Many college campuses across the United States have become hotbeds for antisemitism, as HonestReporting has documented extensively in our recent
series. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) reported that there were
155 antisemitic incidents on college campuses in 2021, a 21 percent increase from 2020. With the 2021-2022 academic year behind us, let’s examine some of the more noteworthy and perhaps less documented antisemitic incidents which impacted Jewish students across America.
1. Rutgers’ Alpha Epsilon Pi Fraternity House Egged on Holocaust Remembrance Day Two Years in a Row
On
Yom Hashoah, AEPI at Rutgers was the target of
a series of antisemitic incidentsfor the second consecutive year. During the fraternity’s annual 24-hour reading of the names of those who died in the Holocaust, its house was egged by two unidentified perpetrators. This same incident had occurred during the previous year’s Yom Hashoah ceremony. Days prior to this year’s egging, multiple cars full of people waving Palestinian flags drove up to the fraternity house, where they launched an antisemitic verbal assault, calling the fraternity members “terrorists” and “baby killers.”
2. Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at Tufts Promotes Discriminatory Boycott of Jewish Clubs on Campus
Tufts University has a troubling history of antisemitism, and a string of events over several months this year unfortunately reinforced this notion. SJP at Tufts consistently promoted antisemitic rhetoric and blatant lies about Israel throughout the year, including the launch of an
“Israel Apartheid Week,” painting “End Israeli Apartheid” on the school’s landmark cannon, and denigrating Hillel in a published
statement that contended that, “Hillel cannot both support a genocidal, settler-colonial state and be committed to every student feeling accepted and treated with respect.”
Accusing Hillel of supporting a “genocidal” state directly falls under the widely adopted
IHRA working definition of antisemitism, which holds that “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” is inherently antisemitic. Most notably, the Tufts Observer published
an article by SJP, calling on students to
boycott a variety of Jewish clubs which “normalize or benefit Israel,”including
J-Street, an organization that has repeatedly stated its support for a two-state solution.
3. Jewish Student at University of Central Florida Beaten, Berated and Pepper Sprayed by Protestors Wearing Swastikas
In February, a Jewish student at the University of Central Florida was driving past a rally being held by the white supremacist, neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement. One of the members spat on the student’s car, sparking an altercation that led to multiple members of the group
beating and pepper spraying the student, and subsequently throwing the student’s phone down a storm drain. According to video footage from the scene, the NSM members were shouting antisemitic slurs throughout the attack. The three main perpetrators were arrested shortly thereafter.
4. Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Student Senator at University of Southern California (USC) Posts Virulently Antisemitic Messages on Social Media
USC student Yasmeen Mashayekh, formerly a diversity, equity and inclusion senator for the university’s Viterbi School of Engineering, posted a plethora of
antisemitic posts on social media throughout the academic year. Some of the posts 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. These posts sparked outrage at USC — that is, for everyone but the university itself.
Other than a
halfhearted apology via Twitter from the School of Engineering, the university failed to issue any sort of statement or condemnation of the blatant antisemitism. This prompted sixty faculty members to sign
a letter calling upon the university administration to end its silence in regards to “ongoing open expressions of antisemitism and Zionophobia.”
(full article online)
Many college campuses across the United States have become hotbeds for antisemitism, as HonestReporting has documented extensively.
honestreporting.com