Cornell Student Rejects Jewish Employer With Antisemitic Message

A 19-year-old Cornell University student, Austin Franco, triggered outrage in the United States after he replied to a startup’s interview invitation with an openly antisemitic message. When the New York company VryfID asked to schedule a Zoom interview for a summer internship, Franco answered through the job platform Handshake: “I am not interested in working for a Jew. Thanks.”

The company was founded by brothers Gabe and Aiden Einhorn, who are Jewish. Gabe, 24, first posted a screenshot of the message on X under the caption “Sad world,” but initially blurred Franco’s name because he thought it might have been a mistake or not an accurate reflection of his views. “I did not feel comfortable exposing him,” he said. “I thought maybe he made a mistake and maybe he does not really believe that.”

The next day, Franco doubled down in a post on X, writing that his experiences with Jews had been “unpleasant,” both in person and online. He said he had also had positive experiences, but claimed they were “not the majority.” Cornell said it had opened an inquiry and a spokeswoman said the university “condemns antisemitism and every form of hatred and discrimination in the strongest terms.”

VryfID, founded in summer 2025, operates in the rental market and connects tenants with landlords through identity verification designed to reduce fraud. According to Gabe Einhorn, tenants pay $20 for the verification and then receive apartment matches based on their details. He also said he frequently encounters antisemitic content and threats online, including five death threats on Facebook, and that anonymity helps people spread hate without consequences. The brothers said the message left them stunned and described it as the most direct antisemitism they had experienced.