Hotspots of Antisemitism and Anti-Israel Sentiment on US Campuses | Page 42

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Finally, there are many schools where
antisemitism and hostility to Israel are
negligible. Respondents at several large private
universities, including U of Miami, Wash U,
and Syracuse perceive very little hostility
toward Israel, and virtually all of these
respondents disagree that there is a hostile
environment toward Jews. Antisemitic
harassment on these campuses is likewise rare.
Overall, the relative ordering of schools with
respect to perceived hostility (e.g., the finding
that a greater portion of students perceive a
hostile climate at CUNY-Brooklyn than at
CUNY-Queens) is consistent with data
reported by other sources (AMCHA Initiative,
n.d.). Yet, it is important to note that even at
schools where hostility toward Jews and Israel
are high, this does not necessarily dominate
the lives of Jewish students. Even on
campuses with the highest levels of hostility
toward Jews, Jewish respondents still tend to
consider concerns over race and diversity,
cost, student life, and safety and violence more
“pressing” campus issues than Israel or Jews.
The findings of this study indicate that, even
when Jewish students experience antisemitism
and hostility toward Israel, their connection to
Israel remains strong. Neither the presence of
anti-Israel groups on campus, nor being on a
campus which is generally perceived as having
a hostile environment to Israel, are related to
the strength of students’ connection to Israel.
In addition, as we found in our 2015 study
(Saxe et al., 2015), analyses indicate that more
Jewishly engaged students, including those
who are more closely connected to Israel, are
the most likely to perceive hostility toward
Jews and Israel on their campus.

Connection to Israel notwithstanding,
students often feel silenced in debates about
this topic. This study found that a significant
proportion of Jewish students feel
uncomfortable expressing their opinions
about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Discomfort discussing Israel because of the
hostility of the discourse occurs more
frequently at schools that are notable for
pervasive perceptions of anti-Israel sentiment,
including CUNY-Brooklyn, NYU, and the UC
campuses. Discomfort talking about Israel is
also closely related to the presence of an SJP
group on campus—suggesting that the
rhetoric deployed by such groups often causes
students to withdraw from discussions.
Not all “silencing” is driven by the hostility of
the discourse about Israel. Regardless of
which school they attend and how much antiIsrael sentiment they perceive, a significant
minority of Jewish undergraduates are
uncomfortable expressing their opinions
about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict due to
their lack of knowledge. Thus, the key to
drawing these students back into a dialogue
may not be efforts aimed at combatting
antisemitism or anti-Israel hostility on campus
directly, but rather educational experiences,
such as Jewish and Israel studies courses or
authentic experiences of Israel.
Unlike anti-Israel hostility and antisemitism,
which vary dramatically across campuses, lack
of knowledge about Israel is a more consistent
issue, present to some extent on all of the
schools we studied. Since colleges and
universities are, at their core, educational
institutions, tapping into the core mission of
the college experience presents an opportunity