Amid a surge in anti-Semitism, a startling new survey finds that a whopping 44 percent of college students and recent graduates say they “rarely” or “never” feel comfortable identifying as Jewish on campus.
Some 81% of college students and 69% of alumni surveyed by the advocacy group Alumni for Campus Equity said they avoided certain places, events or situations, and an additional 60% claimed they had witnessed faculty members make offensive anti-Semitic remarks toward them or someone they know.
The vast majority of the 1,171 students surveyed (76%) believe anti-Semitism is getting worse, with 83% of students and alumni calling the prevalence of anti-Semitism a “very serious problem,” up from 74% who said it was a problem in the 2021 survey.
“These results, when compared to our 2021 survey, reveal dangerous trends among Jewish and pro-Israel students on college campuses,” said Avid Gordon, the group’s executive director.
“Anti-Semitism is getting worse. Students are hiding their Jewish identity,” Gordon said. “The lack of safety in both digital and physical spaces is becoming more and more noticeable.”
The group, which fights Jew-hatred and anti-Israel sentiment on college campuses, conducted the online survey from May 17-28 to gauge the reactions of Jewish students and recent graduates as the war in Gaza escalates and anti-Israel protests rock campuses.
Anonymous survey participants shared terrifying stories, including one UCLA student who said Jewish students on campus were assaulted and harassed over a period of weeks.
“We’ve heard of people running around with knives targeting Jewish students and putting up pictures of pigs to symbolize Jews. It’s crazy and rampant,” the student said.
Even more surprising were the Jewish students who alleged that their professors had made anti-Semitic remarks.
“My professor spoke at length about how there are too many Jews in medicine,” said the Southwestern State University student. “He also said that terrorism is just a big army calling out a small army. He also said that Hamas is a group of ‘freedom fighters.'”
A former student at a public university claimed a professor called Israeli students “terrorists” after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel triggered Israel’s ongoing military offensive.
The survey also found that:
- Eighty-one percent of respondents said they or a friend had received threats or anti-Semitic messages, up 10 percentage points from a 2021 survey conducted by the group.
- More than 50% of respondents said they or someone they know have been physically threatened because they are Jewish, up from 44% in 2021.
A student at a Western State University said that when the LGBT Pride committee was planning an event, social media trolls tried to remove him from the committee because he was also a member of a Jewish student organization. They said things like “Zionists shouldn’t be allowed” and that he “should be removed from the committee,” and even threatened to boycott the event for “supporting genocide.”
The one bright spot in the survey was that students who are members of Jewish organizations said they felt safer on campus.
“Students and alumni who participated in organized Jewish community events were significantly less likely to feel unsafe on campus,” Gordon said. “This reaffirms that there is safety within our community and should inspire us to redouble our efforts to support Jewish life on campus.”
