By Amy Zewe
While we are on summer break in the academic calendar, antisemitism seems to take no vacation or time off.
HonestReporting.com is an excellent resource for finding information that the mainstream press often overlooks (either on purpose or from simple lack of interest).
A July 17 feature article in Honest Reporting examines the “10 Most Shocking Instances of Antisemitism on College Campuses” within the last year. Keep in mind this is out of likely hundreds of reported and unreported instances, and only within the United States.
- Rutgers University, New Jersey: A fraternity was egged during Holocaust Remembrance Day when the students read the names of victims over a 24 hour period. In the days leading up to Holocaust Remembrance Day, multiple cars full of people waving Palestinian flags drove up to the fraternity house shouting antisemitic verbal assaults, calling the fraternity members “terrorists” and “baby killers.”
- Tufts University, Massachusetts: The Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) group continually protests Jewish clubs and activities on campus and holds one of the most robust Israel Apartheid weeks in the nation.
- University of Central Florida (Florida): In February, a Jewish student was driving past a rally being held by the white supremacist, neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement (NSM) on campus. One of the members “spat on the student’s car, sparking an altercation that led to multiple members of the group beating up and pepper spraying the student, and subsequently throwing the student’s phone down a storm drain.” Video footage from the scene captured NSM members shouting antisemitic slurs throughout the attack. (Three perpetrators were arrested.)
- USC (University of Southern California): Student Yasmeen Mashayekh, formerly a diversity, equity and inclusion senator for the university’s Viterbi School of Engineering, posted multiple antisemitic posts on social media throughout the academic year. This included statements such as, “I want to kill every motherf***ing Zionist,” “The death of Israel is coming. I will do it single handedly if I must,” “Yes I f***king love Hamas,” and “curse the Jews” (in Arabic). Much of the USC community was outraged at this; the university itself did nearly nothing.
- The George Washington University, Washing, D.C: Tau Kappa Epsilon’s Fraternity house was raided, and its Torah Scroll was desecrated and covered in laundry detergent.
- University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign: In April, rocks were thrown at Jewish students by protesters outside the Hillel House. About 75 people attended the protest directly outside the campus Hillel. Jewish students were on the balcony and one protestor threw a rock striking a Jewish student. That protestor is being charged with felony assault and a hate crime.
- University of California San Diego: After a week of serial vandalism against various Jewish symbols on campus and signage accusing Israel of apartheid, it hosted a speaker who is known to praise the terrorist organization Hamas—the vandalism continued for days after the speaker’s event with little or no disciplinary outcome.
- UCLA (University California Los Angeles): Matthew Harris, a former philosophy lecturer for the school, was arrested for publishing an 800+ page manifesto filled with antisemitic rage. A small sample of the kind of rhetoric includes. “Whites and Jews shall die,” and a chapter titled “The perfect holocaust is a completed one.”
- Boston University, Boston MA: Graffiti saying, “Long life the intifada” was spray painted by The Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) group on a Boston University landmark rock. This is the same University the Mapping Project originated—so keep that in mind.
- Yale University, Connecticut: At an Ivy League and one of the most premier schools in North America, last September a Yale speaker claimed the FBI inflated Jewish hate crime statistics. Ericka Hart, a self-described diversity and sexuality trainer, was brought to speak by the Yale Law Journal on the topics of racism and equity. When asked by a law student why she “had not mentioned antisemitism as a form of discrimination amongst the several other related topics brought up during the talk, she replied that she had “already covered antisemitism because some Jews are black.” When pressed on the topic and challenged with statistics that show that Jews are victims of hate crimes more than any other group she suggested that those who compiled this data had an “agenda.” Feedback to the speaker included not allowing her to return to speak.
The number of incidents at colleges and universities in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Australia that engage in some sort of violence, vandalism, intimidation, discrimination, or hostility against Jews is astounding. And it targets students and faculty who do not espouse or demonstrate any Zionism, but those who are simply Jewish. It targets speakers, groups and organizations that support Israel and examine antisemitism. Many instances are not formally reported or are reported and go uncounted due to lack of action by leadership. Jewish students (of all political leanings and every level or no level of religiosity) suffer consequences, even on the most progressive and so-called woke campuses. And it all starts with words and spills into the community resulting in bodily harm, as we have seen on the streets of LA, NJ, NYC, Paris and more.
This is why our scholarship program is so vital. Sending college students to live and study in Israel, even one at a time, is vital for bringing a voice of solidarity with Jews and support for truth and justice back to US campuses. This helps us fulfill our mission to inform, educate and activate Christians.
Be in prayer for our educational institutions of all levels. Speak out in your own network and amongst your own connections to combat the bias and violence that is being committed under some vail of social justice and progressive enlightenment. It is just the same old hate repackaged and sold off to the masses—and it is dangerous and should not go unchecked among Christians (and any people) who believe in true justice and intellectual integrity in our educational organizations.
Isiah 33:6
And wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy times, and strength of salvation: the fear of the Lord is his treasure.
Shavua tov; have a great week.
