Israeli universities resumed the opening of their academic school year this week, which was delayed several times following the brutal Hamas onslaught against Israel on October 7.

Of the 332,000 students who began classes this week across Israel, approximately 55,000 are currently reservists serving in the IDF. In addition, 3,000 academic and administrative staff are also serving. 

“I feel grateful that I can start my studies again,” said an MA student at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Maya Moshkovitz. The school is 25 miles from the Gaza Strip.

“On the other hand, there are students that were meant to start the semester just like me but they are being held under impossible conditions in Gaza,” she tells the New York Sun. “I also have friends and relatives who are also enrolled this semester but are serving in the army now. Studying feels almost like a luxury at this time.”

Indeed, the opening day of the first semester at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, like other universities in Israel, was significantly more somber than usual last weekend.

Posters of students and graduates abducted by Hamas were placed across the university campus in Beer Sheva. A remembrance ceremony organized by the university and the Student Union also took place to honor those brutally killed in the Hamas massacre, including 54 students and professors from the wider university community.

Among the murdered faculty and students was Sahar Baruch, 25, an engineering student who was set to begin his studies this week. Baruch was abducted by Hamas from Kibbutz Beeri on October 7 and murdered at Gaza.  

An empty seat was set up during the BGU ceremony to signify missing student Noa Argamani, 25, a third-year data science engineering student at BGU, who is still being held captive in Gaza. She and her boyfriend, Avinatan Or, a BGU graduate of electrical engineering, were both kidnapped at the Nova music festival in Kibbutz Reim when it was overrun by Hamas terrorists. Ms. Argamani, whose capture was recorded in a Hamas video, showed her being forcibly driven away from Israel on a motorbike pleading with her Palestinian captors not to kill her. 

A third BGU graduate, Sasha Troufanov, who is an Amazon engineer, is also being held hostage in Gaza after he was kidnapped by Hamas terrorists from his parents’ home at Kibbutz Nir Oz.

“I never could have imagined that our university would be facing such a challenging and difficult reality,” said BGU’s president, Daniel Chamovitz, in an interview with the New York Sun. “We have students and graduates who are held captive in Gaza, while thousands of students and faculty members are doing reserve duty,” he commented. “Even on the first day back, one professor came to teach dressed in his IDF uniform and M16 rifle. By the end of the day he was back at the front lines.” 

“In some way, you wish that you could be like any other university, dealing with class schedules, research excellence, student enrollment and so on. We’ve had to adapt quickly to a completely different reality,” Mr. Chamovitz said.   

Ben Gurion University, a multidisciplinary research university, established a student emergency assistance fund for students in need and is providing financial grants for students called up to reserve duty. In general, universities across Israel have established aid packages to help reserve soldiers return to university studies. There will also be a week of condensed studies so that IDF reservists can make up missed material and join the rest of their peers.

Mr. Chamovitz, who is originally from Pennsylvania and has been living in Israel for the past 40 years, believes that through higher education, Israel will be able to recover from the Hamas massacre and rocket war.

“We have hundreds of students, for example, studying to be mental health professionals who will go on to provide mental services to citizens and help them return to normal life. Others studying urban planning will go on to help plan and rebuild the Gaza envelope,’’ he said. 

“Our students are resilient. You can see that on their faces during their first day back. They will do what it takes to build the Negev in all areas of life.”