The anti-Israel protests and tent encampments on campuses have largely dissipated, but for Jewish students, faculty and staff across America, fear and intimidation have not.
While the visible chaos of large-scale demonstrations of the past few years is no longer as prevalent, campus life for Jewish students is far from normal. They face daily, relentless pressure to hide their Jewish identity. Students are left wondering whether the institutions that claim to champion inclusion actually accept and protect them.
Holocaust Remembrance Day is not an occasion when most universities would choose to silence a former hostage. The student government at the University of California, Los Angeles, didn’t get that memo.
The Undergraduate Students Association Council decried a Jewish student organization for hosting Omer Shem Tov, a 23-year-old Israeli abducted by Hamas terrorists from the Nova music festival and held in underground tunnels for nearly a year and a half. UCLA student leaders condemned the event as “selective platforming of narratives that obscure the broader reality of ongoing state violence.” The Hillel event on April 14 was peaceful and attended by the university’s own chancellor.
Shem Tov’s response was measured, but powerful: “If you are willing to silence a survivor of 505 days in captivity to protect a preconceived narrative, it is worth pausing. When a worldview requires you to override your own values, something is misaligned.”
UCLA also released a statement rejecting the council’s position: “The condemnation of such a peaceful event to share a story of resilience in the face of extreme suffering is antithetical to our values.” University of California regent Jay Sures slammed the student government leaders as “lunatics.”
A week later, UC Berkeley Law’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter hosted Palestinian terrorist Israa Jaabis via a video call. She was convicted of detonating a car bomb in Jerusalem in 2015, severely burning herself and Israeli police officer Moshe Chen. She was released weeks after the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, in exchange for Israeli hostages.
With visible scarring on her face, the Palestinian terrorist “thanked students for listening with their hearts. It makes us liberated Palestinian prisoners feel supported.”
The Lawfare Project called the event “institutional normalization of terrorism.” Unlike UCLA, Berkeley’s administration offered no criticism, citing only its obligation to the First Amendment.
Hidden price: Jews concealing their identity
One young Jewish woman in an elite liberal arts institution described her new reality: “I have lost every relationship I had prior to 10/7 with my fellow students and friends. My new friends are either unaware that I am Jewish and Zionist, or have not brought it up yet to litmus test me.”
Her experience is far from unique. Jewish Women International recently released a report on the experiences of more than 500 young Jewish-American women since Oct. 7. Many of the 20- to 34-year-olds shared similar stories of exclusion on American campuses in dorms, classrooms and dining halls:
- A Jewish student walking through campus wearing a Star of David necklace was taunted;
- Two students were chased back to their dorm by students shouting anti-Israel statements after attending a Shabbat dinner at Hillel;
- One student described how she carefully monitors what she says in the classroom to “not upset the teacher” and risk lowering her grades.
Another young Jewish woman shared her growing anxiety: “I feel scared to express my Jewish identity and intimidated to talk about anything Jewish-related in public. I removed my last name from my Uber accounts, so drivers do not know my religion.”
In the survey, 88% of Jewish women reported experiencing antisemitism since Oct. 7, and 75% said their mental health suffered as a result.
Incidents of abuse against Jewish students increasingly affect K-12 students across America. At a San Francisco-area high school, Eden Horwitz enrolled in a program promising “intersectional education, solidarity and inclusion.” What followed was the opposite, according to a recent lawsuit. The school did not offer Holocaust education, and Eden stopped wearing her Star of David necklace on campus. Classmates branded her as a “Zionist,” using the Jewish term as a slur, according to one of the student’s attorneys.
The academy’s lead teacher asked Eden if her classmates did not like her because she is “Jewish or just unlikable?” When she and her mother reported the harassment, the school retaliated, removing her from the program entirely. The Jewish teen is suffering from severe anxiety and depression; her grades plummeted, and she lost her chance at an athletic scholarship.
Beyond the classroom: From campus to career
As graduation season approaches—and with it, the likelihood of politicized commencement speeches and protests—Jewish students will walk across stages at many universities that too often failed them. They will enter a job market where many feel they must continue to hide.
Among young Jewish-American women surveyed, 18% removed Jewish-related content from their résumés not because it was irrelevant, but because they feared it would cost them opportunities. Some abandoned career plans entirely, retreating to Jewish organizations as “safe havens” where their identity would not be a professional liability.
The increasing hostility has not broken this generation. For many, it has clarified exactly what they stand for: 75% of respondents said their connection to Judaism has grown stronger since Oct. 7, and 60% feel closer to Israel.
Points to consider:
1. Campus antisemitism never went away; the cameras did.
The encampments that shocked the nation made headlines. The congressional hearings that followed made news. But when the cameras moved on, the harassment did not. Encampments recently emerged at Occidental College and Smith College. Activist students, professors and staff are still attacking, intimidating and silencing Jewish students. A recent Jewish Women International survey found that 88% of young Jewish-American women have experienced antisemitism since Oct. 7. The story did not end. Only the coverage did.
2. Moral failure: condemning a hostage while applauding a terrorist.
On Holocaust Remembrance Day, UCLA’s student government condemned a Jewish organization for hosting a former hostage who survived 505 brutal days in Hamas captivity. Days later, UC Berkeley Law students applauded a convicted Palestinian car-bomber during a video call. When a survivor’s testimony requires a content warning, but a car bomber’s message draws applause, something has gone profoundly wrong at the universities entrusted with educating the next generation.
3. There is a difference between protecting speech and promoting terrorism.
Free-speech protections exist to prevent the government from silencing dissent, not to compel universities to celebrate those who commit violence. There is a meaningful difference between what an institution is legally required to permit and what it chooses to platform, promote and applaud. Jewish students are told their events are too provocative, too one-sided and too costly to host. Pro-Palestinian activists who openly call for violence against Jews and Israelis face little scrutiny. That is not a free-speech principle. It is a double standard.
4. What starts with Jews does not end with Jews.
When universities tolerate the silencing of one group, they establish a precedent for silencing others. History is unambiguous on this point: The targeting of Jews has never remained confined to Jews. Those who stand aside when Jewish students are silenced, pushed out and condemned are not protecting anyone. The same institutions, the same mechanisms and the same logic that exclude Jews will eventually exclude others. Communities that believe in genuine inclusion cannot selectively apply it.
5. Adversity has strengthened Jewish identity.
The harassment, hidden necklaces and scrubbed résumés tell only part of today’s story. Across America, young Jews are emerging from the post-Oct. 7 period with a deeper connection to their faith, their people and their identity than before. Pressure has not produced surrender; it has created clarity. This generation knows exactly who they are and what they stand for. That is not despite the adversity, but because of it.
