On a red tour bus in London, seven-year-old Rudy Rochman watched in shock as the driver screamed at his mother, who happened to wear a shirt with Hebrew writing on it, to “Get off my bus. I don’t want any Jews.” The driver grabbed her and threw her off. “Everything inside of me was burning to do something,” Rochman recalled. “But I was just a kid. I promised myself that never again would I be unprepared.”
That moment crystallized the trajectory of Rochman’s life, one that would take him from the Israel
Defense Forces to Columbia University, from the heart of Gaza to campuses across America, always with one mission: “To be ready, physically, emotionally, ideologically, to bring light where I see darkness.”
Born in France, Rochman’s roots span Morocco, Algeria, Poland, and Belgium, all countries his Jewish grandparents were forced to flee. “We usually identify as Russian Jews, Moroccan Jews, Yemenite Jews… but those were never really our homes,” he said. “In all those places, we were eventually told, ‘You don’t belong here.’”
This sense of dislocation followed Rochman from France to Israel, then Miami, where he grew up in a community that, as he puts it, “was proudly from somewhere else,” sparking a lifelong identity question: “Where are we from, really? Who are we?”
“We’re not a wandering ideology,” he concluded, “We’re a people, the nation of Israel. Judaism isn’t just a religion. It’s the suitcase we packed with our culture, traditions, and aspirations when we were forced into exile.”
Rochman, a former member of the IDF's elite paratroopers unit, has emerged as one of the Jewish community's most vocal young activists. Even before October 7, he confronted anti-Israel demonstrations directly at universities in the U.S.
According to him, what he witnessed was not genuine "pro-Palestinian” activism, but rather anti-Israel sentiment masquerading as social justice advocacy. “These groups build coalitions with Black, LGBTQ+, indigenous, and women’s rights groups, claiming Israel oppresses Palestinians the same way others are oppressed. It’s absurd," he says, "but effective.”
This realization led Rochman to transfer to Columbia, recognized as the most anti-Semitic campus in the U.S. in 2015. There, he established a student movement that ultimately expanded to 50 campuses. “People kept saying, ‘Don’t go there, it’s too anti-Israel.’ So I said, then who will?”
Rochman’s group steered clear of political divides, focusing instead on what he calls a simple mission: “Empower, narrate, protect. Let Jews tell our own story.” While mainstream institutions were busy with hummus nights and Startup Nation events, he was out speaking to protesters, arguing that such feel-good programs “didn’t change anything.”
He’s equally unsparing when it comes to Jewish education. In his view, it’s unacceptable that students can spend 12 years in Jewish day school and still not speak Hebrew. He also points out that the system teaches kids to “hide their Magen David and stay quiet for good grades” instead of speaking up with confidence.
His activism extends beyond campuses. On October 7, Rochman was called up and initially deployed to the Gaza border town of Faraza, before being sent to Khan Younis in Gaza and then to Lebanon. The experiences he had there further strengthened his sense of purpose.
Still, Rochman made room for empathy. “I was trained to be a soldier, not a witness to a massacre,” he said, "We found Qurans on the ground in destroyed houses. I thought of my Muslim friends and started collecting them to give back. If the roles were reversed, I’d want them to pick up a tallit.”
That principle, standing firm without abandoning compassion, defines Rochman’s philosophy. “Be like King David,” he said. “Ruthless to enemies, but full of empathy to civilians.” It also shapes his critical view of Israel’s current path, particularly its reliance on the United States.
Rochman envisions a self-sufficient Israel built on long-term strategy rather than short-term political tactics. For him, the problem goes deeper than corrupt leaders; it lies in the very foundations of the Western-style governance Israel has adopted - a system he sees as fractured, shortsighted, and fundamentally misaligned with the country’s deeper needs.
“The aid they give isn’t charity,” he said. “It’s store credit to buy their weapons, and it comes with strings. We can’t buy or sell weapons without their approval. We even lost our own Israeli boot company because Obama increased U.S. aid. That’s not help - that’s control.”
In addition to his extensive efforts in shaping public opinion and serving on the military frontline, Rochman is far from slowing down, as he just reached the finish line of yet another new project: a documentary series named "We Were Never Lost", a series which explores the scattered descendants of Israel’s lost tribes across Africa and Asia.
“Every synagogue depicts 12 tribes on its walls, yet today we only identify as two and a half tribes. Where are the others?" he inquired. “We haven’t reunited them yet. But they are out there, and they are waiting.” For Rochman, the goal of restoring Jewish unity transcends mere history. “The Torah teaches that in the era of Mashiach, the tribes will come back. This isn’t just a prophecy. It’s a plan. We’re the continuation of the people of Israel,” he said. “And we need to start acting like it.”