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Why Antisemitism, Anger and Intolerance Have Infected America’s Ivy League Colleges — Part Two
We recently examined the alarming escalation in antisemitism seen on US college campuses — specifically at the Ivy League universities of Harvard, Yale, Cornell, and Columbia — since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war on October 7.
In this second part, we will look at the remaining four Ivy Leagues, charting how America’s most elite educational establishments have become havens of intolerance, and why so many of their students harbor such hatred toward both Jews and the State of Israel.
University of Pennsylvania
Two weeks before Hamas’ barbaric rampage through southern Israeli communities resulted in the biggest loss of Jewish life in a day since the Holocaust, the University of Pennsylvania was embroiled in an antisemitism scandal when notorious Jew-hating musician Roger Waters was invited to speak on campus during an anti-Israel festival.
Waters, who is best known as a founding member of the rock band Pink Floyd and for goose-stepping on-stage while dressed as a Nazi, was asked to address attendees at the “Palestine Writes Literature Festival” before he was banned from campus following a backlash by critics who had noted that the event was scheduled to coincide with the Jewish High Holiday period, thus reducing the likelihood of Jewish students protesting antisemitic speakers.
In the lead-up to the festival, which went ahead as scheduled with Waters speaking remotely, numerous incidents of antisemitism were recorded on campus, including a swastika that was drawn inside the school’s Stuart Weitzman School of Design, and the arrest of a man who entered the Penn Hillel and screamed statements such as, “F—k the Jews” and “They killed JC,” a reference to the myth that Jews are responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus.
In light of the Waters controversy, UPenn President Liz Magill belatedly announced her personal commitment to addressing antisemitism at the college, adding: “The University of Pennsylvania has a long and proud history of being a place for people of all backgrounds and faiths, and acts of antisemitism have no place at Penn.”
How utterly hollow those words were.
In the days and weeks after Hamas terrorists murdered and kidnapped more than 1,200 Israeli civilians, UPenn has again allowed antisemitism to rear its head on campus.
The university administration’s first statement to condemn the Hamas atrocity was more than a week after the massacre took place. On Sunday, October 15, Magill sent an email to the university community. “I want to leave no doubt about where I stand,” it said. “I, and this university, are horrified by and condemn Hamas’s terrorist assault on Israel and their violent atrocities against civilians. There is no justification — none — for these heinous attacks…”
However, the email apparently only came after Jon Huntsman Jr., the former governor of Utah and former US ambassador to China, Russia, and Singapore, told Magill that his charitable organization, the Huntsman Foundation, would be pulling donations from the university over the issue of antisemitism.
For some UPenn students, though, the email’s failure to mention Palestinians was akin to not recognizing their “existence,” and they organized a mass walkout of classes in response.
Videos and photos taken of the protest show students chanting slogans such as, “Intifada, Intifada,” “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and “Israel, Israel, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide.” A handful of students reportedly harassed a rabbi who was manning a tefillin stand on the route marchers took.
Other wealthy UPenn donors have since followed Huntsman’s lead and pulled funding from the college, including Marc Rowan, who contributed more than $50 million in 2018, and Steve Eisman, who demanded his name be removed from a university scholarship.
NEW Canary Mission profile. Tara Tarawneh, a student at @Penn & writer for Penn’s student newspaper, glorified the massacre of Jews at a pro-Hamas rally: “I remember feeling so empowered and happy…I want all of you to hold that feeling in your hearts.” https://t.co/38Lj7qBtQ5 pic.twitter.com/MxDrYMLGWx
— Canary Mission (@canarymission) November 5, 2023
Princeton University
In August of this year, Israeli Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli wrote a letter to Princeton University’s senior leadership about a book that was approved to go on the syllabus of the Near Eastern Studies Department’s “Decolonizing Trauma Studies from the Global South” course.
The book, “The Healing Humanities: The Right to Maim,” written by Jasbir Puar, falsely claims that Israel harvests the organs of Palestinians and that the country has a policy of trying to maim Palestinians.
Despite the text promoting a modern-day blood libel, Princeton’s President Christopher L. Eisgruber refused to remove the text from the syllabus on the grounds that it would be “censoring” the curriculum.
“Those who disagree with a book, or a syllabus, are free to criticize it but not to censor it,” he wrote. “Such arguments are the lifeblood of a great university, where controversies must be addressed through deliberation and debate, not administrative fiat.”
However, one must question the sincerity of Eisgruber’s view about fighting censorship, considering the fact that under his tenure, Princeton scrubbed the name of America’s 28th President, Woodrow Wilson, from its public policy school on the basis that Wilson’s “racist thinking and policies make him an inappropriate namesake for a school or college whose scholars, students and alumni must stand firmly against racism in all its forms.”
Incidentally, as Michael Goldstein pointed out in the Jewish Journal, the inclusion of Puar’s antisemitic tome in the curriculum actually marked the second time the “Israelis harvest Palestinian organs” blood libel had been legitimized on campus. Just months before the Puar controversy, professional Palestinian activist Mohammed El-Kurd, who has accused Israelis of eating Palestinian organs and lusting after their blood, was paid to give the Edward Said lecture at the university’s English Department.
Many in Princeton’s undergraduate student body have also been gunning to pass a resolution in support of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, which seeks to isolate and eventually dismantle the Jewish state.
What followed a March 2022 vote on BDS was reminiscent of something out of a banana republic. In total, 44 percent of students voted in favor, 40 percent voted against, and 16 percent abstained, which was supposed to mean the resolution immediately failed, because abstentions prevented a majority.
However, a dispute ensued about how abstentions would be counted, with Eric Periman, then-president of the Princeton Committee on Palestine (PCP), which sponsored the resolution, arguing the pro-BDS camp had won.
Around the same time that PCP was pushing for Princeton to support BDS, the group made crystal clear its real target when it held a protest outside the campus Center for Jewish Life (CJL), in which protestors held signs with phrases commonly used by Hamas such as, “from the river to the sea” and during which PCP President Periman suggested Princeton’s Jewish students were complicit in human rights violations.
Dartmouth College
Two pro-Palestinian students were arrested at Dartmouth last month after they allegedly trespassed on the grounds of the university’s Parkhurst Hall late at night and threatened to “escalate” and take “physical action” against college administrators in a document titled the “Dartmouth New Deal,” which demands the school divest from “Israeli apartheid.”
“You have until the first day of the winter term to publicly address our demands and outline a plan to meet them. If you fail to do so, we will escalate and take further action,” the document reportedly warned.
The arrests followed at least one pro-Palestinian rally in which attendees reportedly chanted, “Israel is a terror state.”
Breaking News:
Around 1AM today, Hanover Police arrested two pro-Palestinian protesters who were camped on Parkhurst Hall’s front lawn, charging them with a misdemeanor for criminal trespassing. The two students were released on bail later in the morning. pic.twitter.com/PSNBncJ0SC
— The Dartmouth Review (@DartmouthReview) October 28, 2023
However, while Dartmouth has grappled with more isolated incidents of anti-Jewish hatred on campus, including a swastika being carved on the college green and a public menorah being shot at with pellets, it should be noted that the general response by the university leadership to the Israel-Hamas war last month has been commendable.
Spearheaded by a group of Middle Eastern academics at the college, two public forums were set up on October 9 that featured professors from Israel, Lebanon, and Egypt discussing the conflict, which were attended by hundreds of students in-person and online.
Encouraging students to attend the forums, the university’s President Sian Leah said: “I watched with growing horror the Hamas attack on Israel this weekend, the escalating violence, and the devastating loss of life, especially among civilians… In every conflict, one of the most important roles a university can play is to help us understand it, and to make a space for dialogue and community.”
Leah’s dither-free response to the attacks, which was in stark contrast to the leaders of so many other colleges, was a welcome change from her predecessor Philip Hanlon, whose role in attempting to hire BDS-supporting Professor N. Bruce Duthu as Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences had been criticized as another “chapter in the school’s history of anti-Semitism.”
Brown University
Brown’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), an organization that has a well-documented history of disseminating vicious anti-Israel propaganda and vilifying Jewish students, was already organizing pro-Palestinian campus protests as Hamas terrorists were still cutting their bloodsoaked path through southern Israel.
In addition to organizing several student walkouts, the group posted on October 12 a statement to its Instagram account in which it claimed Israel was responsible for the Hamas massacre, and stated that it stands in “solidarity with the Palestinian resistance against Israeli occupation.”
At one such campus rally, an SJP member was captured on film telling the crowd: “Palestinians will die for justice and will die to return to our land. Glory to our martyrs from the river to the sea … Palestine is the hope of the world.”
Apparently, explicitly supporting a proscribed terrorist organization that is sworn to the destruction of both Jews and Israel is not enough to get the group banned from Brown’s campus.
Although Brown University’s President Christina H. Paxson has opposed calls for the college to adopt a pro-BDS stance, the school’s response to antisemitism among the Brown community has been criticized, particularly after several high-profile incidents at the college over the past two years, including swastikas drawn around campus and antisemitic threats directed toward Brown Hillel.
It is not so difficult to explain why so many students — many of whom would proudly describe themselves as “anti-fascist” — are so intolerant toward Jews and Israel.
Wall Street Journal columnist Barton Swaim described the scenes on American campuses as a product of the Marxist theories that have been taught for decades in higher education establishments:
That’s why they particularly hate Israel—a wealthy nation among neighbors whose poverty is relieved only by oil revenue. Israel is the one country in the Middle East where ordinary people stand a good chance of creating prosperity for themselves and their families. For modern progressive academics, weaned on the Marxian concept that wealth is the result of exploitation, that is precisely the reason for Israel’s guilt. They can’t behold its prosperity without concluding that the Jews have stolen their wealth from their neighbors.”
And that is the crux of it: for American students, Israel and Jews are privileged, and privilege is the new original sin.
The post Why Antisemitism, Anger and Intolerance Have Infected America’s Ivy League Colleges — Part Two first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran Criticizes Arab-Islamic Summit Statement, Flags Objections After Doha Meeting
Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Emir of Qatar, attends the emergency Arab-Islamic leaders’ summit in Doha, Qatar, Sept. 15, 2025. Photo: Hassan Bargash Al Menhali / UAE Presidential Court/Handout via REUTERS
Iran has criticized the final statement of the Arab-Islamic Summit held in Doha on Monday as insufficient, in the wake of last week’s Israeli attack targeting the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Qatar.
In a statement released shortly after the summit, Iran reaffirmed its “unwavering support for the Palestinian people and their right to self-determination,” while arguing that a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict cannot adequately address the Palestinian issue.
According to the Iranian delegation, “the only real and lasting solution is the establishment of a single democratic state across all of Palestine, through a referendum involving all Palestinians inside and outside the occupied territories.”
On Monday, Qatar held a summit of Arab and Islamic nations in the aftermath of last week’s Israeli strike on Hamas, with leaders gathering to express support and discuss regional responses.
The Sept. 9 strike targeting leaders of the Palestinian terrorist group in Doha marked a significant escalation of Israeli military operations, reflecting Jerusalem’s broader efforts to dismantle the terrorist group amid the ongoing war in Gaza.
Expressing solidarity with Qatar, summit leaders condemned Israel’s strike, labeling it “cowardly, illegal, and a threat to collective regional security.”
In the final statement, the heads of state declared that “an assault on a state acting as a neutral mediator in the Gaza crisis is not only a hostile act against Qatar but also a direct blow to international peace-building efforts.”
Alongside the United States and other regional powers, Qatar has served as a ceasefire mediator during the nearly two-year Gaza conflict, facilitating indirect negotiations between the Jewish state and Hamas.
However, Doha has also backed the Palestinian terrorist group for years, providing Hamas with money and diplomatic support while hosting and sheltering its top leadership.
During the summit, Arab and Muslim leaders called for a review of diplomatic and economic relations with Israel while firmly opposing any attempts to displace Palestinians.
In the final statement, the heads of state also emphasized resisting Israel’s efforts to “impose new realities on the ground,” urged enforcement of International Criminal Court (ICC) warrants for Israeli leaders over war crime allegations adamantly denied by Jerusalem, and coordinated actions to suspend Israel’s UN membership.
Although Iran participated in the summit and endorsed the declaration, its delegation issued a separate statement shortly afterward clarifying that doing so “must in no way be interpreted, explicitly or implicitly, as recognition of the Israeli regime,” reaffirming its rejection of the Jewish state’s right to exist.
Iranian leaders regularly declare their intention to destroy Israel, the world’s lone Jewish state.
The statement also stressed that the Palestinian people have the right to employ “all necessary means to achieve their inalienable right to self-determination,” emphasizing that backing this cause is “a shared duty of the international community.”
As the heads of Arab and Islamic states convened for a summit on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned he did not rule out further strikes on Hamas leaders “wherever they are.”
During a diplomatic visit to Israel, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio expressed strong support for Israel’s position, even as Washington previously voiced concerns over the strike in Qatar, a US ally.
Speaking alongside Netanyahu, Rubio said the only way to end the war in Gaza would be for Hamas to free all hostages and surrender. While the US wants a diplomatic end to the war, “we have to be prepared for the possibility that’s not going to happen,” he said.
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“Your Name Was Included”: UC Berkeley Cooperating With Trump Administration, Admits to Disclosing Names
Students attend a protest encampment in support of Palestinians at University of California, Berkeley during the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Berkeley, US, April 23, 2024. Photo: Carlos Barria via Reuters Connect
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) is cooperating with the Trump administration’s inquiry into campus antisemitism, providing materials containing the names of some 160 people identified in disciplinary reports and other official documents.
As first reported by The Daily Californian, UC Berkeley’s official campus newspaper, the university’s Office of Legal Affairs notified every person affected by the mass disclosure, writing to them on Sept. 4.
“Last spring, the [US Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, or OCR]] initiated investigations regarding allegations of antisemitic harassment and discrimination at UC Berkeley. As part of its investigation, OCR required production of comprehensive documents, including files and reports related to alleged antisemitic incidents,” chief campus counsel David Robinson wrote. “This notice is to inform you that, as required by law and as per directions provided by the UC systemic Office of General Counsel, your name was included in report as part of the documents provided by OGC [Office of General Counsel] to OCR for its investigations on Aug. 18, 2025.”
He added, “These documents contained information about reports or responses related to antisemitic incidents.”
Anti-Israel activists told the Californian that the university is helping the Trump administration hunt witches.
“I think the message was sent to anybody has who has ever been accused of antisemitism, which of course, includes a lot of Palestinians,” one said, claiming that he has been falsely accused. “Whenever we teach about Palestine, it usually leads to an investigation. I think they flagged and sent all of that information to the federal government.”
Students for Justice in Palestine, infamous for its ties to jihadist terror organizations, also criticized the move, charging that the administration had promised to conceal their identities and thereby obstruct the government’s inquiry.
“Chancellor Rich Lyons should not have given assurances that he wouldn’t be giving our information to the federal government,” the group said. “Beyond that, he should never have bowed down so easily. I would think that a university that prides itself on being this liberal haven would at least stand up to a fascist like Donald Trump.”
UC Berkeley came under scrutiny in 2024 after a mob of hundreds of pro-Palestinian students and non-students shut down an event at its Zellerbach Hall featuring Israeli reservist Ran Bar-Yoshafat, forcing Jewish students to flee to a secret safe room as the protesters overwhelmed campus police.
Footage of the incident showed a frenzied mass of anti-Zionist agitators banging on the doors of Zellerbach. The mob then, according to witnesses, eventually stormed the building — breaking windows in the process, according to reports in The Daily Wire — and precipitated the decision to evacuate the area. During the infiltration of Zellerbach, one of the mob — assembled by Bears for Palestine, which had earlier proclaimed its intention to cancel the event — spit on a Jewish student and called him a “Jew,” pejoratively.
Other incidents, including the university’s employment of a lecturer who tweeted antisemitic images — one of which accused Israel of organ harvesting, a blood libel — the rewarding of academic benefits for participating in anti-Zionist activity, and the banning of Zionist speakers from Berkeley Law, have raised concerns about anti-Jewish hated on campus. In 2017, The Algemeiner ranked UC Berkeley as number five on “The 40 Worst Colleges for Jewish Students.”
In August, an Israeli professor sued the university, alleging that school officials denied her a job because she is Israeli — a claim its own investigators corroborated in an internal investigation, according to her attorneys at the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law.
Filed in the Alameda County Superior Court, the complaint is seeking justice for Dr. Yael Nativ, who taught in UC Berkeley’s Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies as a visiting professor in 2022 and received an invitation to apply to do so again for the 2024-2025 academic year just weeks after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre across southern Israel.
A hiring official allegedly believed, however, that an Israeli professor in the department would be unpalatable to students and faculty.
“My dept [sic] cannot host you for a class next fall,” the official allegedly told Nativ in a WhatsApp message. “Things are very hot here right now and many of our grad students are angry. I would be putting the dept and you in a terrible position if you taught here.”
Berkeley’s Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination (OPHD) later initiated an investigation of Nativ’s denial after the professor wrote an opinion essay which publicly accused the school of cowardice and violations of her civil rights. OPHD determined that a “preponderance of evidence” proved Nativ’s claim, but school officials went on to ignore the professor’s requests for an apology and other remedial measures, including sending her a renewed invitation to teach dance. After nearly two years, the situation remains unresolved.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Israel Issues Travel Warning Ahead of Jewish Holidays Amid Rising Attacks, Discrimination Targeting Israelis Abroad
A flag is flown during a protest in support of Palestinians in Gaza, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, outside the European Parliament, in Strasbourg, France, Nov. 27, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Yves Herman
Israel has issued a travel warning ahead of the upcoming Jewish high holidays and the second anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, atrocities, alerting citizens of heightened terrorist threats against Israelis and Jewish communities abroad.
On Sunday, the National Security Council (NSC) urged travelers to stay alert, cautioning that the two-year anniversary of the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel could trigger attacks by Iran-backed or Hamas-linked terrorist groups targeting Jews and Israelis abroad.
“The recent period has been characterized by continued efforts to carry out terrorist attacks against Israeli and Jewish targets by the various terrorist organizations (most of them led by Iran and Hamas),” the NSC said in a statement.
“Oct. 7 may again serve as a significant date for terrorist organizations,” the statement read.
Israeli officials warned that the threat mainly stems from Iran and its terrorist proxies, which have increasingly targeted Jews and Israelis beyond Israel’s borders.
In recent months, the NSC reported that dozens of plots have been thwarted, even as violent incidents — including physical attacks, antisemitic threats, and online incitement — have continued to rise.
“With the war ongoing and the terror threat growing, we are witnessing an escalation in antisemitic violence and provocations by anti-Israel elements,” the NSC said in its statement.
“This trend may inspire extremists to carry out attacks against Israelis or Jews abroad,” it continued.
According to the NSC, Iran remains the leading source of terrorism against Israelis and Jews worldwide, acting both directly and through proxies such as Hamas and Hezbollah.
“Iranian motivation is growing in light of the severe blows it suffered in the framework of ‘Operation Rising Lion’ and the growing desire for revenge,” the NSC said in a statement, referring to the 12-day war with Israel in June.
Amid rising tensions over the war in Gaza, Israeli officials have previously warned of Iranian sleeper cells — covert operatives or terrorists embedded in rival countries who remain dormant until they receive orders to act and carry out attacks.
In light of this reality, the NSC also warned that social media posts revealing ties to Israeli security services could put individuals at risk of being targeted.
“We advise against posting any content that suggests involvement in the security services or operational activities, including real-time location updates,” the statement read.
This latest updated warning comes amid a growing hostile environment and a shocking surge in anti-Jewish hate crimes targeting Jews and Israelis worldwide.
Across Europe, Israelis are facing a disturbing surge of targeted attacks and hostility, as a wave of antisemitic incidents — from violent assaults and vandalism to protests and legal actions — spreads amid rising tensions following recent conflicts in the Middle East.
On Saturday, a 29-year-old Israeli and his sister were attacked by three Palestinian men while on vacation in Athens, Greece.
According to local media reports, the two siblings were walking through the city’s center when three unknown individuals carrying Palestinian flags approached them, shouting antisemitic slurs.
The attackers assaulted the Israeli man, a disabled Israel Defense Forces (IDF) veteran, scratching him, throwing him to the ground, and striking him with their flagpoles, while his sister attempted to intervene and protect him.
October 7 is a global war against Jews & Israelis.
Pro-Palestinian radicals just attacked an Israeli man in Syntagma Square, Athens. via @N12News https://t.co/IZR2IdNrUI pic.twitter.com/9S2o4IjtO6
— Eylon Levy (@EylonALevy) September 14, 2025
Greek authorities arrested all five individuals involved in the incident. According to the Israeli man’s father, his son was placed in a cell with 10 Arabs, where he was reportedly beaten again and feared for his life.
In a separate antisemitic incident earlier this year, a group of Israeli teenagers was physically assaulted by dozens of pro-Palestinian assailants — some reportedly armed with knives — on the Greek island of Rhodes.
After leaving a nightclub, the teens were followed to their hotel, where they were violently assaulted, leaving several with minor injuries.
In another example of rising anti-Israel sentiment and hostility toward Jewish communities, one of Britain’s most prestigious military academies, the Royal College of Defense Studies, announced Sunday that it will bar Israeli students from enrolling next year, citing concerns over the war in Gaza.
In Belgium, two IDF soldiers attending the Tomorrowland music festival were arrested and interrogated by local authorities following a complaint from the Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF), an anti-Israel legal group that pursues legal action against IDF personnel, accusing them of involvement in war crimes.
According to HRF, the soldiers were seen waving the flags of the IDF’s Givati Brigade, which they claimed has been “involved in the systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure in Gaza and in carrying out mass atrocities against the Palestinian population.”
In France, a 34-year-old Algerian man was sentenced to 40 months in prison for threatening passengers with a knife and making antisemitic death threats after boarding a train at Cannes station.
In another incident earlier this year, a Jewish man wearing a kippah was brutally attacked and called a “dirty Jew” in Anduze, a small town in southern France.