The Worst Place for a Jew to Be What is the worst place to be a Jew in America in 2021? According to Professor Günther Jikeli of Indiana University, it is on a college campus. His statement is substantiated by three new surveys of American college students and other Jewish Americans, all reported within the last month. The Louis D. Brandeis Center (LDB), as we have posted previously, found that 65 percent of openly Jewish students felt unsafe while 50 percent hid their Jewish identity. A national survey conducted by ADL and Hillel International discovered that one-third of Jewish college students experienced anti-Semitic hate directed at them personally in the last year. Three-quarters of respondents in an AJC poll stated that reports about the Gaza attacks on Israel last year made them feel less safe as Jews in the United States. Deeper dives into the reporting further clarifies just how threatening is the atmosphere facing Jewish students on U.S. campuses. According to the Hillel/ADL survey, 40 percent of Jewish students who reported incidents to campus staff believed that their reports were brushed off and remained unaddressed. The LDB survey stated that ten percent of students were aware of physical attacks on Jewish students. The AJC reported that forty percent of American Jews changed their behavior in the last year because of the fear of anti-Semitism. These are alarming statistics. That all three organizations, LDB, ADL/Hillel and AJC, each with their own surveys and statistical analysis methods, came to identical conclusions demonstrates how grave the crisis is. Moreover, three additional factors signal that the situation for Jews on campuses will only get worse. First, the interviewed students responded at the start of the 2021-22 academic year and their comments reflected their experiences during the previous year. But virtually every campus was closed for part of the 2020-21 academic year. These attacks, verbal and otherwise, therefore occurred when students were not physically interacting. We can only imagine how much worse things will be for Jews now that campuses have reconvened in person. Secondly, in the wake of the Gaza attacks, numerous academic departments have openly pledged to integrate Boycott, Divestment, Sanction beliefs and propaganda into their academic teaching. Just to be clear: BDS advocates have stated in no uncertain terms: “The real aim of BDS is to bring down the state of Israel,” because “Jews are not indigenous to Israel and have no right to self-determination.” In other words, these signing departments are going to teach their students, and require their students to regurgitate on exams and in papers, the “facts” that Israel is an illegitimate imperialist, evil state which perpetrates ethnic genocide. Finally, the campaign against Jewish students comes at a time when virtually every other group which claims an identity of its own is permitted to define its identity which then can neither be questioned nor commented upon by outsiders. Only Jews are denied that right. Ironically proliferating safe speech/safe spaces regimes on campuses have made the problem worse for Jews. Historically and even more so today, anti-Semitism/anti-Zionism is the one hate that is permitted to be shouted aloud. As a result, Jewish students are informed by their peers that if they do not sign on to the BDS and “Israel as apartheid” platform, they will be ostracized, forbidden from joining campus government and dismissed as racist. If you think this is an exaggeration, ask Rachel Beyda at UCLA and Max Price at Tufts University, both of whom faced cancellation from student governments solely for their Zionist beliefs. We have been here before. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency, which been running articles about these surveys, has a related article on its website. The JTA article describes how attacks on Jewish students were launched at the Technical College, at the Engineering College, which had been founded by Jewish philanthropists, and at one of the nation’s most prestigious colleges, where students and faculty organized a “Day Without Jews.” In each case the university administration proved unwilling or unable to make a stand to protect Jewish students. The byline was Poland; the date was February 28, 1938.