Antisemitism spreads across college campuses amid ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict
BERKELEY, Calif. (NBC, KYMA/KECY) - As the fighting ramps up between Israel and Hamas, so does the animosity on American college campuses.
Video captured showed a recent rally on campus where one person grabbed the Israeli flag from a student. There's a momentary scuffle, before police break it up.
The president of the pro-Israel student group Tikvah, Jonathan Kfir, says the tension on campus has gotten bad.
"Especially a couple weeks ago on the Friday that was called the 'Global Day of Jihad,' almost every Jewish student I know was encouraged by their parents and the Jewish community not to attend class that day and it just feels wrong," Kfir explained.
Protecting students
Over the weekend, the Dean of University of California (UC) Berkeley School of Law, Erwin Chemerinsky, writing in an op-ed, "I am a 70-year-old Jewish man, but never in my life have I seen or felt the antisemitism of the last few weeks."
At New York's Cornell University, police are guarding the Center for Jewish Living after antisemitic messages, threatening violence that were posted online.
New York's Governor Kathy Hochul vowed Tuesday to protect those students.
"But when speech crosses over into hate speech, and into hate crimes, that's when we have to make sure that students know that we'll step up and protect them," Hochul declared.
"My heart sank"
The Biden administration stepping in announcing improved cooperation between campus law enforcement and state and local counterparts to fight anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.
At American University in Washington D.C., a Palestinian internet technician (IT) specialist, Wassim Aburakia-Einhorn, says someone slid a note under his door threatening, "Go back to where you came from. You might get lucky with a missile and meet your Allah sooner."
"This whole eeriie feeling just took over. My heart sank," Aburakia-Einhorn spoke.
Back at Berkeley, some teaching assistants gave extra credit to students who attended that Global Day of Jihad rally.
Jewish students wondering why it took two days for the university to say it did not approve.
"But in that moment, as Jewish students, we didn't feel supported by the administration," Kfir expressed.
