A New Coming of Age for Jewish Students
There is a new coming-of-age moment for many Jewish young adults in the US. It happens around eighteen, and it is nothing like a bar or bat mitzvah. Instead, it arrives quickly and without warning, often during the first weeks on an American university campus, when a young person who grew up believing they would be judged by their character is confronted with a brutal reality: some people will hate them simply for being Jewish.
That moment came for my grandson this month at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has just begun his freshman year and is a member of the Jewish fraternity. Overnight, intruders broke into the fraternity house, urinated on the couches, and drew a swastika on the mirror. When the fraternity brothers came downstairs, there was a confrontation. Thankfully, the perpetrators fled before anyone was hurt. My grandson holds a black belt in karate, and as his grandfather I shudder to imagine what might have happened in that moment if fear, anger, and violence had collided.
What happened to my grandson did not occur in a vacuum. Across the United States and around the world, Jewish communities are increasingly being targeted by vandalism, intimidation, and violence. Recent headlines have included an arson attack on a synagogue in Mississippi and other incidents that remind us how quickly hateful ideas can become real-world acts. The geography may change, but the message is the same: Jews are being told, in unmistakable terms, that they do not belong.
This was not a prank. It was not a political statement. It was a hate crime in its most recognizable form: intimidation, humiliation, and the revival of a symbol that has haunted Jewish families for generations.
After the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, I founded People4Peace to confront hatred and misinformation and to advance fact-based understanding, dignity, and coexistence. We reject tribal hatred based on identity, ideology, religion, race, or nationality. Just as we condemned the rise in Islamophobia after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, we are now deeply alarmed by the resurgence of antisemitism in America and around the world.
What makes this moment especially dangerous is not only the frequency of antisemitic incidents, but the speed with which misinformation travels and hardens into social permission. In far too many places, including on university campuses where critical thinking should be the air students breathe, antisemitism is being excused or explained away rather than confronted. The result is predictable: words become permission, and permission becomes action.
Within days of October 7, Jews who had been raped, murdered, or kidnapped were already being portrayed as villains rather than victims. The inversion was stunning. It was also effective. And when propaganda takes root, it does not stay confined to headlines or hashtags. It shows up as intimidation, vandalism, arson and violence. My grandson is not Bibi Netanyahu… he’s a young man earning an education.
Jewish students are not asking for special treatment. They are asking for what every student should be guaranteed: the ability to live, study, and belong without fear. They are asking for a campus environment where hate is not tolerated, where harassment is not dismissed, and where administrators and peers do not look away when a minority is targeted.
The response must begin with accountability. University police should identify the perpetrators and hold them responsible. The university must act decisively to strengthen security, support affected students and make clear that intimidation and hate have no place on campus. Free speech is a foundation of democracy, but it does not include breaking into someone’s home to defile it and leave swastikas behind.
But we also have to face a harder truth: higher education is not just failing to prevent hatred. In some cases, it is failing to challenge it. Universities must recommit to the values they claim to champion: intellectual honesty, empathy, moral clarity, and the recognition that every human being is more than a stereotype or a political symbol.
My grandson will move forward. He will find his footing and continue his education. But no student should have to carry this burden, and no family should have to wonder whether the next incident will escalate from vandalism to violence.
The question is not whether antisemitism exists. The question is whether we will confront it with seriousness and truth before it becomes a permanent stain on the future of an entire generation.
Universities must act now: investigate, enforce consequences, strengthen security, and stand publicly with students who are targeted. Alumni, donors, and trustees should demand that campus leadership draw a clear line between debate and intimidation. And all of us—Jewish and non-Jewish alike—must refuse to normalize hate when it arrives disguised as politics.
If we want our young people to inherit a country worthy of them, we have to defend the basic promise of American life: that no one should be harassed, threatened, or attacked for who they are.
Peter Samuelson, Chair, People4Peace
