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.

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.”