I do not think Northeastern is a campus with much anti-semitism. In the past 5-6 years they had two incidents - vandalism to a Menorah and the flyers with the eviction notices. My daughter has several friends at NEU who are Jewish (celebrate the holidays and observe dietary restrictions - which I would consider “identify as Jewish”) and I don’t think any of them has considered the campus to be unfriendly to their religious beliefs. SInce it is a large and diverse student population there is an SLP group.
It’s not so much a question about the size of the sample, but who was sampled. For example, fully a quarter of the respondents went to Jewish day schools. What percentage of Jewish college students went to Jewish day schools? I’m going to guess <1%. I was born/raised Jewish and I’ve never even met someone who went to a Jewish day school. I suspect that those that they sampled are basically “touchy” on these sort of issues and thus skewing the results, big-time.
All 3 of my sons attended Jewish Day Schools in the Atlanta area at some point in their pre-college school years. Per this census: a-census-of-jewish-day-schools-in-the-united-states-2013-14-2014
There were nearly 255,000 students enrolled in Jewish day schools operating at the elementary and secondary school levels in the United States in the 2013-14 school year. If 15% of the population is age 6-17 (per US census) and if there are 6 million Jews in the U.S., extrapolating, that is 900,000 school age Jewish students, and about 28% attend Jewish Day Schools.
I don’t believe it is being “touchy” feeling harassed when swastikas are painted on Jewish students’ residences, anti-Semitic literature is put under Jewish students’ doors or if participation in Hillel or Jewish organizations on campus is treated as disqualifying for student government - not to mention actual violence.
I’m not sure why this is a shock to anybody. Based on the FBI’s statistics from 2014, most religious hate crimes are directed at Jews. The people bending over backwards to avoid this reality are…puzzling. Do you really think the college campus is that different from society as a whole?
Religious bias
Of the 1,140 victims of anti-religious hate crimes:
56.8 percent were victims of crimes motivated by their offenders’ anti-Jewish bias.
16.1 percent were victims of anti-Islamic (Muslim) bias.
6.2 percent were victims of bias against groups of individuals of varying religions (anti-multiple religions, group).
6.1 percent were victims of anti-Catholic bias.
2.5 percent were victims of anti-Protestant bias.
1.2 percent were victims of anti-Atheist/Agnostic bias.
11.0 percent were victims of bias against other religions (anti-other religion). (Based on Table 1.)
https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime/2014/topic-pages/victims_final
The presence of anti-Israel political activism and anti-semitism (NOT completely unrelated in my book) was a major factor in our daughter’s college search. The presence of BDS AND a college or university’s unwillingness to sufficiently address this kind of hate speech speaks volumes about their school’s philosophy and about how they would address individual incidents that might occur on campus.
I ask student tour guides as well as school administrators about incidents on campus and listened carefully to their responses. Colleges are supposed to be places where all points of view are heard. I fully support that and don’t want any of my kids in schools where the students need “safe spaces”. But, I do expect school to shut down blatant anti-semitism.
<<< most hate crimes are directed at Jews. The people bending over backwards to avoid this reality are…puzzling. Do you really think the college campus is that different from society as a whole?
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I would hope that the college campus would be different from society as a whole.
If there is anti-semitisim on a campus, I would hope that the non-Jewish groups would work to rid that and educate the guilty.
Just a guess, but I suspect that a growing anti-Asian sentiment exists on some campuses on the west coast.
@quakerstate -
There are more accurate estimates of the Jewish population in the US.
http://www.pewforum.org/2013/10/01/chapter-1-population-estimates/
Frankly, I call BS on that number. You seem to have got it from this document:
http://avichai.org/knowledge_base/a-census-of-jewish-day-schools-in-the-united-states-2013-14-2014/
Which does not seem like an objective source.
Those figures are totally beyond the bounds of credulity, particularly when meshed with some of the other stats in the same report.
To wit: 40% of these schools have less than 100 students. If this is true, we’re talking about schools operating out of somebody’s basement and I doubt too many of these kids are going to college.
Apparently “New York and New Jersey are the center of the day school world.” Well, that’s news to me. I’ve lived in the NYC area my entire life and like I said above, I’ve never even met someone who attended a Jewish day school. Granted that’s not scientific, but I just find those figures not in a believable range.
Also, this same report indicates that there are only about 12,000 12th graders in Jewish day schools in the US. Assuming that only half of them go on to secular colleges (which I think is being generous), that would make only about 6,000 students from day schools entering US colleges each year. Using your 900,000 figure of Jewish school-aged children, that would put the number of Jewish 12th graders each year at about 75,000 or about 8% of Jewish college students coming from Jewish day schools (which frankly I still think is a high number, but at least it’s approaching believable territory.).
@Soze unless you have access to better data, critiquing the report as not being “objective” isn’t very effective.
In our southern Florida city, we have “day schools” associated with the conservative, liberal, reform, and orthodox congregations. Some are large (conservative) but most are small (far less than 100 students). Most students will transition to standard schools by middle school, and no later than high school (in our area).
As to why New York and New Jersey are “the center” of the day school world:
Some of the larger day schools just in Atlanta:
Epstein School (conservative) Atlanta K-8 550 students
Davis Academy (reform) Atlanta K-8 560 students
Atlanta Jewish Academy (modern orthodox) K-12 460 students
Weber School (Jewish nondenominational high school) 227 students
Torah Day School (orthodox) K-8 360 students
I don’t know why one poster is skeptical about data on day school attendance and seems to assert that only day school graduates experience anti-Semitism on college campuses (or care about Israel).
900,000 would be an estimate of K-12 Jewish school age students (not just Grade 12) of which 255,000 attend day schools per that census.
It’s more visceral than that in many ways. When you have both sides feeling they have mutually exclusive claims to the same piece of land for religious/historical reasons from their respective perspectives combined with prior decades of mutual hostility, that’s unfortunately par for the course.
It doesn’t help that both sides perceive themselves to be under siege whether it’s the proponents of Israel as a Jewish state being subject to decades of attacks from multiple surrounding Arab States/Palestinian groups or the Palestinian Arabs who felt they were sacrificed by colonialist western powers* and subjected to a form of “ethnic cleansing” and forced out by military force by the precursors of the IDF in 1948 and for some Palestinian Arabs in the “occupied territories”, by the IDF in 1967.
Adding anti-Arab and anti-semitic prejudices prevalent in the Western world and the pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian camps** respectively along with violent riots*** and terrorist actions**** by both sides before 1948 further complicates the underlying issues which affects this conflict down to the present day.
- Most proponents of the Palestinian side argue the British had no right to make the Balfour Declaration in the first place as they were effectively offering up land they held as a result of effective British colonial occupation during the latter stages of WWI and after which ignored the self-determination rights of the majority of the local population living in that area during that period.
** Some of the key pro-Palestinian leaders of the period such as the then presiding Grand Mufti of Jerusalem were not only vehement anti-semites, but also supported and in return, received some support from Hitler and the Nazis during WWII.
This acceptance of Nazi support was also due to their hatred of the British colonial occupation and a strong desire to throw it off…an aspect shared by some other anti-British independence groups. One example was the local Iraqi leaders who temporarily carried out a successful coup against pro-British Iraqi leaders with Nazi German support in 1941 before the British RAF forces quickly quashed it.
Another was the fringe Indian independence movement leader Subhas Chandra Bose who encouraged anti-British Indian supporters to ally themselves with Nazi and Imperial Japanese military efforts(Indian National Army) during WWII. Thus, the origin of Indian soldiers in some Nazi organized military units and an entire army fighting in alliance with the Imperial Japanese Army in the China-India-Burma Theater.
*** One riot by the local Arab population in the '30s arising in part due to increasing waves of Jewish immigration and them perceiving the threat of being crowded out of their perceived native land was so violent and pervasive that even the mighty British Empire of the period required 3 years to fully put it down by military force.
**** Arab and Jewish militant groups carried attacks not only against each other and respective civilian populaces, but also against occupying British colonialist forces. This was one of the key factors which eventually led to those forces relatively hasty departure in 1947-48.
Keep in mind, however, that relatively speaking, the Arab forces initially had military superiority in weapons and numbers due to the fact the Palestinian Arabs were supported by the surrounding Arab states. Despite that initial superiority, they were soundly defeated by the pro-Israeli groups which led to the founding of the Israeli state.
Really? You are an outlier. I’ve also lived in and around NYC my entire life and know many, many people who go to Jewish day schools. It’s mainstream. This is not a unicorn event. Ever hear of Solomon Schechter (Conservative)? The Heschel School (Conservative, sort of)? Rodeph Sholom (Reform)? Ramaz (modern Orthodox)? HANC (Hebrew Academy of Nassau County)?
Nope, not heard of any of them. I guess it’s just the crowd I run with.
I also am a Brandeis alum, and at least when I was there (30+ years ago) I didn’t know anybody from Jewish day schools either, but perhaps things are different now.
I’m sure that a good part of what makes New York and New Jersey “the center of the day school world,” while at the same time explaining why someone who lives there may know no one who sends their kids to a Jewish day school, is the presence in the New York City area (including some of the Hudson Valley, northern New Jersey, and even northeastern Pennsylvania) of a number of fairly insular ultra-orthodox Jewish groups, many of them Hasidic sects that, unlike the Lubavitchers one sees around, try to limit their contact with the secular and Christian worlds. Those groups often have lots and lots of kids – like other fundamentalist religious groups, they are very anti-birth-control – and all of them go to Jewish schools. But not ones you would ever really notice, unless you lived near Kiryat Joel or someplace like that. Those aren’t the only Jewish day schools, of course – there are lots that are much more integrated into mainstream America, like their Catholic and Protestant counterparts – but maybe they account for the difference between the numbers and our perception.
@soze Just wondering, are you Jewish? I just find it hard to imagine that a Jewish person in the NYC metro area never in her life met someone who sends their kids to day school and never heard of Solomon Schechter, which is a network of Jewish day schools around the country. http://schechternetwork.org/
I believe you, of course, but just find it hard to imagine.
Despite being a lifetime native New Yorker, attending some schools with large Jewish populations(public middle and public magnet high school), and working with many Jewish colleagues in the NYC and Boston areas, I’ve only met one person who attended a Jewish day school in my life so far.
His parents are fundamentalist Orthodox Jews who were initially adamant their children attended fundamentalist Orthodox Jewish day schools in the greater NYC area. However, a combination of the school’s refusal to support a diagnosed LD he had combined with his negative reaction/rebelliousness to harsh punishments and a growing feeling the religious teachings made no logical sense caused him to be expelled in 6th grade. From that point on, he attended a series of private secular day schools till college.
Incidentally, this experience was one of the key reasons he moved away from his parents’ religious faith much to the continuing consternation of his parents and older siblings.
^^^^This is way different from Conservative or Reform day schools that are not yeshivas. Entirely different thing.
Born and raised, but I’ve been an atheist for about the past 35+ years.
I got a chuckle at this. It’s sort of like a death metal fan being amazed that I’ve never heard of “Abated Mass of Flesh” or “Fear my Thoughts.”
Solomon Schechter is pretty mainstream. But there aren’t 200,000 kids in Solomon Schechter schools. Also, I don’t know if they do high school. In this area, they don’t, but that may be a local anomaly.
Yes, SSDS does high school.