‘I won’t sit with a Jew’: Students tell of violence, antisemitism on campus

By SAM HALPERN

Published: DECEMBER 31, 2023 21:47

Updated: JANUARY 1, 2024 17:38

Pro-Israel student leaders meet with former Israeli ambassador to the UN, MK Danny Danon. (photo credit: OSHY ELLMAN) — Pro-Israel student leaders meet with former Israeli ambassador to the UN, MK Danny Danon.

(photo credit: OSHY ELLMAN)

Experiences of open hatred of Jewish people from other communities were not uncommon among students.

A delegation of pro-Israel student leaders from top US universities arrived in Israel last week to discuss growing antisemitism on college campuses. Their testimonies, shared at the Israel Knesset, exposed graphic, and at times violent, experiences of Jew-hatred.

After visiting the southern Israeli communities and speaking with survivors of Hamas’s October 7 attacks and Israeli activists and leaders, including Isaac Herzog and Noa Tishby, the American students met with former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations Likud MK Danny Danon.

Speaking to The Jerusalem Post, Danon said that one of the biggest challenges student advocates have is that they are often “not facing hate and antisemitism from Palestinian groups. Sometimes they have to challenge the institutions themselves. That’s very hard. And the greatest tool they have is courage. [Speaking] from my experience in the past, be courageous about fighting for Israel, for the Jewish cause. It’s not easy, but it will serve them [students] also in the future when they become leaders in their hometowns.”

Jewish voices on campus stand up to antisemitism

Jake Klatzker, a junior at the University of Washington in Seattle has been active in a variety of local Jewish organizations including the university’s Hillel chapter, StandWithUs, and Students Supporting Israel.

“I’m kind of known as that one Israel guy on campus,” he laughed. Kletzker recalled that it was 2021’s Operation Guardian of the Walls that woke his passion for Israel and drove him to learn as much as he could.

Pro-Israel student leaders meet with Israeli President Isaac Herzog. (credit: OSHY ELLMAN)

He describes encountering antisemitism from both the Left and the Right, pointing to anti-Zionist Jews and groups like Students for Justice in Palestine as the sources of what he described as the more “insidious” forms of antisemitism.

“There have been times on campus when I’ve been approached by people I know, within the Jewish community, who look at me and tell me how I’m a ‘fake Jew,’ I’m ‘disgracing the name of Judaism for X,Y, and Z reason, and this is why I am an ‘evil Jew,’ or not a ‘correct Jew’ or a ‘right Jew.’ It’s new ways of talking about a very old hatred.”

Stay updated with the latest news!

Subscribe to The Jerusalem Post Newsletter

Subscribe Now

Kletzker’s experiences were not unique, and experiences of open hatred of Jewish people from other communities were not uncommon as well.

Samantha Levy, a sophomore at the University of Illinois describes one such experience while at an interfaith dinner with one another Jewish student and dozens of Muslim students.

“We sit down, and I ask the girls, ‘can I sit here?’ and they’re like, ‘yeah, yeah, yeah.’ The men were praying, and when they get back from praying, one guy comes up to the table and sees I’m wearing my Jewish star, because, come on, it’s not coming off,” she asserted. “He looks at me and looks at the [Muslim] girl and then he says, ‘you know you’re sitting with a Jew?’”

The Muslim girl responded in the affirmative.

“And then he said, ‘I won’t sit with a Jew.’ And then he takes his backpack and leaves,” Levy recalled. “It was during Islamic Awareness Week, and I felt very aware,” she joked.

Levy later noted that she and her Jewish friend were the last ones at the dinner because she refused to be driven away by hatred.

Still, the Illinois sophomore described the incident as a small example on a campus rife with larger systems of antisemitism.

A third student, Thea Libin, described an experience with antisemitism on a Canadian campus. Libin is a senior studying biological sciences at the University of Calgary in Alberta.

“On October 7, when the war happened, between then and now, I have experienced more instances of antisemitism in that time period than I have in my entire life,” she said.

“Students Supporting Israel was having a little table event where they were handing out fact sheets trying to dispel some of the myths going around about the war,” she explained. “I was standing at the table handing out some fact sheets, and then I had to go to class, so I’m walking away from the table and I feel my ‘spidey senses,’ someone is following me. So I turn around and there is a girl. She grabs my Magen David necklace and goes, ‘you’re a colonizer.’”

Libin said that regrets not having a good response, but that the shock from the incident was overwhelming and, after the other girl walked away, she called her mother, crying.

An MIT student described an incident where pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian students faced off in protests inside the school’s “Lobby 7,” located inside MIT’s main entrance after both sides were told they were not allowed to protest there.

“It ended up escalating so much and getting a little too aggressive that they came in and they gave out letters from the president and the chancellor saying, ‘anyone who is still here past 12:30 will face suspension.’”

While the entire pro-Israel side left, very few of the pro-Palestinian side did the same.

“They continued to protest until 9 p.m. that night in that room,” the MIT student explained. As she recalls, the protest became increasingly violent as the pro-Palestinian protesters had people bused in from outside MIT’s campus to join them.

“[MIT] ended up suspending none of them,” she said. “What happened was that they thought it wasn’t fair to go through with the suspension because some of the students were international students on visas, and [getting suspended] would take away their visas.”

Instead, the protesters were slapped with a “non-academic suspension,” which, in theory, was supposed to prevent them from participating in student clubs. This, however, she said, was never enforced.

Nearly every student had an experience of direct antisemitism or where, their university’s inaction made them feel as though they, and their safety did not matter.

Another student, attempting to relate her experiences, began sobbing and had to leave the room.

Still, the student leaders emphasized that they would continue to fight for Israel, and each student who spoke to the Post described their plans to continue with their advocacy work upon returning to the US.

MK Danon noted the difficulty of their positions as advocates of Israel but expressed that he maintained confidence in the next generation of Israel advocates.

“First we have to realize that hate will be there. It’s not going to disappear. Maybe we will be better prepared for that, or we will be able to fight harder, but hate is not going to disappear. Antisemitism has been there for centuries, [and] unfortunately, it will be there also in the future. But today, [the next generation of pro-Jewish and Israeli voices] are capable and knowledgeable. I felt today that we have great representatives on the ground."

Hasbara fellowships, in partnership with IsraelAmbassadors.com, sponsored the high-level pro-Israel student leadership mission. For further information, please visit www.israelambassadors.com