Nearly 75% of Jewish Students at American College Face Anti-Semitic Comments

A new study shows that almost 3 out of every 4 Jewish students on American college campuses face anti-semitic comments or actions. One in four reported being blamed for Israel’s actions during the conflict with Hamas in Gaza in 2014.

Nearly 75% of the students “report having been exposed at one time during the past year to at least one of six anti-Semitic statements, including the claims that Jews have too much power and that Israelis behave ‘like Nazis’ toward the Palestinians”.

The study showed that the students most likely to receive anti-semitic comments or face hostility because of their faith were those who openly supported Israel.

“It is clear that anti-Israelism morphs into anti-Semitism on campus,” Leonard Saxe, principal researcher, told reporters, “but it is also likely that those who are highly connected to Israel become a target of anti-Semitic or anti-Israel sentiment because they make their support for Israel known. It is also likely that those who are more connected to Israel are more sensitive to criticism of Israel, or more likely to perceive such criticism as anti-Semitic. Political conservatives were also more likely to see hostility toward Jews as a problem than moderates or liberals.”

The campuses with the highest rates of anti-Semitism were Canadian campuses, California state sponsored schools and large land-grant universities in the Midwest.

The survey of just over 12,000 American and Canadian undergraduates is entitled “Antisemitism and the College Campus: Perceptions and Realities” and available to the public at the Brandeis University website. The study was conducted in Spring 2015.

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