Brandeis University is an institution of higher learning in Waltham, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. It's best-known for, traditionally, a student body that's roughly 50% Jewish.
College Bowl
Brandeis is a traditional rival of the Williams team at College Bowl. Though it has also included excellent players like Ted Stratton and Mehrun Eterbi, in recent years, its team has been largely associated with Dan Passner, who has developed into one of the better players in the Northeast. Due to the immense humiliation of losing to a Passner-led team, Williams makes every effort not to drop any games to Brandeis.
In the 2004 Penn Bowl, Williams was playing Brandeis in the last match. Losing by 10 points going into the second-to-last question, Daniel Klein '06 answered "the twin-slit experiment" to one question to which the accepted answer was "the double-slit experiment" and was ruled incorrect. Brandeis got the next tossup, on Himmler, and got 0 points on a hard bonus on the Pelopennesian wars, for a 20 point lead. Protesting the ruling on the previous question, Williams got to hear the next bonus, a simple one about Philadelphians Will Smit and Wilt Chamberlain, getting 20 points. On protest, the ruling was overturned, and Williams won by 10 points, an outcome that would certainly not have occurred if the correct ruling was originally made
At that year's NAQT regionals, though, a two-man Brandeis team beat Williams twice, gaining revenge. Since then, when full Brandeis and Williams A-teams have played, Williams is 4-1, the last two wins having been recorded at Boston University's January '06 mirror of the University of Michigan's MLK tournament. The same Brandeis A-team also lost a playoff match to Williams' B-team in that tournament.