Mick Hartley

In Tablet, Jewish college students reflect on seven months of fear, isolation, and growing antisemitism.

Ronnie Volman, University of California, San Diego:

I was born in Israel and have been living in the United States since I was 3. On Oct. 7, as I frantically read the news, a friend on campus told me the attack was my fault and that I am directly “responsible for bombing kids.” Another classmate told me that I can’t possibly be peaceful because “Zionists are genocidal.” Yet another tried to insist that they don’t hate all Jewish people, just the Jewish people of Israel….

Following Oct. 7, I lost countless friends and peers on campus for standing up against the undeniable rise in antisemitism, with my lived experiences as a Jewish person repeatedly undermined. I have been shunned and ostracized by a campus community that I once trusted to be an inclusive, open-minded forum for discussion. My former friends have deemed me to be a supporter of genocide, a colonizer, and an aggressor for not hiding my identity as an Israeli student. Rather than forming a ground for compassion, words such as “Zionist” and “Israeli” are now thrown around as insults….

My family escaped the Soviet Union to build a new home in Israel. The lived experiences of my grandparents as openly Jewish people in the Soviet Union now regrettably resonate with me, as I navigate my identity as a Jewish student. They fled, hoping that their children and grandchildren would not have to endure the same confrontations with rampant antisemitism. A bridge from the past to the present, I grew up listening to stories about their struggles to live openly and without fear. Now, when I FaceTime my grandmother, she shares expressions of disbelief and dismay over distant echoes of her past that have manifested into my current experiences as a student on campus. For the first time—and this is something that I am ashamed to admit—I am scared to live my life as a proud Israeli and Jewish person.

Yola Ashkenazie, Columbia University:

I was at dinner with my roommates when a text came in. “I assume you saw the photo of you on Barfnard’s Instagram?” My heart sank. I hadn’t. What photo?

I was aware that this Instagram account, associated with Students for Justice in Palestine, only posts photos of people and things that they hate. I hastily grabbed my phone and opened my Instagram app. It was a photo of me with Israeli flags. The insinuation was that I was deplorable because I appeared alongside Israeli flags. I brushed it off, assuming it might not reach many people or that most wouldn’t care much.

I was wrong. The next day, on my way to psychology class, a student stopped me. “Oh, you’re that girl,” she said. Confused, I looked back at her, and she casually added, “You know, that one that supports genocide.” With that, she continued walking. Just a few minutes later, in class, a friend asked if I had checked Sidechat, Columbia’s anonymous social-media platform. A pang of fear hit me as I opened the app and saw posts about me. “That freak show girl from the news and Barfnard,” read one. “ZioTerrorist,” read another.

While concerned friends and family warned me to be afraid of this sudden attention, what I felt was not fear but sadness. Not for myself, but for the end of productive conversation and meaningful discourse on my campus. Since October, I had been trying to convey that the loss of innocent life in both Israel and Gaza is a profound tragedy. I pleaded on national television that advocating for one group should not come at the expense of another. But it is evident that no one on campus hears me. My support for Israel has caused my peers to shut down, not listen. My support for Israel and my criticism of Hamas had branded me a baby killer and a genocide supporter.

Joey Kauffman, Williams College

At 9:40 a.m. on Thursday, May 2, I went to Paresky, Williams’ student center, to get some coffee. I had about an hour to spare before class, and I needed some caffeine. But as I was leaving Paresky, I saw someone doing something that I had never actually seen in person before: Someone was taking down hostage posters.

There were around six posters that displayed the names and photos of hostages taken by Hamas on Oct. 7. If I remember correctly, one of the hostages on these posters was Thai. The others were Israeli. Many of them were likely Jewish. Some of them looked Ashkenazi while others looked more Mizrahi. On Oct. 6, these people were living normal lives. And on Oct. 7, these people and others experienced something so frightening that it goes beyond comprehension….

For a moment, I just looked at the person taking down the posters. They were taking them down with speed and efficiency, as if this was just another part of their day. They took down the posters in the same way that I had gotten coffee in Paresky: It was just another thing on the to-do list, another task to get through.

I looked out into the crowd of students rushing past Paresky. I looked around for someone to stand up and ask this person why they were taking the posters down.

But no one did. I made eye contact with a Jewish friend of mine, someone who I know has family members in Israel and is scared about their safety. I mouthed the words “What the f–k” to him. I then realized that maybe I was supposed to be the one to say something to the person taking down the posters.

I asked if they could keep the posters up, saying that they were compliant with school rules and allowed to be there.

The person looked back at me, completely calm. They refused and said that the hanging of the posters tried to justify the genocide of Palestinians.

I said that I didn’t put the posters up but that these hostages are innocent victims.

They were already nearly done taking the posters down. “They’re settlers,” they said, and walked away.

I tried to think of something, anything, to say to express the pain in my heart in that moment. But I couldn’t say anything. I just couldn’t.

Sabrina Soffer, George Washington University:

It all began with pervasive rhetoric in classrooms, online platforms, and public spaces. Soon, our campus was littered with posters and electronic graffiti bearing hateful messages: “Zionists fck off,” “Settlers, fck off,” “Free Palestine from the River to the Sea,” “Glory to our martyrs”—thinly veiled calls for the destruction of Israel and the celebration of mass murder. Then came demonstrations echoing deliberate calls for violence: “There is only one solution, intifada revolution!” Sometimes protesters would add that this is “the final solution.”

Today, my friends and I find ourselves physically excluded from a so-called “liberated zone” on campus: an encampment exclusively for those who disavow the idea of a Jewish homeland. Self-proclaimed social justice warriors have cornered and spit on us, followed us around with cameras, and threatened to kick us off campus. When they say, “We want no Zionists here,” they really mean it.