Fall 2024 Jewish Students Are Again Scared, Attacked, and Screaming for Help!

It’s Fall of 2024; the college students are back from summer break and now it’s time to continue studying. Oh wait, we thought that was the purpose of higher education.

Harvard needs to reread Emily Post’s Book of Etiquette. They were not welcoming to their Jewish students as anti-Israel protesters on the third day after Fall classes began marched through campus chanting “Long live the intifada” and “Globalize the intifada.” What does that mean? The meaning to Jews is memories of the First and Second Intifadas where Pro-Palestinian terrorists carried out many actions where Jews/Israelis were killed.

Pro-Palestinian protesters hold a rally on the campus of Harvard University, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, September 6, 2024. (Screen capture: X/Ira Stoll, used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)

At least 200 students and staff on the University of North Carolina participated in a Pro-Palestinian walkout, led by UNC Students for Justice in Palestine September 19, 2024. They walked throughout campus, in and out of buildings as reported in the Daily Tar Heel. They posted papers outlining their demands, spray painted, “Free Gaza,” “Fuck UNC” and “Israel is a terror state.”

The Daily Tar Heel by McKenzie Bulris
Pro-Palestinian students and staff at UNC led walk out September 19, 2024.

I don’t know about you, but if I were a student working on computers at Carroll Hall, in the above picture, I don’t care what religion I was, I wouldn’t want these protesters with their covered faces and signs walking behind my back as I studied or did anything else!

As they walked by the UNC Armory, they replaced the American Flag with the Palestinian Flag in the picture below.

The Daily Tar Heel Dylan Thiessen
Pro-Palestinian protesters replaced the American flag with the Palestinian flag.

As reported by NBC News, as two Jewish students at the University of Pittsburgh walked to the first Shabbat services of the new school Fall term they were attacked with a glass bottle by a 56-year-old man wearing a keffiyeh, who also tore one of the student’s Star of David necklace off his neck.

In a separate incidence a group of six to eight men assaulted another Jewish student off campus while using antisemitic slurs. At the University of Michigan two other Jewish students were assaulted in separate incidents off campus.

The list goes on and on, let’s just say the Fall of 2024 antisemitic incidences are, unfortunately, just as prevalent after the summer break.

Jews are the only 2024 minority that haters can publicly attack, physically and verbally malign, prevent from attending classes, aren’t covered by DEI, and the universities and colleges look the other way under the guise of free speech! Some administrations and teachers collude together to promote an antisemitic, anti-Israel agenda that puts our kids in jeopardy.

The definition of minority is a relatively small group of people, especially one commonly discriminated against in a community, society, or nation, differing from others in race, religion, language, or political persuasion. So why are Jews excluded from DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion)? Jews are only 2.4% of the U.S. population, why aren’t we included in any DEI organizational policies? Unfortunately, antisemitism hasn’t disappeared, and the protection is necessary, what is the reason given for Jews being excluded?

The ADL, Hillel, and the 2024 Report: Antisemitism on U.S. College and University Campuses by StopAntisemitism.org, all agree since October 7, 2023, the level of discrimination against Jewish students has been alarming, too often unimpeded, and has continued into the beginnings of the Fall Semester 2024.

The 2024 Report: Antisemitism on U.S. College and University Campuses

included the following disturbing results:
• 55% of Jewish students have personally been victims of antisemitism at their schools.
• 43% did not feel safe enough to report the incidents. Of those who did report, a staggering 87% believe their school failed to properly investigate.
• 43% hide their Jewish identity from their classmates out of fear.
• 72% feel unwelcome in certain spaces on campus simply for being Jewish.
• 67% say Jews are completely excluded from their schoolʼs DEI initiatives.
• 69% are blamed for the actions of Israel—actions they have no control over.
• 67% feel their university did not take sufficient action to protect Jewish students in the wake of the 10/7 massacre.
• And 43% would not recommend their school to fellow Jewish students.

What’s clear from these results is that these institutions failed to protect their Jewish students.

This is the status of Jewish college students in 2024? And as I wrote about in my Times of Israel Blog “As Our American K-12 Children Return to School—What Hell Awaits Them?”  the discrimination isn’t reserved just for our Jewish college students but is also today inflicted on our K-12 youngsters!

Imagine, dear friends who aren’t Jewish, that your kids were being taught in classrooms funded by our tax dollars where Qatari-supplied maps were used where the country of Israel was replaced by Palestine, or your high school kids were encouraged to walk out of class in support of “Free Palestine.” HAMAS and Hezbollah, two terrorist groups who have murdered, tortured and mutilated Jews, and killed their own people if they try to leave when the IDF warns them that they are going to bomb their area beforehand, yet their sick actions are celebrated, or your kids were trolled with comments like, “Hitler should have finished the job.”

Would you tolerate your places of worship being threatened with bombings, having to go through essential armed security review as if you were at the airport, searching through your purses and using metal detectors? Businesses being vandalized and children being threatened, harassed, intimidated, disinformation disseminated, and ostracized from professional organizations or having their talks and lectures being cancelled or blocked? What other minority group faces these horrors in 2024 with authorities and the public ignoring it?

Then of course, we can’t neglect mentioning the old antisemitic neo-Nazi groups that never go away. Oren Segal, vice president of the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism disclosed, “Almost every single weekend, white supremacists are rallying in some neighborhood.” The latest march was recently in Columbus, Ohio.

The ADL Center on Extremism reported that just between Memorial Day through Labor Day 2024, the COE documented 64 white supremacist events across 25 states. It doesn’t end.

The new tentacle of antisemitism has grown virally on social media. Meta proclaimed the ditty “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” is not hate. The seven largest Jewish Diaspora communities representing over 90% of Jews globally outside of Israel, disagree. The ADL and the American Jewish Committee have defined the phrase as inherently antisemitic because, they say, it at best denies the Jewish right to self-determination and at worst calls for ethnic cleansing against Israeli Jews. The expression has often been interpreted in articles as Palestine replacing Israel. HAMAS also defines it this way and adds the ingredient of genocide of the Jewish people as an explicit desire.

The Palestinian U.S. Congresswoman Tlaib says it’s more of a cry for equal rights for Palestinians. Given her consistent anti-Israel vitriol it comes across as disingenuous. The motion to censure her last year focused on her statements and accused her of “promoting false narratives regarding the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and for calling for the destruction of the state of Israel.”

Embed from Getty Images

Valve’s Steam platform is the world’s most popular online gaming marketplace. Unfortunately, the ADL Center on Extremism has identified 1.83 million unique pieces of extremist or hateful content. When people’s lives are at stake, this is not a game that should be played unhampered while spreading hate.

A recently released 325-page report by the US House Education Committee states college officials made “astounding concessions” to organizers of pro-Palestinian encampments, while withholding support from Jewish students.

As reported in The Hill, “The report came to four conclusions: the concessions universities were willing to make to protesters were “astounding”; the schools chose to “withhold support from Jewish students”; university leadership failed to discipline students who engaged in antisemitic activities; and universities were themselves hostile to the House’s investigation.”

“For over a year, the American people have watched antisemitic mobs rule over so-called elite universities, but what was happening behind the scenes is arguably worse,” Republican Chairwoman Virginia Foxx, who led the investigation, said in a statement.

One positive in this bleak atmosphere is the recently held 2024 College and University Presidents Summit on Campus Antisemitism hosted by Hillel International, the American Jewish Committee (AJC), and the American Council on Education (ACE).

I’m glad that they arranged this important gathering but considering what the Jewish college students are facing it seems like offering a mint to a starving person. We must start somewhere, but campus antisemitism is a 911 call, we don’t have time to be stuck waiting on hold until someone finally answers the phone.

Hillel International described the summit as follows:

“The College and University Presidents Summit on Campus Antisemitism brought together more than 75 leaders from large public universities, small private colleges, Ivy League schools, community colleges, and liberal arts colleges of all sizes. Subject-matter experts led discussions that explored the deep roots of contemporary antisemitism, the relationship between free speech imperatives and creating a safe campus for all students, and applications of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.”

Hillel International also outlined the top five topics discussed at the Summit. The five topics are listed below in bold, and each is followed by my own observations:

1. Students are feeling unsafe. This is beyond apparent, and the administrations must do a better job protecting them.

2. Universities are learning and adapting to protect Jewish students. I’m sorry, but Mama Bear is impatient. We’re talking about the safety of our kids. Don’t collect your tuition and look the other way. One of the saddest statistics discussed was that The Chicago Project on Security and Threats study found that 56% of Jewish college students felt that they were in “personal danger” over the last year. In fact, 16% of all college students agreed. Put into numbers, between two-three million college students have experienced moments of personal danger over the last year. How is that acceptable? We’re sending our kids off to college, not the IDF! How can they learn under these conditions? The same kids who suffered through COVID, now must face this? As parents, we pay the same tuition as the parents whose kids are blocking the library entrances and calling our kids baby killers. American Jewish young adults are being blamed for the Israeli government’s actions, on which they have no impact.

3. Clarifying and enforcing codes of conduct is essential for keeping all students safe on campus. If the various universities and colleges merely followed the codes of conduct that were already established, the atmosphere on campus would have been more palatable. I’d love to understand why too often they didn’t follow their stated conduct codes.

4. Difficult and respectful conversations are central to college and university education. This is an expectation at college. It’s supposed to be a safe place to experiment and learn new perspectives safely. Since October 7th, the cushions for a safe landing have been taken away. The format to discuss opposing opinions has been slashed to pieces. The universities and colleges must do a better job protecting discourse.

5. Title VI enforcement is evolving to become a critical tool for protecting Jewish students. Title VI is a section of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which prohibits discrimination in educational institutions on the basis of “race, color, and national origin,” didn’t include religion. In 2019 President Trump extended Title VI protections to antisemitic acts.

As with everything Jewish, it still is complicated, and some Jews were worried about it infringing on free speech. What can I say, it’s just how we roll. But the fact that educational institutions receiving federal funds may jeopardize that funding if they don’t protect the Jewish students should have gotten the attention of the administrations.

More hard-hitting and perhaps effective at least in the short-term, are legal actions taken by students with the help of Combat Campus Antisemitism Foundation (CCAF) and the law offices of Kasowitz Benson Torres LLP. CCAF has helped fund lawsuits brought by Jewish students against New York University, in November 2023, the University of Pennsylvania, December 2023, Harvard, January 2024, and Columbia, February 2024. Lawsuits were filed in federal courts “alleging that the universities have tolerated and enabled egregiously hostile antisemitic educational environments, including pervasive acts of hatred, discrimination, harassment and intimidation. In the complaints, the students seek injunctive relief to compel the universities to remedy their civil rights violations as well as monetary damages.”

Since money talks, we’ll see if the lawsuits get their attention for their inaction.

But why didn’t the universities act upon the threats against Jewish students?

The Jewish Virtual Library posted the May 2024 report, “Arab Funding of American Universities: Donors, Recipients, and Impact,” by Dr. Mitchell G. Bard, Ph.D, for the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise. As stated in the Executive Summary, “This report documents the substantial sums contributed by donors from Arab states and the resulting pressure on universities to avoid teaching or research that might offend them. It also flags transparency issues and the potential influence of Arab governments on U.S. universities.”

Additional facts from the Executive Summary:

Since 1981:
• Colleges and universities received almost $55 billion from foreign sources.
• Nearly one-fourth – $13.1 billion – came from Arab individuals, institutions, and governments.
• Three countries account for 83% of Arab funding: Qatar ($6b), Saudi Arabia ($3.5b), and the UAE ($1.5b).
• Arab funders made 12,342 contributions to 288 institutions in 49 states (excluding Alaska) and the District of Columbia.
• Nearly three-fourths of the contributions, worth almost $10 billion (76% of the total), do not list their purpose.

While I have no idea what was on the minds of the administrations, it does have an unpleasant smell that should be followed to understand why they were allowing a subset of their student population to suffer egregiously and publicly, even though they were repeatedly, directly advised of this fact. Even if they happened to miss the nightly news of the encampments and placards, they had to walk by them to get to their offices.

It’s been a long time that congress has threatened these universities with taking away their federal funding and the incidence of antisemitic attacks and threats have continued with impunity. The perpetrators go unchecked regardless of if they are here on Visas.

Words are important, but we’re still waiting for action by the U.S. government. The next generation of graduating students that is expected some day to run the U.S. economy, is having their education distorted and impeded with impunity.

Let’s hope new avenues for getting help for our kids open and are more effective. What could you do to help?

May You Live in Peace, שלום and سلام.