‘Dirty Jew.’ ‘Monster.’ ‘Colonizer.’– Jewish students share anti-Semitic campus encounters before Congress
On Feb. 29, the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce held a hearing during which Jewish students discussed anti-Semitism on their respective campuses.
During the hearing, each of the students spoke about intense antagonism toward Jews at their universities, particularly after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel.
On Feb. 29, the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce held a hearing during which Jewish students discussed anti-Semitism on their respective campuses.
Those who testified either attend or have recently graduated from schools like Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Columbia University, the University of California, Berkeley, Rutgers University, Stanford University, Tulane University and Cooper Union.
During the hearing, each of the students spoke about intense antagonism toward Jews at their universities, particularly after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel.
[RELATED: Students across country aware of ‘hostile environment toward Jews’ on campus: study]
Eden Yadegar, a Jewish student at Columbia, described the harassment of Jewish students at the school during her testimony before the committee.
“We have been attacked with sticks outside of our library. We have been surrounded by angry mobs. And we have been threatened to ‘Keep fucking running,’” Yadegar said. “How many more times must it be proven that unreprimanded, violent rhetoric can lead to physical violence?”
Hannah Beth Schlacter, a student of the University of California, Berkeley, used her testimony to describe an instance where pro-Palestine students “decided to violently protest” a Jewish–Israeli speaker’s event by “smashing the locked doors of the location, breaking glass, threatening the participants, and starting a riot on campus.”
“This is not a one-off,” Schlacter said. “This has been the mood and situation at Berkeley since Oct. 7.”
Joe Gindi, a sophomore at Rutgers from Brooklyn, New York, stated that anti-Semitism has also begun to spread out of control at his school.
“I’m here today because Jew hatred has become rampant at Rutgers University. It has become clear that some members of the school’s administration and faculty are complicit in allowing and even in encouraging this hate to grow,” Gindi stated. “I’m here today in the hope that my remarks will be a catalyst for action, so that Jewish students, like myself, feel safe and welcomed at Rutgers, not harassed, threatened, and invisible.”
Kevin Feigelis, a Ph.D. student at Stanford, said that he has seen his school change from a “center of learning” into a “wasteland of hatred where every interaction is a minefield.”
“‘Dirty Jew.’ ‘Monster.’ ‘Colonizer.’ Child-killer.’ These are the names we’re given at Stanford: labels that strip us of our humanity, our dignity, and our identity,” Feigelis said. “These are the names that dozens of Stanford students hurled in my face one night in November as they surrounded me. They called my people ‘dirty Jews.’”
Feigelis continued to note that Stanford has become a “university that has openly changed its policies to placate a mob.”
Campus Reform has contacted each of the nine schools listed for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
