It happened during my first weekend at the university in New York:
three students vandalized the Israeli flag that was flying in the window of the dormitory building, next to flags of all the nations of the world.
"The Jews are a nation of murderers," they screamed, "living in a country of murderers."
The dormitory manager allowed me to choose an alternative flag of another country;
She had no more Israeli flags in stock.
Then, during one of the corona lockdowns, I moved to a new college where many Jewish students study.
I flew to Israel to visit my homeland, and when I returned for the winter semester, a terrible surprise awaited me - I was kicked out of a student support club for victims of sexual assault, and I am also a Jewish-American student.
The reason: we dared to share posts on Instagram that describe the historical connection of the people of Israel to the Land of Israel, and which, according to the club, "justify the Israeli occupation of Palestine."
"We do not support imperialism, settler colonialism or white supremacy," the club clarified in an internal group following our posts, "in order to fight sexual violence, we must oppose all forms of oppression, including the ethnic cleansing carried out in Palestine."
"The Jews are a nation of murderers," they screamed, "living in a country of murderers."
Anti-Israel demonstration in Michigan, photo: AP
Since then I have been afraid to walk around the campus or say my name to others at the university.
And I'm not the only one: in this disturbing reality live multitudes of Jewish and Israeli students who study in the USA. It's a wave of new anti-Semitism; an anti-Semitism that does not take into account the prohibition of discrimination that appears in the American Constitution, an anti-Semitism in which every Jew is considered a follower of white supremacy, and every Zionist is a murderer.
It happened at the institutions where I studied, it happened at the University of Berkeley, and it continues to happen in every state in the US. This wave of hatred, a kind of 2022-style witch hunt, is not perceived as hatred of Jews, but whitewashed as support for the Palestinians. This hatred rears its head on more and more campuses, but It is precisely those who can influence - who hesitate to come to our defense. Perhaps they are in denial, perhaps they are afraid that they themselves will be accused of Zionism, but the bottom line is clear: we, the Israeli and Jewish students in the USA, remain helpless - without support, and with a trauma that is difficult to erase.
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