By Hilary C. Ritz
Jay Zeidman served in the White House as an aide to George W. Bush before obtaining his MBA at the Jones Graduate School of Business in 2011 and co-founding a health care investment firm in 2012.
In summer 2023, Gov. Greg Abbott appointed Zeidman to serve on the Texas Holocaust, Genocide and Antisemitism Advisory Commission, which conducts studies on antisemitism in the state and provides assistance to schools as well as information and education to both public and private organizations. Just a few months later, when Hamas struck Israel on Oct. 7, Zeidman launched his Israel Update newsletter. He also supports and serves as a mentor to Jewish students on campus at Rice, while serving on three government and nonprofit boards. We met up with this intensely active and passionate leader for some personal insights.
Tell us a little bit about your past and present connection to Rice.
I grew up a block from Rice, so I was always connected to the university. When I moved back to Houston in 2009 after serving in the White House under the administration of George W. Bush, I came back to get my MBA at the Jones Graduate School of Business, so I was a full-time student at Rice from 2009 to 2011. I have nothing but positive reflections; I had an amazing class, many of whom are still some of my best friends to this day. And it was really just a great connection and kind of a full-circle moment for me to come back to the university I grew up next to and [where I] learned how to ride my bike.
Matthias Henze, the director of Rice’s program in Jewish studies, wrote in an email that “October 7 really changed everything.” What are your reflections on that?
I think [Oct. 7] woke up the rest of the world on issues of antisemitism that were always prevalent both here in America and abroad. And I think, for once, Jews and people who support Israel — because we have a lot of evangelical support — realized that we’re not alone, we have a lot of friends, and there’s also a lot of our enemies out there.
It also woke [me] up [to] just how rampant the misinformation or disinformation is online, and how the youth are really taking these tidbits of information and are not fact-checking [them] and are using [them] to launch attacks against Israel and against Jews.
My wife is from Israel. We spend meaningful time there. I was married there. I’ve always been involved in pro-Israel politics and philanthropy, and I felt like, for the first time, I had a lot more allies. But I also really realized how big the fight was that we were facing.
What value do you see in Rice having a program in Jewish studies and what should such a program provide its students?
I think Jewish studies programs are absolutely important for any university. It’s important to educate future generations about what Judaism actually means and its relationship both with the Old and New Testament from a religious perspective, as well as its historical significance in the greater world.
I grew up going to a lot of non-Jewish schools. I went to undergrad at Texas Christian University where I was proudly the first Jewish kid to be the student body president there. I took New Testament; I took all these classes to open up my eyes and really build my own wealth of knowledge and understanding, so that I have this real sense of tolerance and understanding of other sides. That’s important as you’re formulating your own value or belief system. So, I think it plays an absolutely critical role not just for Jews but for non-Jewish students as well.
The events of Oct. 7 led to your creating the Israel Update newsletter. What has been your experience with producing that?
After Oct. 7, a lot of people started asking me, what was I reading? What was I hearing? What was I thinking? So I put some information together on sources that I’d always read but that didn’t get widely circulated, and that just grew and grew to the point where it actually shut off my email and I had to switch to a Substack account. Now I proudly have over 25,000 people who are reading it. I’m hopeful it’s providing an accurate display of very dense information and numbers and the reality of what’s happening both on the ground in Israel and here in America.
We’ve seen a 3,000% spike in antisemitic events here in this country. So for me, starting this newsletter was a way to spread information and awareness and try to engage as many friends and allies as I can.
Tell us more about your work on the Holocaust, Genocide and Antisemitism Advisory Commission.
We’re very lucky to live in a state that has support from the governor’s office to provide Holocaust and antisemitism education. The commission that I sit on was created to initially provide that K–12 education. After Oct. 7, our mission really went into overdrive.
We helped draft the executive order that Gov. Abbott put in place that really forced public universities that receive state money to enforce their student code of conduct [and to] teach people that actions have consequences, and diplomas were withheld, funding was withheld from those who were allowing these encampments and protests that were defined as hate speech to occur. And it gave precedent for private universities, like Rice, to use this as grounding to prevent antisemitism events from happening on their campus.
So, that commission — and the state of Texas — has been a leader around the country.
How do you see the importance of community and giving back in the work you’re doing?
I’m one person in Houston, Texas, that’s trying to do his part, and I’m unapologetic about my beliefs, and I’m very comfortable putting myself out there for things that I am passionate about and care about. And I was raised as a Jew to say, “If not me, then who?,” in the famous words of [Hillel the Elder].
I’ve got a wife and kids, [and] I try to set an example for [my kids] the way my father set an example for me. He was chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., and was active as well in pro-Israel politics. It’s how I was raised, and I hope my kids will follow. If that happens, then I’ll feel proud that I’ve done my part.
It really has been an honor to be involved, but more importantly to have the support of those around me. I feel very blessed to have a community here in Houston that supports a lot of the efforts that we’re doing.