When Tom Saporta (Radford, 2028) arrived at Radford University, he was not the typical first-year student. He was 21 years old, an international student from Netanya, Israel, and he had already completed nearly three years of service in the Israel Defense Forces, followed by reserve duty after October 7. He came to Virginia to pursue a dream he had held since he was 12 years old: playing college tennis in the United States.

“I’m from Israel,” Tom said. “Born, raised, everything in Israel.” He grew up in Netanya, a beach city north of Tel Aviv, and tennis had been part of his life for as long as he could remember. Radford gave him the opportunity to compete at the Division I level. But when he got to campus in January 2024, just months after the attacks of October 7, he quickly realized that he was navigating more than a new country, school, and team.

He was also navigating what it meant to be visibly Jewish and Israeli on a campus where Jewish life was nearly nonexistent.

“I didn’t know any Jewish people,” Tom said. “Everyone was so interested by an Israeli guy to come, especially after October 7th and everything. So, it was a very interesting area and time of my life too. I didn’t know how to act on campus, I didn’t know how to act with people, but I tried to be myself and speak and show an example of the good side of Israel.”

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, a student named Adam Futerman (Radford, 2026) reached out.

“He texted me and said, ‘Hey, I heard there’s an Israeli on campus. I know a couple of Jewish guys,’” Tom recalled. “He said they wanted to open a Jewish fraternity. And they asked me if I could join them and hear about it. And that’s how we started AEPi in Radford.”

For Tom, AEPi was not simply another campus organization. It was the first place at Radford where he felt he did not have to be alone in his Jewish identity.

“There was no Jewish life, like nothing about Jewish on campus at all,” he said. “And when I met those guys, it was like, oh, there’s people I can celebrate Passover with, do the small holidays with, go to Chabad on Friday evening. It’s like, I wasn’t by myself in this Jewish life.”

That is the role Alpha Epsilon Pi plays on campuses like Radford. In places where Jewish students may be few in number, where there is no large Hillel building on campus, no daily minyan and no obvious Jewish community waiting for incoming students, AEPi can become the place where Jewish men find each other. It can become the Shabbat table, the holiday gathering, the support network, and the leadership laboratory.

At Radford, the nearest Chabad and Hillel are at Virginia Tech, about 30 minutes away. Those organizations have supported the brothers with holiday supplies, seder materials, and encouragement. But, as Tom explained, it was not always easy to get students to drive off campus. So, the brothers decided to build Jewish life where they were.

“We said, you know what? Let’s just get a house here in Radford and start doing everything here,” Tom said. “And it went well.”

Soon, AEPi became the center of Jewish life at Radford. The brothers began finding Jewish students in sororities, other fraternities, clubs and corners of campus where people had not always felt comfortable identifying themselves.

“People were afraid to say they’re Jewish,” Tom said. “It was like, ‘Oh, there’s a Jewish fraternity here? Oh, I’m Jewish, by the way. That’s so cool.”

From there, the community grew beyond the chapter roster. The brothers hosted Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Purim and Passover gatherings. Even a small chapter could bring together 20 or more Jewish students and friends for a night of tradition, belonging and pride.

For Tom and the other brothers, that mission became even more important as their numbers shrank. At one point, the chapter had 10 brothers. Then some graduated, some left school and others moved on. This year, only four remained.

Another fraternity might look at four members and see a reason to stop. AEPi sees something different: a mission that still matters.

“We all said we all have to be 100% in,” Tom said. The brothers sat down together and confronted the challenge directly. “We can always come and say, ‘Hey, let’s just close it. Let’s just go home. It’s hard.’ But then we all said, ‘You know, this brotherhood is something special.”

Tom described what AEPi had become in words that capture the Fraternity’s purpose at its best.

“We’re four best friends. We’re brothers,” he said. “We keep our traditions alive here in Radford. We make a place for us, special for us, that there’s nowhere else.”

That “place” has also become a place of courage. Tom has faced moments on campus that tested both his Jewish identity and his Israeli identity. During an international day for Radford’s tennis team, he expected to see the Israeli flag displayed alongside the flags of other international student-athletes. Instead, he was told the school did not want to put it up.

“I was like, are you serious now?” Tom said. “I’m a tennis player, and you don’t want to put my flag where all the other flags are?”

Tom refused to ignore it. He spoke up and led. Eventually, the flag was brought to the court. He played angry, he said, and won. Later, he met with the person responsible for the decision and pushed for accountability.

When he raised the issue with his AEPi brothers, they showed up.

“The first act that the brothers decided to do…was to get all the brothers to come to my next match to support me.” AEPi showed up with an Israeli flag in hand and waved it proudly throughout the match.  “That was a moment. It made me really happy,” Tom said.

That is brotherhood in action: not abstract, not ceremonial, but present when it matters.

Tom has also grown as a leader through AEPi. At Radford, he excelled on the tennis court, earning freshman-year recognition and later becoming captain of the tennis team. When Radford closed its tennis program and Tom underwent shoulder surgery, AEPi gave him another arena in which to lead.

“I was happy I had AEPi in my life, and I had something else to focus on, apart from tennis,” he said.

He became chapter master. Another Israeli brother, Sean Milshteen (Radford, 2026), became lieutenant master. Together, the brothers increased their social media presence, worked with IFC, planned events, recruited, and built relationships across campus. They also achieved the highest fraternity GPA on campus, finishing with a 3.81 cumulative GPA.

For Tom, leadership is not just a résumé line. It is part of how he sees his future. A finance and accounting major, he hopes to build a career in business and perhaps become a CEO one day.

“I like to set a good example and be a good leader,” he said. “And I like numbers.”

This is the true story of Alpha Epsilon Pi. The fraternity exists at Radford and on campuses like it to give Jewish men a home when they might otherwise feel alone. It gives them brothers who will celebrate holidays with them, stand beside them when their identity is challenged, and push them to lead. It reminds them that Jewish pride is not only something to defend, but something to build.

At Radford, AEPi may be small in number. But as Tom and his brothers have shown, four Jewish men with purpose can keep traditions alive, create community and make an entire campus feel a little more like home.

(If you know of Jewish men attending college in the fall – even at a school that doesn’t have an AEPi chapter, let us know by going to aepi.org/rushrec. And, if you know of anyone from your community attending Radford next year, please tell them that there is a home waiting for them on campus).