On October 7, 2023, Israel endured what was not only the most destructive terrorist attack in its history, but one of the clearest, most grotesque, and most revolting episodes of human depravity in the 21st century.
The attacks lasted for more than a day. Hamas militants massacred nearly 400 people enjoying themselves at a music festival and went door to door throughout southern Israel, shooting children in front of their parents, mutilating innocent people whether they were alive or dead, and using sexual violence as a tool of fear and intimidation. Meanwhile, the terrorist organization’s military forces launched as many as 5,000 rockets into Israeli territory in a single day, with more than 25,000 launches from Gaza and beyond since.
When the initial dust settled, more than 1,300 Israelis were killed, and more than 250 were abducted to Gaza. Too many of them never came home.
But October 7’s ripple effects were felt far beyond the Levant. On the same day as the massacre, Students for Justice in Palestine, an American network of campus-based extremist groups, declared that it had “[witnessed] a historic win for the Palestinian resistance,” and announced October 12 as “A National Day of Resistance.” Six months later, universities across the United States were engulfed by a swarm of encampments, protests, and riots—all to ostensibly support Palestinian liberation—and Congress forced multiple presidents of so-called elite universities to explain themselves.
Ordinary Jewish students and faculty bore the brunt of the chaos. Activists at UCLA set up a “Jew Exclusion Zone” that prevented Jewish students from attending their classes. The university tried to fight the subsequent lawsuit. Jews at universities including, but not limited to, the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Michigan, and Tulane University reported violent attacks against them on account of their faith. Jewish institutions on campuses around the country—most notably Chabad and Hillel—suffered relentless attacks.
This issue of From the Academy is ultimately a lament, but we do not allow our lamentations to overshadow the need for decisive action.
All told, the number of reported antisemitic incidents on college campuses has risen more than 300 percent since the October 7 attacks. While antisemitism has spread like a plague across our institutions, its nexus is undoubtedly in higher education.
This issue of From the Academy is ultimately a lament, but we do not allow our lamentations to overshadow the need for decisive action. We document the historical and theoretical processes that led us to this very low point, draw attention to the worst offenders, and outline solutions designed to both protect Jewish students and defend our First Amendment right to hold and express noxious views.
More specifically, the issue includes the following:
- David Bernstein with a brief, personal history of how antisemitism and the broader Israel-Palestine conflict paralyzed college campuses;
- Ayaan Hirsi Ali with an essay discussing why antisemitism in particular is so corrosive on campus and beyond;
- Jovan Tripkovic on why Virginia’s universities catastrophically failed to protect its Jewish students;
- Andrew Pessin on his experience with apathetic or hostile faculty at Connecticut College;
- Ezra Galperin on his experience being a Jewish student at Cornell;
- An interview with one of the best minds in the study of antisemitism—Ken Marcus at the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law;
- Aaron Pomerantz on how universities failed to develop students who could resist antisemitic ideology;
- Neeraja Deshpande with a review of Shai Davidai’s new book, American Intellectual Antisemitism: The Anti-Jewish Movement Tearing Through Our Universities;
- And Michael Poliakoff with guidance on how universities can balance protecting Jewish students with preserving free speech.
This will not be light reading. The past three years have been a time of hardship, heartbreak, and pandemonium, and this issue does not shy away from that. It is unlikely that the scourge of antisemitism will ever be eradicated from college campuses—or Western society more broadly. But we can, and should, defenestrate it from the Overton window. To that end, the staff at From the Academy are honored to present this issue.
Garion Frankel is editor at the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal.