The anti-Semitic student: “Not interested in working for a Jew”

The news in brief:

• Austin Franco, a 19-year-old student from Cornell University, responded in an anti-Semitic manner after being called for an interview.
• The callers, two Jewish brothers who opened a startup: “We have never experienced anti-Semitism like this.”
• Franco wrote an anti-Semitic post: “I also had positive experiences with Jews, but they are not the majority.”
• At Cornell University they were amazed, and announced that they had started an investigation into the incident.
  

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An uproar in the United States after a Cornell University student turned down an opportunity to interview for an internship at a Jewish-owned New York startup company, sending a direct anti-Semitic message to the company’s founders.

The student, 19-year-old Austin Franco, applied for a summer internship at the company FreeIDbut when he was approached to coordinate a Zoom call as part of the screening process, he replied with a short message: “I am not interested in working for a Jew. Thank you.” The message was sent through the job search site Handshake to brothers Gabe and Aidan Einhorn, the company’s founders, after Franco’s candidacy was considered for the position, the New York Post reported.

Gabe Einhorn, the company’s 24-year-old CEO, posted online X Screenshot of the message and wrote: “A sad world.” According to him, he decided to publish the case to raise awareness of the increase in anti-Semitic phenomena. At first he even obscured the name of the student, because he believed that it might be a mistake or a statement that does not reflect his true positions.

“I didn’t feel comfortable exposing him,” Einhorn said. “I thought maybe he made a mistake and maybe he doesn’t really believe it.” But the next day it became clear that Franco does not go back on his words. in a post he published online X He repeated his position and wrote that his experiences with Jews “were unpleasant”, both in personal meetings and on the Internet. According to him, “he also had positive experiences”, but according to him “they were not the majority”.

The incident provoked many reactions on social networks, and Cornell University announced that an investigation had been opened. The spokeswoman of the university said that the institution “condemns anti-Semitism and any form of hatred and discrimination in the strictest manner”.

According to his since-deleted LinkedIn profile, Franco studied labor and employment relations at Cornell University. The message was sent about a month after the end of the school semester.

company FreeID Founded in the summer of 2025 by the Einhorn brothers. Gabe, 24, founded the company with his younger brother Aidan, 22, a business student at New York University.

The company operates in the rental market and connects tenants with landlords through an identity verification process designed to reduce fraud. According to Gabe Einhorn, renters can sign up for the service, pay $20 for verification, and then receive offers for apartments that match their data. For the apartment owners, the service is designed to help locate suitable tenants and occupy the properties.

Besides his business activities, Einhorn often talks on social media about the Jewish religion. According to him, he often encountered anti-Semitic content and threatening messages online. “I saw horrible things of all kinds, including anti-Semitic content,” he said. “Last time I checked, I had five death threats on Facebook.”

According to him, the anonymity on social networks allows people to spread hatred without bearing the consequences. The Einhorn brothers said that the message they received left them stunned. “My brother and I just looked at each other and asked: ‘What?'” Gabe said. “We have never experienced anti-Semitism in such a direct way. Everything was simply very shocking and for no reason,” he added.