My kids, D22 and S23, are on campuses that have been fairly quiet concerning current events, but that doesn’t mean that antisemitism isn’t growing and a concern. I know kids on campuses that don’t feel safe. Our family never considered how active the Jewish community on campus was, or how supportive administration was when evaluating schools. I think if we were beginning our search now, we’d certainly have different criteria. We’ve already seen how this is affecting donors, but I wonder how it will affect enrollment.
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No, but i also don’t think my kids consider themselves Jewish. I’m on several Jewish parent Facebook groups and I get upset every time a parent says how wonderful the Florida schools are or say they want their kids to live at home. There are a couple schools that aren’t handling things well, but both of my kids like LACs and those haven’t been as bad. S22 is at Haverford which has the Quaker peace and love feel.
In short, yes. Our list has been upended.
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Among “conservative Christians”, opinions regarding Israel may not necessarily be similar to opinions regarding Jewish people domestically.
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The study you site is discussing Christian nationalists which are a minority of the Christians in the US. They are not representative of Christians as a whole.
And I’m confident the students demonstrating against the Jews and Israel on college campuses and the people burning Israel’s flag, chanting “from the river to the sea” and spray painting anti-semetic/pro Hamas graffiti on the streets of DC, NY, SF are not conservatives.
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Yes, a number of my family members are evangelical Christians, and they support Israel due to End Times (aka Apocalypse) beliefs. They believe that for prophecy to be fulfilled, Israel needs to be in Jewish control when Jesus comes back. But they also believe that when Jesus does come back, all non-Christians will go to hell.
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No, some of the conservative students were the ones chanting, with tiki torches held high - in Charlottesville.
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Yes white nationalists are ultra conservative.
I don’t see 100,000 white nationalists protesting the Jews in D.C., in London, in Berlin.
My child is already at university. I feel badly for those students who have to choose in the current climate.
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I think the point we are both making, or at least I’m making, is that anti-semitism is prevalent pretty much across the board politically and geographically*. There isn’t some magic college or location where anti-semitism doesn’t exist, as much as I wish there were.
I haven’t seen 100,000 plus people protesting Jewish people as a whole at any of those locations. I have seen reports of many people protesting the choices of the Israeli gov’t - and there were plenty of huge protests by Israelis for many months prior to Oct 7 in regards to their gov’t, and the negative sentiment has not abated since Oct 7th - even if mass protests have for the moment. Protesting the Israeli gov’t and protesting Jewish people aren’t synonymous for many people.
*I don’t think anti-semitism is a majority belief in any political party. I don’t think that is an issue that follows traditional party lines.
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I agree but at least currently, there are a good number of schools where anti-semitism is out in the open and one wonders 1. how long that will be the case and 2. just because it submerges again, it may be difficult to calm the fears of Jewish students and their parents since those protestors are still attending the school and the administrators at those schools seem paralyzed as to how to address it.
Personally, I would not feel comfortable sending my child to one of those schools on the hope things will be ok by the time they arrive. Those undercurrents are there.
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I know many, many families that have been considering this for years when they send their kids to college. It’s just one factor when choosing one.
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It is a challenging situation to be sure, and I definitely think every student and family is going to have to make their own determination and will - most probably along a spectrum of choices.
I agree the undercurrents exist…and for me, the danger exists everywhere. I find no comfort in the idea it hasn’t yet been expressed openly at certain schools or I haven’t yet heard of the incident where it did burst out into the open.
I wish I felt more optimistic. But I don’t. I helped my children make their decisions with the assumption that the risk of anti-semitism, open racism, sexism and/or violence is real pretty much across the board. Sadly, none of these issues are new and most schools we looked at had open instances of at least one ‘ism’, usually more than one within the last 15 years - and there is little comfort in the idea some of the actions were ‘lone wolf’ actions. It is often a pick your poison kind of choice.
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I’m ok with that. They support Israel now. I take my chances with going to hell at the Second Coming.
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Reminder that this is in the parent forum, not the political forum. Several off topic posts hidden/deleted/edited.
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Thank you. This is not the direction I anticipated or wished this discussion would go.
Here’s a concrete example of what I was getting at.
I spoke with a family friend today whose family are big donors to one of the schools that’s been front and center in the news later. We are talking named scholarships and a possible building in the future. They are pretty distraught over what is happening. The scholarships will remain intact but they are withholding any new donations at this point. I asked if they think it will affect enrollment and their view is that it won’t affect enrollment numbers (It’s an Ivy/“dream school”) but it will surely affect the makeup of the enrollment.
I’m wondering if that will also somehow translate to its selectivity ranking dropping as not as many students will be throwing in a “hail Mary” or “wish” application.
As evidence: That is why the Hillel Guide To Colleges exists.
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I think those of us that wouldn’t send our kids to these schools have noticed this intolerance trend over the last while so weren’t going to let them go there before all of this happened. Hate has been prevalent/taught at these schools for a long time.
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