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Campus Antisemitism Documentary Seeks to Show Jewish Students as ‘Inspirational’ Heroes, Not Merely Victims

George Washington University student Sabrina Soffer talking on stage with Noa Tishby at a GWU event highlighted in “Blind Spot.” Photo: Screenshot

A film streaming online that focuses on American campus antisemitism is told from the viewpoint of Jewish college students who had firsthand experiences with antisemitic abuse and, instead of staying silent about their trauma, are at the forefront pushing for a better, more welcoming environment at their schools.

“Blind Spot” says it is the first and only film to exclusively spotlight the existence of campus antisemitism in the United States both before and after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led terrorist attack in southern Israel and the subsequent explosion of rabid, sometimes violent campus antisemitism following the massacre. It reveals how antisemitism on college and university campuses is a longstanding problem that started well before the Oct. 7 attack and explains what can be done to help students feel safer at their schools.

The movie is available for viewing on the YouTube pages of StandWithUs and the Jewish Broadcasting Service. It has surpassed 100,000 views on both channels since premiering less than a month ago. It was directed and co-produced by Seth Kramer, Daniel A. Miller, and Jeremy Newberger of Ironbound Films.

“Blind Spot” aims to show viewers that, while antisemitism has been on college campuses for years, people “didn’t realize it, didn’t see it, and they didn’t want to see it” before Oct. 7, said executive producer Lenny Gold, whose own son experienced antisemitism in school.

The film references the “blind spot” in the context of people and universities in favor of protecting every other minority group, except Jews. The film tries to highlight the “double standard” and “injustice” that Jews and pro-Israel supporters face on college campuses, Gold said.

“Why are other groups protected and not Jews?” Gold asked. “Jews are a protected group under [Title VI of] the Civil Rights Act. So why is the law not enforced? Why is society so out of step with what the law says and what American values it should be upholding.”

“On many college campuses, even people who are committed to the civil rights of every other group in this country, often have a blind spot when it comes to Jews,” Kenneth Marcus, founder and chairman of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights, said in the film. “While the problems have gotten worse and worse, young people are taking the initiative more and more, fighting antisemitism, taking charge themselves.”

Interviews with college students began in 2021, but “Blind Spot” does include footage from incidents dating back to 2019. Filming continued until well past the Oct. 7 attack in 2023. Gold said after the Hamas invasion, “we had to pivot from making a film to educate people about a problem that most people didn’t know about before, to basically making a film that says, ‘Well, we told you so. Now we’re gonna show you how we got here.’ When we looked back at the footage we shot before Oct. 7, we thought it was even greater now post-Oct. 7 because it was more impactful and relevant and familiar to people seeing it because they would now know on their own, that we have a serious problem on American campuses.”

More than two dozen students speak in the film about their personal experiences with antisemitism at their schools, including the University of Notre Dame; University of California, Berkeley, University of Vermont, George Washington University, Tulane University, University of Chicago, Tufts University, and Baruch College of the City University of New York (CUNY). The students discuss incidents that include verbal antisemitic abuse and threats – from both teachers and fellow students – physical violence, and being targeted in boycotts by anti-Israel students.

They also experienced emotional and mental trauma. A student at CUNY’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice talked in “Blind Spot” about being harassed by fellow students in stairwells at the school and in the gym, breaking down crying in the library from the torment and taking time off from class to cope with her trauma. Another student, from the University of Vermont, ultimately decided to transfer to the University of Florida because of the vast number of antisemitic incidents at his first school, Gold revealed to The Algemeiner. The filmmakers had to persuade the student to push through his trauma and return to UVM to film a segment about the abuse he experienced at the college, Gold added. In 2023, the US Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights ruled that UVM administrators failed to respond to several complaints of antisemitism, as well as anti-Zionist harassment and discrimination, at the school.

“I’ve stayed in touch with a number of the students, and my sense is that many of them were significantly affected. There is a definite sadness that I sense,” Gold said.

“Blind Spot” highlights the heartbreaking experiences these Jewish students endured. But it also draws attention to their bravery and courage in standing up against antisemitism, pushing for a change at their schools to make them more inclusive and safer environments, if not for themselves then for future students on campus.

The featured students are not portrayed as victims but as the heroes in their own stories. They are seen taking action to make their schools more welcoming and safer for Jewish students in areas where too many school administrators allegedly failed to act. “Blind Spot” says such students “are on the front lines of a modern-day civil rights movement,” and they include Yasmeen Ohebsion from Tulane University.

When she first appeared in the film, the Israeli-Persian student admitted that she “couldn’t muster up the courage” to speak out against a professor who required students to read a writing by an antisemitic author, who promoted the narrative that Israel is a white supremacist and apartheid state. By the end of “Blind Spot,” Ohebsion is seen testifying in Washington, DC, in March 2024 in front of the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce, urging policymakers to pressure school administrators to take action against anti-Israel hostility and violence on her campus and others. Ohebsion concluded her testimony by proclaiming “Am Israel Chai” (“Long Live Israel”).

“The first word that comes to my mind is: inspirational,” Gold said of Ohebsion and other students featured in “Blind Spot” during an interview with The Algemeiner. “I don’t know that I would’ve had what it took to do what they have done. I was just blown away by each and every one of them. Their pose, courage, brilliance, articulateness, and their decision to stand up rather than just keep their heads down and do nothing and say nothing. And without them, none of the other non-students in the film would be able to help them.”

As noted by Gold, “Blind Spot” also features interviews with many non-Jewish pro-Israel supporters who are allies of these students, including Forham University President Tania Tetlow, Tulane University student Raymell Green, US Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), and Carly Gammill, director of legal policy at StandWithUs.

“Attorneys need clients. Without these students as clients, the attorneys would not be able to use the law as a tool to help the students,” Gold explained to The Algemeiner. “The students had to come forward first, and they had to do so knowing that their cases would likely not be resolved before they left school. These students knew they were doing it at best for students to come and not for themselves. And to have that kind of selflessness, at that age or any age, is just so inspirational to me and so notable. It just confirmed the wisdom of the conscious decision that we made from the beginning to tell this story through the eyes and voices of the students who were impacted by it.”

Others in the film who speak in support of the Jewish college students experiencing antisemitism is New York City Councilwoman Inna Vernikov; llya Bratman, executive director at the Hillel at Baruch College; Alyza Lewin, president of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights; Dr. Naya Lekht, a research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy; and Susan Tuchman, director of the Center for Law and Justice at the Zionist Organization of America.

“We went out of our way to show scenes of adults talking to students, to show the mentorship and the attention to address their feelings and comfort them, encourage them and support them,” Gold said. “We tried to show that these students do have some support. It’s not necessarily coming from the people it should, like school administrators, but other people are stepping in.”

Gold said he and the co-producers of the “Blind Spot” have been discussing making a film focused solely on campus antisemitism for four years, starting at a time when it was “not well-known in America, among Jews and non-Jews, but we knew it was a serious problem.”

“So, we decided to look for a way of telling the story to educate, re-educate, and inspire as many people as possible,” he added. He said throughout the making of “Blind Spot,” he and his team were determined to make a film “that was beholden to nothing but the truth and nobody but the students … the focus was on the students – first, last and always.”

“Blind Spot” not only highlights the struggles Jewish students face on college and university campuses but also calls attention to some achievements that schools have made, such as Fordham University becoming the first school in late 2016 to refuse to recognize the anti-Zionist group Students for Justice in Palestine, a move that was then later mimicked by several other schools. “Blind Spot” also features interviews with CUNY Chancellor Felix Matos Rodríguez and CUNY Chairman of the Board of Trustees Bill Thompson in which they are boldly confronted about the rise of antisemitism on CUNY campuses and the lack of action taken to combat it. The facility among the CUNY schools includes two prominent anti-Zionist and anti-Israel professors who have made what critics have described as antisemitic remarks in the past – Peter Beinart and Marc Lamont Hill.

“The evil of indifference that seems to permeate this problem, is perhaps the most shocking,” Gold said, when talking about how he felt making “Blind Spot.”

“There’s hostility, but that’s been going on for ages. There’s ignorance, but that can fixed,” he added. “But in the 21st century America, after all we’ve been through – and I’m old enough to remember the civil rights movement and Jim Crow – here we are back in the Middle Ages when it comes to Jews. How can you be in favor of civil rights and social justice for all these other groups and not for one? When you explore that question, what we heard a lot from the students is about the evil of indifference … And when you consider that school officials, people who lead large and great universities committed to the ideals of open discussion and civil discourse, cannot recognize that one group is being subjected to a hostile learning environment and discrimination in and out of the classroom, it is shocking.”

Gold concluded by saying that “Blind Spot” is in part a call to action that hopefully will inspire other college students not to remain silent in the face of antisemitism at their schools.

“This film can show all the students, who can serve as role models for future generations of students, that you’re not alone if you’re facing this problem, and you can stand up to it,” ” Gold said. “Your Jewish identity is on the line. And if that’s important to you, these are the steps that you can take, this is what you might experience and there are resources available to you.”

Watch the trailer for “Blind Spot” below.

Note: The Algemeiner‘s campus correspondent, Dion J. Pierre, is featured in “Blind Spot.”



The post Campus Antisemitism Documentary Seeks to Show Jewish Students as ‘Inspirational’ Heroes, Not Merely Victims first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War

Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa

Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.

Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.

“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”

GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’

Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.

“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.

“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.

“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.

After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”

RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL

Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”

Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.

“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.

She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”

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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests

A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco

Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.

People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.

“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”

Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.

On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.

Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.

On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.

“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.

Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.

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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan

Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas

Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.

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