Hatred and Fear

Before October 7, says Eli Shmidman, a student at Columbia Law School, “we went about our days ordinarily. As if there weren’t people in our classes who hate us simply for being Jews.”

In the past weeks at his university, over 20 student organizations have condoned and justified Hamas in a public letter, and over 100 professors signed a letter defending those students and calling Hamas’s actions a legitimate “military response.” One undergraduate student leader disinvited Zionists from a club event, then went on an anti-Semitic rampage on social media; others denied that the Nova festival massacre took place, even calling it a hoax.

“Many students are anxious, nervous, and afraid when they come to school,” says Eli, who recently had a stranger yell a profane curse against Jews at him.

Aaron Souferi, a student at NYU, chose his school because of its large Jewish population. Since October 7, he’s seen professors open lectures by saying “Free Palestine,” and protestors holding signs saying “Gas the Jews” and, “Zionism is ISIS.” A friend of his was putting on tefillin in the park when someone came up and poured coffee all over him.

Miriam Escott, a graduate student at Rutgers University, was walking toward a class building when a group of male students yelled a vulgarity about Israel.

“I don’t know if they knew I was Jewish,” she says. “It was Tuesday [following Simchas Torah], right after everything had happened… I walked into class feeling very shaken.”

While not every student has been the direct target of an attack, overarching anti-Semitism is everywhere. Haters are emboldened, misinformation is rampant, and day-to-day life on campus feels ominous.

At George Washington University, pro-Palestinian students held a protest the week after Hamas’s attack. “I ended up coming to class, but I know a lot of other frum students did not,” says Bentzy Schaffran, a first-year law student. He had to drive past the protest, and says, “I definitely did not feel safe.” On October 24, pro-Hamas messages, including “Glory to Our Martyrs,” were projected onto one of the college’s buildings for two hours until the police shut them down.

Rachel* (name has been changed), a student at Barnard College, says she never really suffered from anti-Semitism until now. On October 25, the day students at over 100 college campuses walked out of class to hold pro-Palestine rallies, her professor ended class early.

“I was in the classroom, and she’s like, ‘Okay, one o’clock now,’ and I was like, ‘Oh, awesome, we have a break.’

“And then she says, ‘So, as you guys know, there’s a protest, and I just want to say that whoever wants to go, I’m not going to penalize you. We’re going to end class now.’

“I was shocked, literally blown out of my mind. I just sat there with my mouth agape — I think she realized that I was so taken aback.”

Two other girls stayed behind to ask questions. “You guys don’t want to go?” the professor asked them. Then she turned to Rachel, who was shaking: “If you want, you can leave.”

It’s a scary time to be a student on campus, says Kinneret Witty, a student at Toronto Metropolitan University. “A large number of people have started to raise money for aid in Gaza, or protested with lots of signs, or wear keffiyehs around campus. Sometimes they’re not directly in your face, but there are things that you see, out of the corner of your eye, or you hear that they’re going on in some other place on campus, even if you don’t see it happening.”

Violet*, a student at NYU, saw two girls in her class chat referring to Jews as racists, calling Israelis terrorists, and comparing the conflict to the Holocaust — in the wrong direction. “I tried explaining how Israel was providing aid to people in Gaza. A girl started attacking me, and I didn’t respond.”

Though in other circumstances students might have reported harassment to school officials, Violet stayed quiet. “I didn’t talk to any authorities.”

Later, Violet bumped into one of the girls who’d attacked her. They didn’t say hello. The other girl had started posting a lot of anti-Semitic content, so Violet unfollowed her online. Violet’s own roommate is virulently anti-Israel.

Naivete Shattered

Colleges are educational institutions — places that claim to strive for truth and idealism. This makes it all the more shocking when students discover that their roommates, classmates, and professors desire the extermination of their entire nation.

“Many students end up asking themselves, ‘What does my neighbor think, what does my roommate think, what does my classmate think? What does my professor think?’ ” says Dr. Ethan Katz, professor of Jewish and late modern European history at UC-Berkeley and codirector of the college’s Antisemitism Education Initiative.

“I think that the single hardest thing for Jewish students right now is the number of people who are defending the Hamas attack of October 7 as an act of resistance. And the immediacy of that response, preceding any Israeli military response, was, I think, stunning for many people, myself included. I think that that has created tremendous fear, hurt, anxiety, and real bewilderment.”

“I was naive,” says Elazar Cramer, a Princeton student. “I figured nobody can justify the massacre, this isn’t possible. But you have people on this campus, 300, 400 people chanting, ‘Intifada,’ and they claim, ‘That just means revolution.’ I’ve seen people from my classes participating in this sort of thing. I really believe there are a lot more anti-Semites on this campus than I thought previously.”

Leah Powell, another Princeton student, approached some students at the pro-Palestine rally and asked them why they were there. Though they initially refused to share their names, they were happy to explain: “I stand against oppression, I stand against genocide,” said one.

“How can someone support Palestinians in a way that isn’t calling for violence?” Leah asked one of them. “I have family in Israel… I’m curious if there are other forms of advocacy that you’d recommend, because I can’t chant for intifada.”

“I don’t know what it is,” the protestor responded. “What’s intifada?”

At NYU, Aaron took this a step further. “I’m Sephardic, so I can look Muslim if I wanted to. I say, ‘Hey, I’m from the Muslim Society at NYU, can you tell me why you’re here?’ And most of them are like, ‘Oh, I have no clue.’ ”

He asked one protestor if he condemned Hamas; the answer was no. Another protestor said he’d never heard of the Oslo Accords or the Abraham Accords.

Blatant ignorance might be better than flat-out bloodlust — but it’s unacceptable.

“I thought that people were just misinformed,” says Elazar. “But I think that at this stage, if you’re participating in that kind of thing, either you’re too ignorant to do your own research, which basically makes you complicit, or you’re mamesh an anti-Semite.”

The ignorant and vicious reactions of their friends and acquaintances leave many students feeling deeply betrayed.

“It’s almost like people are staring at horns on my head,” says Ryan Weissman, a student at NYU. “We have grown up exploring and studying the dynamic in Israel and Gaza… others had the freedom to live independent from this. They do not understand it like we do.”

After Princeton’s protest (where students were caught on video chanting “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be Arab”), one student told Eve Hepner, another Jewish student, that she’d seen people she knew standing in the crowd. “I saw people on the other side. I recognized them, and they looked at me.” People she knew and had been friendly with were looking this girl in the eye and calling for her death, and it was shocking.

“I think it’s just difficult for me to fathom,” says Eve. “I want to give people the benefit of the doubt.”

But students’ relationships with non-Jews have unavoidably been affected.

Sometimes this has played out in in positive ways. On Kinneret’s campus, a Catholic student showed up to a vigil for Israel, despite his Muslim friends pressuring him not to. He had come to Jewish events before, and knew his support would be meaningful.

“He was listening to his internal moral compass,” says Kinneret.

Eve’s non-Jewish friend also came to an Israel vigil to support her. But she still feels the silence and lack of understanding is deafening. She’s troubled by the ignorance her classmates’ display.

“Why would you be afraid?” one of them asked her.

Before her classmates walked out to the protest, Rachel was friendly with one of them. Now she feels betrayed. “We texted about work and stuff like that. And I have no interest in ever texting her again.”

“When I see people who are happy [about the massacre], and are releasing letters, they’re chanting and they’re cheering for a terrorist attack where so many Jews died, it hits very close to home,” says Bentzy.

“The most crushing blow for me personally,” says Ryan, “has not been the inescapability of the news, nor the scale of the anti-Semitism. It has been the people we’ve personally fought to defend wishing for our death.”

He and his family have fought “tooth and nail” for the freedom of expression of multiple progressive causes — going to protests and defending individuals from bullying. “We all posted. We reached out to those struggling. So few of them have done the same for us. How can you ever hate when you’ve been hated? I’m not sure I’ll ever understand it.”

Sarah,* a student at Brooklyn College (where protestors invaded a vigil for Israel), feels this is a wake-up call for American Jews. “Every successive generation comes to a new land and thinks things are going to be good here for them. And for a time they generally are, until they aren’t. And then they have this reminder, and then they start over. And that’s the story of the Jewish People.”

Heavy Impact

The tangible hatred students are experiencing takes a heavy toll.

“I used to walk out with my chai when I’m on campus,” Aaron says. “Now I’m a little bit afraid. Because I could get attacked for no reason. Even though most people don’t like Jews, now it’s worse.”

He’s been afraid to ask for extensions for religious holidays because he doesn’t want to let professors know he’s Jewish.

“I definitely have been wary coming to class,” says Miriam. She’d rather work overtime than come to campus these days.

Elazar has been rethinking his travel decisions. “How am I going to travel? Where am I going to travel? Am I going to wear a baseball cap? Stuff like that…. It’s really sad that I’m thinking that in 2023.”

“Everybody knows that Brooklyn College is an anti-Semitic campus. It’s universally known,” says Sarah. “But I didn’t really feel that. Ever since this happened, things have changed, and you do feel that there are people there who hate you. And they hate you because you’re Jewish.”

The impact of anti-Semitism is extensive and insidious. It impacts students’ academic performance, their personal functioning, and their ability to succeed.

“This was such a point of stress in my life that only a few days after this broke out, I struggled so much writing a simple essay that I was forced to pull multiple all-nighters to finish it in time,” says Ryan. “It has been disabling… when I went to receive help, I was told so many other students had come with the same symptoms.”

And the repercussions of hatred last far down the road. Membership in professional societies is important for career development. But Eli says that many Jewish students have been afraid to join student organizations at Columbia Law School whose leaders signed the pro-Hamas letter. “These are clubs that really should have nothing to do with it… the Parole Advocacy Project, the Suspension Representation Project.”

After Miriam was yelled at by a group of students, she was too afraid to report them. “I didn’t know if I could report it with being anonymous… I didn’t want my name on that.”

For the first time, some students are wondering: Is it safe to be Jewish?

At NYU and Columbia, some Israeli students reported they’ve stopped speaking Hebrew in public out of fears for their physical safety. At George Washington University, a student stopped wearing her Israeli star necklace in public. Kinneret asks her brother to text her when he gets to class, because she’s worried about his yarmulke calling attention to his Jewishness.

Bentzy says one of his friends was afraid to daven Minchah after the attack. “He was thinking about davening in a very private place, or not even trying to daven at all. And it just hit me that that’s giving what Hamas wants. To not be a proud Jew, to not spread Yiddishkeit.”

Still, despite their fears, many Jewish students say they are not going to give in.

“I’ve never felt as connected with Israel as I did the past month,” Sarah says. “The coalition could fall apart from today until tomorrow, people could have different political views and protests, but when there’s a common enemy, people put everything aside.”

At campuses across the country, Jewish students have come together in powerful ways — saying Tehillim, raising money for refugees, hanging up hostage posters, putting on tefillin in public.

“Students are shocked at the level of anti-Jewish expression that has surfaced,” says Rabbi Eitan Webb, Chabad rabbi at Princeton. “But at the same time there is an outpouring of interest in Jewish activity. People are eager to connect. And in the end, we will win because ‘Netzach Yisrael lo yishaker.’ ”

The day after Simchas Torah, a classmate came up to Miriam and asked how she and her family were doing. Miriam hadn’t even known she was Jewish. “It calmed me down,” she says. “It was very touching.”

“We’ve come to realize that at the end of the day, the Jewish community is what we have,” says Eli. “We shouldn’t allow these anti-Semitic messages and these intimidation tactics to cause us to hide and cower…. We should be proud, we are Am Yisrael, and we shouldn’t be pushed into the shadows. We should stand up and speak out.”

“People think there are a billion Jews in the world,” says Aaron. “Honestly, we’re not. We’re 0.2 percent of the population. The reason people hate us is that we actually have good ethics and moral values and we stick to them. I just want people to realize that we shouldn’t be afraid. We’ve been through this before and we’re going to get past this. Just stay strong.”

“It can feel very uncomfortable, you can feel like you’re always looking over your shoulder,” says Kinneret. “But it’s important to remember to stay true to our identity and to our Judaism. Because in a way, we’ve been through this before…. We’re stronger together, chazakim b’yachad, nenatzeiach b’yachad.

“We’re going to get through this together, and we have each other’s backs. Even if you feel like you’re alone, we’re all standing there. Even if you’re walking by yourself, you have the whole Jewish nation right behind you, and it’s really important to remember that.” —

We Cannot Protect Your Children

Colleges have many tools available to keep the peace. Students and faculty can be disciplined for bullying, harassment, or violence, and administrators can express their support for targeted student groups.

The idea of “institutional neutrality” — the principle that institutions shouldn’t take political positions — has fallen to the wayside in recent years. Universities and corporations often release position statements, proclaiming support for everything from Black Lives Matter to Ukraine.

But at many colleges, administrators have conspicuously failed to condemn anti-Semitism. Others have released contradictory and belated statements that display cowardice and confusion. And the hate seems to be spiraling out of control.

Administrators often feel pressured to please all demographics on campus, and pro-Palestinian voices are very loud.

At NYU, on October 23, students and faculty stood in the campus library shouting things like, “Resistance is justified” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” Though the protest violated library policy, it lasted 40 minutes. “Professors were in our library promoting hate speech against Jews,” Aaron says. “And they’re doing horrible things, and NYU just didn’t do anything. I called the administration, and they said, ‘Oh, we have to figure this out.’

“I’m like, what do you mean? They have a loudspeaker, they’re putting up a flag in the library, that is not allowed. Regardless if the issue is Israel or not, that shouldn’t be allowed.”

Yoel Ackerman, a student at Rutgers Law School, publicized the actions of a pro-Hamas student. In a widely circulated email, he shared how afterward he was interrogated by the university, shamed, and then subjected to a public three-hour trial for impeachment by the Student Bar Association.

“I was given five minutes to speak,” he wrote. “I have never felt more hurt or embarrassed in my life. The lies, and the hatred spewing from their mouths….”

At Cornell, administrators responded to a student’s online threats to horrifically slaughter Jewish students (for which he is now facing federal charges) by warning students away from the kosher cafeteria and then canceling class. At Harvard and Columbia, administrators belatedly released statements condemning anti-Semitism — but then created task forces to help protect pro-Hamas students from public shaming.

Professor Katz says that as an administrator at Berkeley (where an academic recently offered students extra credit to attend a pro-Palestine protest), he’s fighting a battle on multiple fronts. “I think we’re benefiting in very tangible ways from the infrastructure we have, from the relationships we’ve built with key administrators and leaders on campus,” he says. But some things are out of his control. “We can’t make pro-Palestinian protestors go away. We can’t change the Constitution to restrict free speech.”

Shai Davidai, an Israeli professor at Columbia Business School, wants parents to be aware of administrative failures. “We cannot protect your children,” he shouted in a viral video the week after October 7. “Because the president of Columbia University will not speak out. Because the president of Harvard University, because the president of Stanford, because the president of Berkeley will not speak out against pro-terror student organizations… my two-year-old daughter is a legitimate target of resistance.”

And though some colleges have put out statements, many students find them hollow. “Just because you’re putting out emails does not mean you are actually fighting anti-Semitism,” says Ryan. “If there are pro-Palestine clubs, if there aren’t truly safe spaces, if there are no [pro-Israel] rallies created by you, you could do more. And if they are all there, do them more.”

After Rachel’s professor excused her class early so they could attend a pro-Palestinian protest, she went straight to the Columbia-Barnard Hillel. “I honestly felt very unsafe on campus at that time, and the only place that I felt safe was the Hillel. And I was speaking to people, and they were all acting resigned. ‘Yeah, that’s the way it is on campus. Classic Columbia.’ ”

On October 26, the US Senate passed a resolution condemning pro-Hamas and anti-Semitic groups on college campuses “for sympathizing with genocidal violence against the State of Israel and risking the physical safety of Jewish Americans in the United States.”

On November 2, the House passed a similar resolution, stating that “many administrations of institutions of higher education do not follow the practice of institutional neutrality and frequently speak out on public issues, but have failed to speak out clearly after the October 7 attack by Hamas, and have exposed their lack of regard for their Jewish and pro-Israel students.”

If colleges can’t protect them, Jewish students might leave. According to the Jerusalem Post, two Modern Orthodox schools in New Jersey recently told college recruiters that if they want to come recruit, they must present “a statement from their university leadership detailing their plans to protect and maintain the safety and security of our graduates on their campuses as Jews.”

It remains to be seen if they’ll live up to the call.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 985)