Tracker of Antisemitic Incidents on College Campuses

Antisemitism has been on the rise in recent years and nowhere is this more visible than on college campuses where 55% of Jewish students report experiencing antisemitism and 72% report that their university does not take antisemitism seriously. In response, EMET has started a compilation of some of the more serious cases of antisemitism on college campuses in 2023. These incidents were taken from the AMCHA Initiative, an NGO that has documented more than 5,000 incidences of antisemitism on college campuses since its founding in 2015. EMET notes that due to the sheer volume of incidents, we were not able to include every case of antisemitism on college campuses in this year. This tracker will be updated monthly.

April 27, 2023: At Georgetown University, under posters celebrating Israel’s 75th independence day, posters were hung diminishing Holocaust Remembrance Day stating “Holocaust Remembrance Day was Literally Last Week” followed by posters saying “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will be Free” and “End Israeli Apartheid.”

April 24, 2023: Dozens of member of Students for Justice in Palestine at NYU Law School staged a walkout of an event on antisemitism titled “Anti Semitism: An Assault on Human Rights and Our Shared Humanity.” The students were intentionally disruptive shouting “occupation is a crime” and “Palestine will be free.” The students had previously written “Zionists not Welcome Here” in chalk in front of the law school building. 

April 20, 2023: A Swastika was found drawn in the dirt at Dartmouth College.

April 20, 2023: Students for Justice in Palestine at NYU Law held an event titled  “Teach-In: Combatting Institutional Zionism at NYU.” The advertisement for the event included the Drop the ADL campaign and the Palestinian Youth Movement. The advertisement went on to claim “Zionism weaponizes antisemitism against Palestinians and their allies, how this in turn undermines the fight against antisemitism” 

April 17, 2023: On Yom Hashoah, the Holocaust Remembrance Day officially commemorated by the State of Israel and Jews worldwide, a man held a sign at the entrance to UC Berkeley campus showing a swastika equaling the Star of David.

April 16, 2023: Columbia Law Students for Palestine released a letter titled “Speaker Watch: The Academic Engagement Network’s Speaking Tour ft Michal Cotler-Wunsh,” which demonized Israel along with accompanying material promoting the letter which demonized Zionism as “a destructive political ideology” and “settler-colonial propaganda.” The letter additionally claimed that Zionists being unsafe on campus was just a myth and that Zionism “should not be considered a protected identity.” The letter proceeded to describe the International Holocaust Remembrance Association (IHRA) as “racist and censorious” for their redefinition of antisemitism.

April 14, 2023: SJP at Arizona held an “emergency protest” on campus that included signs inciting violence ant terrorism including: “F**k Zionist Whores,” “End Israeli Apartheid,” “F**k Zionism, F**k ’em,” “F**k Colonizers,” “Globalize the Intifada,” “Victory to the Palestinian Resistance,” “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will be Free,” and “Freedom for Palestine, End Settler Colonialism.”

April 10, 2023: AMED Studies glorified convicted terrorist and PFLP member Leila Khaled in a post on the department’s Instagram page that quoted Leila Khaled.

April 1, 2023: Macaulay Peace Action and Palestine Solidarity Alliance (PSA) Hunter College held the event “The Palestinian Liberation Struggle,” promoting terrorism against Jews and Israelis.

March 31, 2023: SJP and other groups at George Washington University held a rally glorifying Palestinian terrorism. In a social media advertisement, they wrote, “Every day brings news of more martyrs” and “Long live the Intifada.”

March 31, 2023: An African American DEI director at De Anza College, who was fired from her job, details the harassment she received when she tried to make programming for Jewish inclusion. When she invited speakers to address antisemitism and the Holocaust, she was labeled a “dirty Zionist” and a “right-wing extremist.”

March 27, 2023: The menorah on the campus Chabad Jewish Center was vandalized and damaged at San Diego State University.

March 27, 2023: A mezuzah on the door of the only observant Orthodox Jew on the residence campus was torn down at Simmons university.

March 26, 2023: SJP and the Arab Graduate Student Association held a rally on campus with calls to erase Israel off the earth and that Israel is the “enemy of all humanity.” protesters also justified Palestinian terrorism by saying, “No peace on stolen land,” and “Resistance is justified when people are occupied.”

March 18, 2023: At High Point University, A swastika was found scrawled on a dry-erase board mounted to the door of a Jewish student’s dorm room, which was followed a few days later by an anonymous Yik Yak post expressing “[expletive] hate” for the Jewish student, calling out the Jewish student by name.

March 10, 2023: Swastikas and an image resembling Adolf Hitler were discovered drawn on a whiteboard affixed to a Jewish student’s dorm room door at Stanford University

March 9, 2023: In a statement on social media, Students Supporting Israel alleged that Jewish and Israeli students were barred from participating in a Q & A with Linda Sarsour at American University.

March 9, 2023: A professor allegedly told a student that “Jews aren’t the real Jews, Hebrew was a made-up language, there is no such thing as Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews, that all the Jews that were in the Middle East converted to Islam, as well as [expressed] Holocaust denial relating to the Grand Mufti” and then allegedly retaliated against the student by reporting the student for “using inflammatory language when they got mad and argued back.”

March 3, 2023: A swastika with “KKK” surrounding it was found carved into the wall of a handicapped stall of a men’s bathroom at Stanford University.

March 2, 2023: A student forcefully and abusively removed Jewish students from the host’s birthday party because the students had attended a birthright Israel trip.

February 28, 2023: SJP at Sarah Lawrence College justified a terrorist attack of seven Jewish civilians near a synagogue on Shabbat because they were “not just any Israelis but settlers from Neve Yaakov” who must “therefore be understood as agents of occupation.” 

February 28, 2023: Students at Stanford University found bathrooms vandalized with multiple swastikas, the N-word, and the letters “KKK.”

February 27, 2023: Jewish student at Arizona state university reported that his friends made remarks about him being cheap because “Jews are cheap and try to save every penny”

February 26, 2023: Goyim Defense League (GDL) dropped flyers at the University of Vermont, spreading the libel that Jews ran the slave trade.

February 24, 2023: Sacramento State University, KSSU radio station student services coordinator Aaron Wall allegedly performed a Nazi salute during a podcast episode on WWII and antisemitism, where he was assigned as a sound engineer. He reportedly made the gesture as one of the hosts, who is Jewish, referenced Adolf Hitler.

February 23, 2023: The Center for Middle East Studies at Brown University held the event “Performing Legality in Service of Colonialism: ‘Anti-Antisemitism’ as Censorship,” where one speaker, Lena Salaymeh, demonized Zionists, Jews, and Israel, claiming, “The war against antisemitism, like the War on Terror, is a war that aims to enact a forced conversion to coloniality.”

February 22, 2023: Students for Justice in Palestine at Rutgers legitimize Palestinian terrorism in a statement on social media, calling Israel a racist, colonial, genocidal apartheid state and saying that they affirm “the right of the Palestinian people to resist occupation in Nablus, al-Khalil, Jenin, and all of occupied Palestine. We remain stalwart in fighting for the liberation of Palestine…”

February 21, 2023: Anti-Zionist protestors disrupted a Tufts Friends of Israel and J-Street event titled “Roots of Peace” featuring Sarah Mandel, an Israeli citizen, and Khalil Sayegh, a Palestinian, engaging in dialogue and sharing each other’s perspectives. Protestors played loud music to interrupt the discussion and began shouting at the speakers, calling Sayegh a “slut” in Arabic and Mandel a “bitch” and a “violent piece of shit.”

February 20, 2023: Students for Justice in Palestine at Sarah Lawrence College held the screening of the film “Occupation of the American Mind,” that includes several speakers that justify terrorism against Israeli civilians as “legitimate resistance.”

February 18, 2023: A flyer was found in the bathroom at the University of Vermont from the Goyim Defense League blaming the Jews for 9/11 and using imagery encouraging violence against Jews.

February 17, 2023: People’s CUNY released a statement signed by over 24 student groups denigrating the university for past legislative hearings on antisemitism, calling it a “sham hearing organized by the New York City Council’s higher education committee” aimed at forcing CUNY to adopt policies that would erase any mention of Palestine from the university space.

February 15, 2023. SJP at George Washington University released a statement against the Title VI Complaint of discrimination against a Professor who allegedly discriminated against Jewish and Israel students and retaliated against those who reported the discrimination. In the statement, SJP claimed the statement was caused by the “Zionist lobby” and that SJP would continue to “combat Zionism on campus on all fronts.” The group added, “Long Live the Intifada.”

February 15, 2023: An individual waved a Nazi flag outside the Temple of the High Country that was frequented by Jewish students at Appalachian State University.

February 10, 2023: “Ye is Right” group tabled at the University of Florida in Gainesville, setting up a camera across from where Hillel was tabling on campus.

February 9, 2024: The dorm room of a Jewish student at the University of Denver was vandalized with the student’s mezuzah removed and pork left on the doorstep and smeared on the door.

February 8, 2023: SJP and the Leftist Union held a “Protest for Palestine” at Brandies University where chants included “From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free,” “Netanyahu is the new Hitler,” and “there is only one solution, intifada revolution.”

February 9, 2023: The English Department, The Edward Said ‘57 Memorial Lecture Fund, and the Princeton Committee on Palestine held an event with known antisemite Mohammed El-Kurd. In the event, El-Kurd referred to the Anti-Defamation League as “the Apartheid Defense League” and justified Palestinian stone throwing. Audience members shouted down a student accusing El-Kurd of antisemitism with the chants, “Free Palestine.”

February 6, 2023: The group “Ye is Right” tabled for approximately 20 minutes at the University of Central Florida.

February 2, 2023: Students Allied for Freedom and Equality (SAFE) released a statement at the University of Michigan saying “long live the intifada” and encouraging student groups to join them in declaring that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism. The statement further called the Palestinian cause “intrinsically linked to a greater body of injustice perpetrated by the corrupt global ruling class.”

February 2, 2023: “Ye is Right” group tabled at Florida International University with a large banner reading “Ye is Right – Change My Mind.”

February 1, 2023: During a student government meeting at UC Santa Barbara to discuss a “Resolution in Support of the Jewish Community and the Condemnation of Antisemitism,” an SJP member called the Jewish students’ claims of antisemitism “disgusting” and said that Israel is “one of the largest white supremacist powers” and “weaponizes a religion to hide behind and maintain their power.”

January 31, 2023: SJP at UC Davis held a vigil for Palestinian “martyrs.” In the vigil, they chalked, “until liberation we will return,” “from the river to the sea Palestine will be free,” and “glory to our martyrs.”

January 31, 2023: A SAFE protest at the University of Michigan called for intifada and included a speaker that accused Israel of “creating wars and bombing and killing people all over the Middle East.”

January 30, 2023: An anti-abortion rally at Western Washington University equated abortion to slavery and the holocaust. Activists told Jewish students that they share Hilter’s logic by supporting the right to choose.

January 30, 2023: Messages of “from the river to the sea,” “fuck Israel,” “anti-black,” and “white supremacy, ethnic cleansing, apartheid” were scrawled into the chalkboard of a class on Israeli politics at UC Santa Barbara, causing the class to move to Zoom for safety reasons.

January 26, 2023: “Ye is Right” was found chalked into multiple places at the University of Alabama. Antisemitic posts expressing holocaust denial, praise for Kanye West’s antisemitic speech and ideology, as well as other antisemitic statements were found on the social media network YikYak.

January 26, 2023: “Ye is Right” group tabled at Florida State University the day before Holocaust Remembrance Day with a larger banner saying “Ye is Right – Change my Mind.”

January 25, 2023: “No Jew Go Away” was found written on the door of the student union building at UC Berkeley. 

January 23, 2023: SJP disrupted a Zoom info session on Study Abroad opportunities in Israel at the University of Illinois at Chicago by flooding the panel with anti-Zionist questions. 

January 17, 2023: The National Lawyers Guild passed a resolution that would bar Zionist speakers, explicitly expressing that the guild would “not invite speakers who have expressed and continue to hold views or who host, sponsor, or promote events in support of Zionism, the apartheid state of Israel, and the occupation of Palestine.”

January 13, 2023: At the University of Michigan, protestors from various anti-Zionist groups led by SAFE came to campus to protest Kamala Harris’s visit. Chants included “intifada, intifada, long live the intifada,” “from the river to the sea Palestine will be free,” and “hey hey ho ho Zionoists have got to go.”

January 11, 2023: A Tulane University student posted an article to the College Dissident titled “Ye Did Nothing Wrong,” in which he claimed that Jew run Hollywood and that “most of the people who wronged Ye are Jewish.”

January 10, 2023: Flyers were distributed at the Claremont Colleges – Pomona titled “Every Single Aspect of Pornography and Hookup Culture is Jewish” blaming Jews for pornography and hookup culture as well as expressing support for the antisemitic “Goyim Defense League.”