Hotspots of antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment on US campuses 21
Table 1. Examples of antisemitic incidents
Type
Jewish
Israel- Related
Examples
A group on campus put eviction notices on the dorm room doors of Jewish people. It made me feel unsafe.( Junior, Northeastern)
One of my teachers at CSUN asked me how it was to live in an Apartheid state. The moment she found out I am Jewish, my grade was affected.( Junior, California State University- Northridge)
I had rushed two sororities on campus and I was rejected along with the three other Jews who rushed. We were not sure why only the Jews didn’ t get accepted.( Sophomore, CUNY-Queens)
During apartheid week the SJP club stood in front of the dining hall wearing white shirts with red‘ blood’ spatter across from them. They had signs saying‘ this is what the Jews did to us.’ I felt extremely harassed; even though it was not personally to me when I stood there I saw complete hatred that they had to all of the Jews walking by. There were even some people a part of SJP shouting profanities and giving the middle finger to the Jews that were just standing next to them.( Junior, Rutgers)
“ Classic” We were tabling for the Jewish Business Students Association and someone made an insulting‘ joke’ about being cheap / stingy.( Senior, Texas)
In my dorm freshman year, I was asked where my horns were and was told I was going to hell because I did not believe in Jesus.( Senior, Illinois)
Holocaust
My freshman year I lived in a dorm. I once opened my door to my next-door neighbor drawing a swastika on my door.( Junior, Ohio State)
On Simchat Torah we were parading with the Torah outside and singing songs and people started to write things on Yik Yak telling us to go back to Auschwitz.( Junior, Binghamton)
There is considerable variation in the form that antisemitic harassment takes, even at schools where overall hostility is high. Figure 10 shows the relative prevalence of each of these types of antisemitic harassment at the six schools with the highest overall rates of witnessing antisemitic harassment( see Figure 9). At Northwestern and campuses in the UC system, where many respondents perceived hostility to both Jews and Israel, insults and harassment related to Israel were among the most common. Conversely, at Wisconsin and Rutgers, where a majority of respondents disagreed that the there was a hostile environment toward Israel on their campus( see Figure 1), antisemitic harassment was less likely to involve Israel and more likely to reference the Holocaust or Jews in general.“ Classic” antisemitic tropes were rare at these schools, with the possible exception of UCLA.