Following the brutal Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, Jewish students at Columbia University were chased out of their dorms, received death threats, spat on, stalked and pushed against walls as the Ivy League school turned into a cesspit of anti-Semitic hate.
New and disturbing details have come to light. A 91-page long document A report released Friday by the university's faculty-led anti-Semitism task force revealed just how pervasive hatred is on campus.
“Students described being shoved, thrown to the ground, and reprimanded for supporting the Zionist cause, and watching as Israeli flags were burned,” the task force authors wrote.
“They detailed seeing swastikas painted on their dorms, students shouting pro-Hamas slogans, and being denied access to public spaces and opportunities simply because they were Jewish and Israeli.”
The report, which included testimonies from nearly 500 Columbia students, found that visibly Jewish students were nailed to walls and had their jewelry stripped as they entered or left synagogues, and some said they were spat on and subjected to racist slurs on campus.
One student who had placed a mezuzah at the entrance to her dormitory before the Israel-Hamas war was forced to leave after people began banging on her door at all hours of the night since October, demanding an explanation for the Jewish state's war in Gaza.
“If I walked across campus right now wearing a star, or put on a kippah, or said 'Am Yisrael Chai,' it might start World War III,” one anonymous student said.
The report said instructors tasked with guiding and advising students were instead fostering feelings of isolation and insecurity among Jews and Israelis on campus.
One professor teaching a course detailing the Israel-Hamas conflict called a former IDF student a killer, while another detailed two Jewish donors to the university who “laundered” “dirty money” and “blood money.”
As protests and encampments rocked the university's Morningside Heights campus throughout the spring, protesters, including outsiders and university officials, shouted death threats at Jewish students, while demonstrators who carried Israeli flags recalled being assaulted.
“We feel a personal threat and are constantly on guard,” Omer Lubaton Granot, a master's student and father of a young child, told Israeli radio after protesters occupied the academic building Hamilton Hall in April.
City Councilman Eric Dinowitz (D-Bronx) called the students' testimony “horrifying, but not surprising.”
“As the report states, we were hearing these stories even before the encampment,” he told The Post, adding that anti-Semitism had been on the rise on college campuses even before Oct. 7.
“Without any influence [for students and faculty] This kind of behaviour will continue in the future.”
The task force made several recommendations to address the issues detailed in its extensive report, including improved anti-bias training for students and staff and a new system for reporting complaints about anti-Semitism.
The report was released just days before Columbia's fall semester was to begin and less than three weeks after embattled President Minouche Shafik abruptly resigned, citing a “tumultuous period” that marred his brief tenure at the university.
Interim President Katrina Armstrong It is called He called the disturbing incident “completely unacceptable” and announced a raft of new initiatives at the university in line with the committee's recommendations.
“This is an opportunity for us to acknowledge the harm that has been done, make the reforms necessary to make amends, and recommit ourselves as university leaders, as individuals and as a community to our core mission of teaching and research,” she said.
