Reports of antisemitic incidents on U.S. campuses have climbed precipitously in the 2021-22 academic year, the Jewish Agency said in a new report published over the weekend.
According to the data, the number of incidents reported rose from 160 the previous year to 230.
The report joins 70 personal accounts of antisemitic abuse on U.S. campuses shared by Israeli Jewish Agency representatives at the annual summit of the Israeli American Council (IAC) held in Austin, Texas.
Or Bar-Noy, an Israeli envoy to the University of Michigan, recounted to the attendees – including Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli and Jewish Agency Chairman Doron Almog – about flyers he saw claiming the COVID-19 pandemic was a Jewish plot. The brochures also argued that Jews controlled U.S. media and Disney.
Orit Isilov, an envoy to California’s UC Davis, said she encountered signs on campus that claimed that “the Holocaust is a lie invented against white people, and Communism is a Jewish plot.”
Dana Avishar-Karskeen, an envoy to Virginia Tech University, said that students walking around campus wearing a skullcap or a necklace with a Star of David would be called out and mocked by “white supremacy” supporters.
Natti Shtsupak, head of the Jewish Agency campus envoy program, emphasized that “antisemitic incidents are not a new phenomenon on U.S. campuses, but a distinctive increase in incidents has occurred in recent months.”
She added: “Antisemitism comes from the left – in the form of progressive pro-Palestinian groups, and from the right – with fascist groups. The incidents are abnormal in their frequency and character.”