From the Academic Fortress to the Communal Mosque: Identity Formation and Quiet Resistance through Islamic Student Activism at the Hebrew University (1990–2009)

Abstract This paper investigates the evolution of Islamic student activism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem between 1990 and 2009. Reframing the Israeli campus as a fortress rather than a neutral academic space, the study reveals how pious Muslim student groups developed a unique survival strategy of quiet resistance. I argue that students navigated exclusion at the Hebrew University by creating a third space in which they could bypass the university’s national hierarchical agenda and construct their identity. The study also highlights how changing expectations of pious Muslim masculinity, shifting from individual moral restraint to collective spatial guardianship, alongside women’s strategic adoption of the hijab, functioned as crucial tools for reclaiming presence and autonomy within the university without direct political confrontation with university authorities or other students. Drawing on in-depth interviews and analysis of the press, the research concludes that Islamic activism transformed the campus from an arena of dispossession into one of spiritual and national resilience.