the Jews who Loved it

    September 20, 2022 · 45 min

    On the surface, all-male Dartmouth in the 1940s and 1950s seems like it would be deeply unappealing to Jews: rural New Hampshire campus, no Jewish girls within miles, a history of antisemitic fraternities. But Jewish alumni from that era…

  • Princeton and the ‘Dirty Bicker’ of 1958

    September 13, 2022 · 49 min

    Back in the 1950s, the Princeton eating clubs were essential. The dining hall was only meant for freshmen and sophomores. The club you joined as a sophomore became not just a place to eat but the center of your Princeton social life, a…

  • Columbia and Its Forgotten Jewish Campus

    September 13, 2022 · 52 min

    Isaac Asimov was one of the most prolific authors in history. He was best known as a pathbreaking sci-fi writer, but his more than 500 books also included volumes on the Greeks, the Romans, Shakespeare, the Bible, and much more. He was one…

  • Introducing: Gatecrashers

    September 4, 2022 · 3 min

    What topic is more controversial, sensational, and endlessly captivating than college admissions? It’s a billion-dollar industry. It sends celebrities to jail. The Supreme Court is weighing in on who gets in and why. We might think we have…

Full episode archive on Apple Podcasts →

About the show

From the team behind Unorthodox—the #1 Jewish podcast—comes a new eight-part series detailing the hidden history of Jews and the Ivy League. Gatecrashers tells the story of how Jews fought for acceptance at elite schools, and how the Jewish experience in the Ivy League shaped American higher education, and shaped America at large. Hosted by Mark Oppenheimer, each episode focuses on one Ivy League school: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, Columbia, Brown, Cornell, and the University of Pennsylvania.