The Jewish Students on the Frontlines of Antisemitism on US Campuses

September 23, 2024

by: Dror Feuer ~ Ynetnews

Monday, 23 September 2024 | “A woman ran at me screaming, ‘f*** you, Jew’ and I reported it to the school. I made it very clear how I don’t feel safe on campus. Tulane University’s response was to label ‘f*** you, Jew’ as political speech,” says Yasmeen Ohebsion, a student at Tulane University in New Orleans (one of the universities with the highest percentage of Jewish students in the US—about a quarter of the students there are Jewish).

“So, at Tulane University ‘f*** you, Jew’ is political speech but ‘f*** you, gay’ would probably lead to expulsion. ‘F*** you, black;’ forget about it. You’re not going to have a career. You’ll be kicked out. You’ll be canceled. Your life is over. Goodbye. So that is the difference. If you’re Jewish, people can do whatever they want, including physically attacking you, and still, the university does nothing.

“I watched my friends be beaten with a metal microphone and had all these bones and their faces broken. The ambulance comes, and before the ambulance can even move this Jewish student from the street into the car, there is a group of 10 maintenance people scrubbing the Jewish blood off of the street to make sure that there’s no evidence, there are no pictures [only] I have the pictures of the blood. Same thing as when someone says ‘f*** you, Jew’, they [the university] say ‘here’s a link to three sessions of free therapy. You go fix yourself.'”

“I hope you get gassed out in the basement of AEPi (a Jewish fraternity). P.S. What is your Auschwitz prison number?” Daniella Ludmir, a student at the University of Michigan, shows me a message she received. Signed: Adolf.

“I know that at MIT and also at Stanford, the school administrations paid for safe housing for Jewish students who were threatened and harassed to such an extent that their physical safety was at risk if they stayed in their dorms. They’re putting Jews in separate housing to protect Jewish safety, but they’re not stopping the bullies,” says MIT student Talya Kahn.

“[The University of Michigan] president sent emails to the entire university right after October 7 saying standing up to terrorism should not be controversial at the University of Michigan. There was a protest at his home,” says Ludmir.

“Even though we received public support from our administration, and this is not something that’s common at every university, Jewish students still feel unsafe to walk on campus because they see a giant banner all across the center of campus saying ‘Long live the Intifada.’ What are they doing to make us feel safe?

Chloe Katz, a student at Columbia University, says she’s been told that the sexual violence committed by Hamas terrorists against Israelis on October 7 was justified. “I’m a helpline volunteer for sexual violence response at Columbia and I’m also part of all of these Israeli activist groups. And so, when my group had the idea of publicizing the fact that these testimonies of sexual violence from October 7 and in captivity are being denied or pushed aside, I went to my boss in sexual violence response, asked her to collaborate on an event together and gave her our idea. They initially said ‘yes, that’s great,’ And then they stopped responding to me.

“Instead, we did a silent protest. My friends and I joined arms in front of the library, put duct tape on our mouths and held up signs that said ‘Hamas weaponizes sexual assault’ and ‘rape is not resistance.’ They screamed at us, spat at us, threatened us. But we didn’t budge.”

“I want to paint the picture for Israelis of what it’s like to be a Jew on campus right now. It feels post-apocalyptic,” says Columbia student Eli Gelb. “When you walk down the street next to Columbia, you see torn kidnapped posters. You see the pictures with swastikas drawn over them. Penises vandalizing the babies on the kidnapped poster. Every single spot is covered with stickers and posters for Palestine. ‘Free Palestine,’ ‘Zionism is terrorism’ and ‘Zionism is Nazism.’

“When you walk onto campus, it is covered with people wearing keffiyehs [Arabic traditional headdress], it is inescapable. You go onto campus during the encampment, they’re shooting flares, they’re starting fires, they’re rioting and you see the heat in their eyes. And this isn’t a small number. It’s hundreds of people gathered every single day.

“There are specific nights when you walk around and it is anarchy. Zero public safety. The entire area where Jewish students live is smothered with adults running around, ripping the flags off of the backs of Jewish students, spitting at us, throwing liquids at us, and I was physically chased off of campus with the rabbi and told to go back to Poland. I was called ‘Al-Qassam’s next target.’ But this is in the hundreds, and that’s what I don’t think they really understand. We’re small but we’re powerful. We’re not going anywhere.”

“I’ve received a lot of death threats,” says Ohebsion. “We wake up, we walk to campus and people scream at us ‘murderer’ or ‘Zionist pig’ or whatever slurs, and then you go to class and see people with keffiyehs everywhere you go. It’s an everyday problem. You get to class and your partner won’t work with you because you’re a Zionist or you either have to worry about not mentioning Israel in your paper because you’re scared to fail. These experiences impact your grades.”

“It’s exhausting,” adds Ludmir. “Everywhere you go, you see it. Even when you’re in the silent room at the library where nobody can say anything, they then open their laptop and their laptop is covered in stickers about how ‘Zionism is Nazism’ and ‘from the river to the sea’ and ‘there is only one solution Intifada revolution.’ I’m a neuroscience student; I want to learn biology and it’s hard when you hear ‘Intifada revolution’ being chanted by hundreds of students inside university buildings.”

Uncle Murdered in Kibbutz Be’eri

Yasmeen Ohebsion, Chloe Katz, Talya Kahan, Daniella Ludmir and Eli Gelb are part of a delegation of about 20 American Jewish students who recently visited Israel. They toured kibbutzim [collective communities] near the Gaza border, visited the Nova music festival site, met wounded soldiers in hospitals, heard stories of heroism and capped off their visit by meeting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other politicians.

This group is made up of activists. Yasmeen launched an initiative of roundtables on antisemitism, organized a shipment of supplies for the displaced and initiated a petition from Jewish students sent to Congress. Two of her cousins are currently fighting in Gaza.

Ludmir’s uncle, Dr. Daniel Levy Ludmir, was murdered in Kibbutz Be’eri on October 7. She, too, is a medical student, at the University of Michigan, and organized a war-awareness event attended by 1,000 people, with another 4,000 joining online. In response to her uncle’s death, she says she was met with hateful comments.

Gelb, from Columbia University, regularly stands proudly with an Israeli flag in front of pro-Palestinian protests, often enduring violence. Chloe Katz, also from Columbia, organizes rallies and educational events.

Kahan from MIT was born to a Jewish mother and a Muslim father but was raised and educated as Jewish, never doubting her Jewish identity. “I am a Jew who knows where my land is and who my people are. I may not have family here, but I am indigenous to this land. Read the Bible, man.” She founded the MIT–Israel Alliance and serves as its president.

“My first thought in the morning is Israel and the last thing I think about before I go to sleep is Israel,” says Ohebsion. “There’s no real way to know how the people are doing until you come here to the Land of Israel and see it and feel it. I really pictured Israel as a much more fractured place after October 7 than it is. I think that I felt this incredible unity among Jewish people.

“It’s been hard to go to the kibbutz, to hear people’s stories, but it’s also been reassuring to see that the shuk (market) is still full of people. People are still going to pubs in Tel Aviv, sitting on the beach.”

“When you see things like that, you understand that this land is beautiful. This group of people put their lives on hold and want to give back to this country. It feels like if I’m going to live here, I need to be part of this,” says Katz, who plans to make Aliyah [immigration to Israel] next year.

Kahn: “Being in Israel is the first time since October 7 that I finally felt like I can finally take a breath and like feel comfortable and not have to worry that there’s going to be some crazy rioters. Like when I turn the corner, they’re yelling ‘free Palestine’ and ‘bomb Tel Aviv’ wearing keffiyehs. Even though I obviously didn’t have the same October 7 experience as the people here, I feel so close with everybody, even the people I don’t know…Although the stuff that we’re experiencing on campus is not at all the same level of danger that these people are going through. But we’ve all had our lives totally changed and turned over.”

Posted on September 23, 2024

Source: (Excerpt of an article originally published by Ynetnews on September 22, 2024. Time-related language has been modified to reflect our republication today. See original article at this link.)

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