What It's Like Being Jewish at Harvard - WSJ Editorial

[question everything]

Antisemitism has emerged on America’s college campuses recently in a way that might seem sudden, but it has been growing for years. The Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance last week published a report that compiles testimony, much of it anonymous, from 50 current and former Jewish students and faculty. Here are a few of the disturbing things they said:

• “Harvard signals that Jews are only acceptable so long as they don’t fully embrace Judaism.” The only way to cope is “not to dress ‘too Jewish,’ request the university accommodate Jewish holidays, speak Hebrew, or, God forbid, actually support Israel’s right to exist.”
• “It’s so much harder for the students who are visibly Jewish. I have a friend who wears a kippah who was physically cornered by a group of students demanding he denounce the so-called genocide.”
• “Because of my Jewish and Zionist identity, people think I am a monster. I have heard people say, ‘Zionists should be slain.’ I have heard people say, ‘You can’t possibly believe an Israeli, they are all settlers.’”

The report says bullying of Jewish students took place well before Oct. 7, when Hamas massacred Israelis civilians and precipitated the current war in Gaza. But since then, the problem has become “louder, prouder, and more visible.” While fellow students have been responsible for much of the problem, the Jewish alumni also document how it’s fueled by the Harvard professoriate and the school itself.

(snip)

Progressives claim to draw a line between anti-Zionism and antisemitism, but the two are impossible to disentangle in these student encampments, amid the chants about freeing Palestine “from the river to the sea.” As one student put it: “Zionist is a code word for Jew.” Harassment is the same no matter the language.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-its-like-being-jewish-at-harvard-israel-students-406242e4?st=4cupa9if9r3spa9&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink