Hillel increasingly coming under attack from anti-Israel activists

A major Jewish student group organization is coming under increasing pressure at several colleges and universities. 

Hillel is an organization serving Jewish students at hundreds of campuses in the U.S. and globally. But anti-Israel protesters have recently been targeting Hillel chapters and trying to end their presence on their respective campuses, the New York Post noted in an Oct. 10 article. 

“We’re very concerned that this is a clear effort to undermine Jewish life on campus,” Shira Goodman of the Anti-Defamation League told the New York Post. “It’s not just limited to Hillel, it’s about really attacking organized Jewish life on campus.”

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Goodman said that the hostility towards Hillel was “demonstrative of a larger pattern of how these protests are becoming blatantly more antisemitic,” and added: “I think it’s an attempt to separate Jewish students from the rest of campus, to create an other, to ostracize, to create wedges, to make people feel unwelcome on campus.”

On Oct. 14, anti-Semitic stickers were discovered close to the Hillel building at Harvard University. The stickers compared Israel to Nazi Germany and bore the message: “Stop Funding Israeli Terrorism.”

On Oct. 9, the Students for Justice in Palestine chapter at the University of North Carolina staged a protest in which participants called for “No more Hillel,” calling it a “fundamentally Zionist network masquerading as a Jewish campus organization.”

On Sept. 3, activists targeted the Hillel chapter at Baruch College in New York City, holding a rally at the school at which they called out “Dogs off campus,” and “Baruch Hillel, go to hell.” As part of their list of demands, the activists called on the school to “cut ties with Hillel and boycott the Zionist entity.”

Hillel chapters at the University of California, Santa Cruz, as well as at Drexel and Pittsburgh Universities, were also targeted by demonstrators who called for these chapters to be terminated, reported the New York Post. 

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Hillel International President and CEO Adam Lehman told the Post: “Calls for violence toward Hillels and Jewish students, or for universities to cut ties with an organization like Hillel that acts as a safe space for so many in the Jewish community, are overtly antisemitic and equate to a campaign to erase a significant portion of Jewish life and identity on campus.” 

On Sept. 16, the Anti-Defamation League published a report showing there was a “staggering 477% increase” in “assault, vandalism, harassment, protests/actions and divestment resolutions” at campuses due to anti-Israel sentiments. 

Campus Reform has contacted the Anti-Defamation League and Hillel International for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.