War in Mideast inflames college campuses and raises fears of antisemitism

Someone scrawled “Free Palestine” on the exterior of a Jewish fraternity house at Georgia Tech over the weekend, next to a large image of a menorah. A Stanford University instructor reportedly asked Jewish and Israeli students to stand in the corner of a classroom. A Cornell University professor declared at a rally Sunday that, while he abhors violence, he felt “exhilarated” after Hamas militants from Gaza attacked Israel.

These and other incidents have rattled Jewish communities on campuses across America as they mourn victims of the Oct. 7 massacres and kidnappings. For decades, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has stoked passions and divisions over the rights of Palestinians and the security of the Jewish state. But the outbreak of war has elevated those tensions even further in recent days and raised new alarms about intimidation and antisemitism on campus.

“Jewish students are fearful and isolated,” said Melanie Schwartz, 20, a junior at Cornell.

Colleges and universities usually take pride in hosting demonstrations and debate, as long as no one gets hurt. Fiery rhetoric is tolerated and often encouraged as students and faculty members engage on politics, the climate, the economy, racism and war. But Jewish leaders say that too often debates over the Middle East take a problematic turn, leading to a threatening atmosphere for Jewish students. For them, that phenomenon is not new.

“The campus climate for Jewish students has been degrading over several years, and that has been aggravated by broader increases in antisemitism and virulent demonization of Israel on campuses,” Adam Lehman, president and chief executive of the Jewish organization Hillel International, said in an interview. Lehman said the climate in recent days has worsened.

After the surprise Hamas attack that left more than 1,400 people dead in Israel and thousands more wounded, the Georgia Tech chapter of Alpha Epsilon Pi hung a banner from a balcony that declared solidarity with Israel. On Saturday, its members found the pro-Palestinian message written in shaving cream underneath the banner. The message was washed off, but it left a deeper impression: Their home, the fraternity members felt, had been violated.

“We are deeply saddened by the defacing of our property that was committed last weekend,” the chapter said in a statement. “As a Jewish fraternity, we have all been deeply affected by the current events in Israel, and we are profoundly disheartened to see that this conflict has allowed antisemitism to gain a foothold on our campus. With our fellow Jews under attack in Israel, we feel that it is important to visibly display our support for the Israeli people as Jewish leaders at Georgia Tech.”

Through a spokesperson, the fraternity declined to comment further. But members hung a new and larger blue-and-white banner that said the fraternity “stands with Israel.”

At Stanford, the Jewish news organization the Forward reported last week, an instructor had asked Jewish and Israeli students in a class to identify themselves, take their belongings and stand in a corner. The apparent point of the exercise, according to the article, was to show students how the instructor believed Israel treats the Palestinians.

University leaders acknowledged in an Oct. 11 statement that they had received a report of a class in which an instructor “addressed the Middle East conflict in a manner that called out individual students in class based on their backgrounds and identities.” Stanford President Richard Saller and Provost Jenny Martinez said the instructor, who was not identified, “is not currently teaching” while the university in California investigates. “Without prejudging the matter, this report is a cause for serious concern,” they wrote.

Lehman said the incident was “hugely demeaning and intimidating” for Jewish students.

At Tufts University in Massachusetts, Micah Gritz, 21, a senior from Rockville, Md., who is a leader in a group called Jewish on Campus, said he was horrified to read an email in which a campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine used paraglider emojis to advertise a rally in nearby Cambridge. The email also praised “liberation fighters” - an allusion to Hamas militants - who had used paragliders in the cross-border attack and showed “creativity necessary to take back stolen land.”

The email “shocked to me to my core,” Gritz said. “Jewish students and Israeli students were mourning. To see these folks celebrating the death of our friends and families is beyond morally unacceptable.”

National Students for Justice in Palestine declined an interview request.

Advocates of Palestinian rights are also voicing grief and anger at the death of civilians in the Israeli bombardment of Gaza.

When Ellen M. Granberg, president of George Washington University, issued a statement last week condemning the “celebration of terrorism,” a group called GW Students for Justice in Palestine replied with a statement on Instagram: “How dare you, Ellen Granberg. How dare you call our mourning a ‘celebration of terrorism.’”

Cornell was roiled after an associate professor of history, Russell Rickford, spoke at a pro-Palestinian rally in Ithaca, N.Y. The Cornell Daily Sun, a student newspaper, and others published video of his remarks. In the speech, Rickford cited “many Gazans of goodwill, many Palestinians of conscience, who abhor violence - as do you, as do I.” But he also said many who support the Palestinian cause had strong feelings after learning of the Oct. 7 attack.

“It was exhilarating,” he said. “It was energizing. And if they weren’t exhilarated by this challenge to the monopoly of violence, by this shifting of the balance of power, then they would not be human. I was exhilarated.”

Rickford did not immediately reply Tuesday to an email from The Washington Post seeking comment on his speech.

But he told the Cornell Daily Sun that he believed the Hamas attack signaled that “the Palestinian will to resist had not been broken.” He acknowledged that in subsequent days, “we learned of some of the horrifying realities.”

Schwartz, who is vice president of Cornellians for Israel, said she found Rickford’s statements troubling. “We are concerned that an individual with such hateful views holds a position as a professor at Cornell,” she said.

Martha E. Pollack, Cornell’s president, and Kraig H. Kayser, chairman of the university’s board of trustees, rebuked Rickford in a statement Tuesday and said the university was reviewing the matter. Faculty members at universities, especially those with tenure protections, are often given significant leeway in matters of free speech and academic freedom.

“We learned yesterday of comments that Professor Russell Rickford made over the weekend at an off-campus rally where he described the Hamas terrorist attacks as ‘exhilarating,’” they wrote. “This is a reprehensible comment that demonstrates no regard whatsoever for humanity.”

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Susan Svrluga contributed to this report.