The Harvard University Chapter of Hasidic Group Chabad has recruited a UFC fighter to teach Jewish students on campus how to protect themselves from violent antisemitic attacks on campus.

The event was a self-defense class helmed by Israeli mixed martial arts fighter Natan Levy in which students learned how to scrap with defense techniques like rear push kicks, jab cross punch combinations, and wrist locks, according to The Harvard Crimson.

President of Harvard Chabad, Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi, said that the workshop came at a vital moment as the Ivy League institution and other colleges around the country are dealing with a wave of anti-Semitic incidents.

“[This comes] at a time when there’s sadly such an increase in hate directed towards the Jew and Israel,” Mr. Zarchi said. “There’s a perception that Jews are physically weak. We need strong Jews.”

The classes were sponsored by StandStrong, a non-profit organization that provides self-defense training to those in need. Last week’s class at Harvard Chabad is the first of many to be offered across the Boston area.

“We have schools reach out to us. We have youth groups. We’ll have synagogues, churches, mosques say, ‘Hey, can we do this,'” StandStrong CEO Matt J. Travers said. “You can get control of a situation using skill and de-escalation, showing I’m not a victim, but I don’t want to fight.”

Mr. Levy, who lead Wednesday’s class, earned the nickname “lethal” for his prowess while fighting in the octagon cage and was in the news last year when he accepted a challenge from a Holocaust-denier trolling him online saying that he would fight him for comments that Mr. Levy had made about Nick Fuentes, a self-described incel who boasted online that “Jews run the world” and that the Holocaust never happened.

The prizefighter accepted the troll’s challenge and humbled the agitator on a video posted to YouTube.

“Six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust,’ the online troll, only named Ben, said to the camera after receiving a beatdown at the hands of Mr. Levy.

Harvard Chabad hosted the class after many Jewish students reported feeling unsafe on campus since Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel. The university has seen multiple antisemitic attacks, including last week when a freshman student said she was a victim of a hate crime after a mezuzah was stolen from the doorway of her dorm room.

The potential of physical harm against Jewish students continues to escalate around the country as well. On Sunday, a University of Michigan student was beaten by an angry mob of six men after he had identified himself as a Jew when the group tailed behind him while walking on campus. The group fled after the melee.

“The Ann Arbor Police Department is actively investigating a bias-motivated assault that occurred on 9/15/24 at approximately 12:45am,” the department wrote in a press release. “The 19-year-old male victim reported he was walking when a group of unknown males behind him asked if he was Jewish. When the victim replied yes, the group of males proceeded to assault him.”