As many of you have probably read, heard about, or experienced firsthand, the war in Israel has spilled over — at least rhetorically — onto American college campuses. This week, we asked some of our Wise college students to reflect on their experience(s) over the past few weeks and beyond.
It was a Friday afternoon. I sat at my desk to finish a paper before I welcomed Shabbat by lighting the candles and singing the prayers in my apartment. I live on the 11th floor of my building. All my windows were closed.
I began typing and was immediately interrupted. “Glory to our martyrs,” they shouted outside my window. “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free! Glory to our martyrs!” My fingers could no longer find the keyboard of my computer. Chills took over my body. I felt my heart beating faster. I began to sweat.
Just two weeks after the world witnessed the largest and deadliest attack against Jews since the Holocaust, students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison gathered to honor the massacre and praise the sadistic killers. I could not escape these chants. Where would I go? I was already in the comfort of my apartment, and yet the hate-filled, antisemitic chants of my classmates seeped through my windows and into my space. No, it’s not the same as retreating to your safe-room in your apartment in Ashkelon or Tel Aviv for safety when a rocket flies overhead, but the explosive and hateful words that I hear on my college campus are finding their targets and causing pain and destruction.
It’s not just what we are hearing from fellow students–some of them Jewish–who are showing up in great numbers daily at demonstrations and walk-outs on our campuses. It’s what we are not hearing from university leadership. It is that these acts of antisemitism are becoming normal and sometimes even encouraged.
Shortly after the October 7th massacre, I waited patiently for school leaders to stand up for their Jewish students. Three days had gone by, 72 hours of fighting off terrorists in Kibbutzim across the southern border and uncovering hundreds of dead bodies, and still no word from the Chancellor or any body of leadership. I took it upon myself to email each and every one of my professors. I have come to realize that Jewish students have to be their own advocates. In all honesty, I emailed my professors because I was scared. I was scared to walk into class and face the reality of what it means to be a Jewish student on campus today.
Here’s what it means for me: fear that you will walk into your calculus class and the professor will begin the lesson by honoring the bravery of the Hamas “freedom fighters,” having to change your route home from class to avoid the mob of students holding signs that say: “Resistance is Not Terrorism;” being filled with sorrow as you watch your homeland being forced to go to war without any recognition of the sheer evil that has made war necessary.
When the message finally came from the university Chancellor on October 11th, I read each sentence carefully, waiting for the words that would demonstrate empathy for what Jewish students on campus are going through. In the entire 554-word email sent to all students, faculty, and staff of the University of Wisconsin-Madison (a list of over 100,000 people), the words “Jew” or “Jewish” never appeared. A story of terrible antisemitism was told without mentioning the targets. It is with this same ignorance and manipulation that professors and student organizations on campuses throughout America can march on campus property, inciting hate, violence, and antisemitism with no consequence.
Jews are the only people who can be terrorized, raped, murdered and then erased. If the targets of these demonstrations were any group other than Israelis and Jews, universities would not hesitate even for a second to put an immediate end to them. Imagine a group of students gathering in great numbers in front of the library of any campus in America to express sentiments that were racist or homophobic–no university president would let such an incident go by without strong condemnation. Where is that same sense of justice and determination when we are targeted by hate and indifference?
For Jewish college students in the United States, it feels like there are no safe-rooms to hide in, no escape from the deep antisemitism present at the same institutions that pride themselves on diversity, equity, and inclusion. Since the war started, I have promised myself that wherever I see hatred expressed against Israelis or Jews, in the classroom or on the commons, I will stand up for my people. Why? Because I do not have any other choice. As of today, neither the Chancellor nor any other university leader has condemned the antisemitism that seems to be flourishing on campus.
This isn’t how I imagined my college experience to be. I will graduate in a few short weeks from this institution, having lost almost all sense of community on campus. This war has proven to me that the only real community in which I feel safe is my Jewish community. In the past three weeks, I have gathered with the Jewish community several times to pray, to sing songs of peace, to grieve, and to be reminded of the power we have together.
I will leave you with this: never in my life have I felt more strongly about my Judaism. The love and support fostered within our community is unlike any other. We are a strong people, a people of love, hope, and peace. Being Jewish is the best thing that I am, and I will never let anyone break that. Am Yisrael Chai. B’yachad n’natzeiach — together, we will prevail.
Ariela Zweiback
University of Wisconsin-Madison
