Brandeis University published a survey of the college campuses that are considered to be the most anti-semetic. It is sad seeing some of the schools on the list:
http://www.brandeis.edu/ssri/pdfs/campusstudies/AntisemitismCampuses101316.pdf
This is like Minneapolis publishing a list of cities most likely to be affected by water shortages. Hardly self-serving at all!
If you equate opposition to Israeli occupation and related policies with anti-Semitisim, you are going to find a lot of it. I’m grateful that’s a false equivalency. It’s certainly growing, including among college-age Jews. I don’t doubt at all that it can be uncomfortable to be a die-hard supporter of Israel in all things on many college campuses today, if not most of them.
But real anti-Semitism? I’m sure it exists, I’m sure Israeli policy exacerbates it, but I think its actual impact on the lives of young Jews is very minor.
@JHS Here’s an excerpt from the report describing what happened to one student at Northeastern:
A group on campus put eviction notices on the dorm room doors of Jewish
people. It made me feel unsafe.
(Junior, Northeastern)
This doesn’t sound like a minor impact to me.
Those notices were put under the doors at NYU, too.
Understanding this issue may require people to actually experience it. I think people get caught up in the word “anti-semitism.” Prejudice is prejudice no matter the name.
Congressional testimony revealed the SJP is funded by Hamas. Hamas has as its stated goal ridding Israel of Jews. Unfortunately, Israel and Jews are intertwined in most people’s minds, esp as the ME is taught in high schools. Anti-semitism is on the rise and Jews are the targets of most of the hate crimes in this country. It is a concern on campus and it is important to not ignore it so it doesn’t morph into something even more terrible.
Interesting read. I would argue one could find these types of hate actions and comments about Americans also on campus. I am sure the Trump vs. Hillary groups are spouting some pretty heated words and actions.
Antisemitism certainly exists, but equating it with believing that Israel isn’t in the right just isn’t right.
It’s worth noting that there are many Jewish people who do not support Israel’s aggression (to be as PC as possible).
The survey doesn’t equate Anti-Israel sediment with Anti-Semitism (these are two separate sections of the report). It attempts to measure “perceived” anti-Israel and anti-Semitism at several campuses. Then, through a series of questions, it tries to determine how this impacts Jewish students.
The last section of the survey attempts to put Anti-Israel hostility and Anti-Semitism into context. It does that by asking students “In your opinion, what are the three most pressing issues at (school) right now?”. Often cost, safety, religion or race is ranked higher than Jews or Israel.
These anti-Israel/anti-Semitic groups are very small on most campuses but they are extremely loud and disruptive. Also like most campus protest groups they ae 100% committed to their cause and if you don’t actively support them you are the enemy.
There wasn’t very much campus protest when Jordan occupied the West Bank.
This methodology behind this study is deeply flawed. They way they identified Jewish students is by those who have participated on a Birthright Israel trip. Those students on Birthright trips are in no way representative of Jewish students on college campuses and because of the way Birthright selects participants, many students who identify as Jewish would not even qualify for a Birthright trip.
I agree that the survey method is not at all calculated to produce an accurate picture. Not only were students approached because they had applied to Birthright (whether or not they were accepted, by the way), but the responses were entirely voluntary. At some colleges with fairly large Jewish populations, the number of responses was relatively small, and in only a few cases did the responses amount to as much as 2% of the estimated number of Jewish students. There are a lot of generalizations being made based on not much data.
That said, there were clearly differences from college to college. Particularly striking, for example, was the difference between CUNY-Brooklyn and CUNY-Queens, colleges that one would expect to be a lot more similar than not. Yet for almost every question asked, CUNY-Brooklyn ranked in the top group (often the top 2-3) for hostility, and CUNY-Queens rarely made it as high as the median.
Things connected to Israel clearly represent the bulk of the factor covered in the report (including, I suspect, the “eviction notice” at Northeastern). But there was also a handful of schools where the perception of anti-Semitism seemed to relate much less to Israel, places like Wisconsin and Illinois.
What is interesting is that both schools are heavily Jewish.
CUNY Brooklyn is 28%
http://www.hillel.org/college-guide/list/record/cuny–brooklyn-college
CUNY Queens is 25%
http://www.hillel.org/college-guide/list/record/queens-college
The difference seems to be that CUNY Brooklyn as a much more active chapter of SJP .
@romanigypsyeyes - To be as PC as possible, since when is self defense aggression?
CUNY Brooklyn is well known for its anti-semitic leanings. My son, whose last name is not Jewish sounding at all and who looks as Irish as his surname sounds, took it off his list when he studied up on it. It is not the same Brooklyn College that many of my friends attended in the 1970’s.
That assumes that the academics conducting this study work solely to serve the interests of the university that employs them, rather than for the higher purpose of adding original research to the great body of knowledge about antisemitism in America. Also, assuming that a group of Jews have some sort of ulterior, self-serving motive sounds…well, a bit like an antisemitic trope.
Take it from a young Jew: it still has a huge impact on our lives. I live in a liberal city with a sizable Jewish population. I’ve been “jokingly” called a k*** (antisemitic slur), told to go back to the oven, had swastikas written on my textbooks.
When there is significant political activity regarding Israeli - Palestinian politics, it is no surprise that some of the noisiest participants (on many sides) are racist.
UCLA: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/06/us/debate-on-a-jewish-student-at-ucla.html?_r=0
UVA: http://www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2016/10/anti-semitic-graffiti-spotted-at-grandmarc
I agree that the sample size is probably not representative, BUT I do have to disagree with soze’s statement that Birthright doesn’t include as Jewish, for eligibility purposes, many people who might identify as such. I have been a participant on and staffed a Birthright Israel trip. Both included people who were certainly not Jewish by the standards of the Orthodox and/or Conservative movements, and the second included some people who did not even identify as Jewish. I remember one person in particular who had recently discovered that a grandfather was Jewish, and wanted to get in touch with that part of his identity. He was absolutely honest on his application, too. AFAIK, he did not have a religious affiliation other than Judaism; I’m not sure if he could have gone if he had been a practicing adherent of another religion.
As for the larger issue: criticizing Israel is not anti-Semitic, and many if not most Jews do it regularly. Treating Jewish students as automatically suspect is, and so is holding Israel and pro-Israel students to a standard that one does not apply to other nations and their supporters. There is one Jewish nation in the world. If you are neither Jewish or Palestinian/Arab and are expending significant time and outrage on that one state while ignoring objectively more deadly and oppressive action on the part of other nations, you have to step back for a moment and ask yourself why.
Personally, I am glad not to live in Israel, Palestine or anywhere in the ME.
The point is that it’s dangerous to be hostile to a specific group of people. It doesn’t matter what the reasons are or how minor it may seem. Once you accept hostility then you bring about hate and ignorance and fear which history has proven is disastrous.
“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”
Discrimination is unacceptable!