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Welcome to the second edition of Antisemitism Notebook, your weekly guide through the news and noise. Sign up here to keep receiving it and please forward to anyone you know who might appreciate it.

UP FIRST

Many liberal college students don’t want to be friends with people who support Israel — but say they’ll socialize with Jews regardless of their views on the conflict. And while more conservative students support Israel, they’re also much likelier to say it’s OK for Hamas to kill civilians — and more likely to avoid hanging out with Jews.

If this makes your head hurt, you can thank Eitan Hersh, an astute scholar of campus antisemitism whose work has received far less attention than it deserves, partly because his findings are inconvenient for partisans on both sides.

“I’m just trying to do my best to answer hard questions,” said Hersh, a Tufts University professor best known for his work on civic engagement. “But people have such strong dispositions of what the data should say.”

Hersh is right that his data, including a study released earlier this month, doesn’t match the conclusions that many people have already reached.

Hersh’s new study does not neatly conform to the conventional wisdom of many pro-Israel advocacy groups, and the arguments put forth by congressional Republicans in recent hearings, that progressive politics have driven a spike in campus antisemitism. But it aligns with his earlier research, and with a poll done by the right-leaning Jewish Institute for Liberal Values two years ago that found that progressives are more likely to take antisemitism seriously than conservatives..

Another surprise in Hersh’s study concerned the issue of whether the Oct. 7 attack was justified. Nearly 20% of students who identified as “conservative” or “Christian conservative” agreed with the statement, “All Israeli citizens should be considered legitimate targets for Hamas,” compared to 1% who described themselves as “very liberal.”

But progressives don’t get off easy in Hersh’s report, which shows that amid left-wing protests against Israel, many Jewish students are significantly less comfortable on campus than they were two years ago:

30% said they need to conceal their Jewishness in order to fit in, nearly double the rate who said that in 2022;

17% said that they had been the direct target of antisemitic comments or threats in recent months on campus;

Two-thirds of the roughly 1,000 Jewish students surveyed across 21 campuses said they believe “there should continue to be a Jewish state in Israel/Palestine”; 19% disagreed with that;

One in 10 of those Jewish students have attended a pro-Palestinian demonstration since Oct. 7, and 32% have attended an event in support of Israel.

Hersh thinks the increased hostility toward Israel may damage the reputation of schools like his own, Tufts, where the local Students for Justice in Palestine chapter celebrated the Hamas attacks.

“The kind of culture you cultivate among your students is going to affect your brand,” Hersh said. “And some families will look at a school that has a big student organization supporting Oct. 7 and say that’s just not a brand for my family.”

Why some Jews — and Israel — are praising Indiana’s governor for vetoing a bill to fight antisemitism

The Indiana legislature approved a bill defining antisemitism in the state’s education code after months of debate. Then the governor vetoed it. (Photo: Getty Images)

I mentioned in last week’s newsletter that, after more than a year of debate, the Indiana legislature approved a bill enshrining most of the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism in the state’s education code.

Many leading Jewish groups and the Israeli government consider that definition, known as IHRA, the “gold standard,” but critics say that it’s more focused on defending Israel than helping people understand antisemitism. The Indiana bill excluded the sections about Israel, something that has also been done in a handful of other jurisdictions.

The idea seems to be, “Hey, let’s just take out the most contentious sections and we can endorse the definition without making anyone mad.” But proponents of IHRA hate this approach. Including, apparently, Gov. Eric Holcomb, a Republican, who vetoed the bill on Monday, saying its language was “confusing,” and issued a non-binding proclamation endorsing the full definition.

That earned him quick praise from both the Indianapolis Jewish Community Relations Council and the Israeli consulate. “Thank you, Gov. Holcomb, for your strong commitment to fighting Jew-hatred and for your steadfast support for the State of Israel!” Yinam Cohen, the consul general, said in a statement.

NEWS & VIEWS

Former President Donald Trump campaigns for reelection in Georgia on March 9. (Photo: Getty Images)

Trump again accuses U.S. Jews of disloyalty: The former president said Monday that any Jew who votes for a Democrat hates “their religion.” My colleague Louis Keene documented every time he’s made similar accusations. [Forward]

Millions raised to sue universities over antisemitism: I wrote earlier this month about the flurry of lawsuits charging prominent colleges with antisemitism. Now, the Combat Campus Antisemitism Foundation has been created to bankroll some of the litigation. [Financial Times]

More professors join ‘sleep-in’ protests: Last week we met Ron Hassner, the UC Berkeley professor who is sitting vigil in his own office until his school addresses what he sees as rampant antisemitism. Now, at least 20 other California faculty members are pledging to follow suit. [USA Today]

OPINION | Campus antisemitism is ‘systemic’: Antisemitism is often distinguished from, say, structural racism, because it does not result in widespread discrimination in spheres like housing, education, finance or criminal justice. But David French, a conservative columnist for The New York Times, argues that “what’s happening to Jewish students and faculty at several elite campuses is so comprehensive and all-consuming that it can only be described as systemic antisemitism.” [New York Times]

OPINION | Israel is making American Jews unsafe: Rob Eshman, our senior columnist, says it’s “deeply uncomfortable” but necessary “to point out that the way the Israeli government is conducting the war against Hamas in Gaza is making American Jews less safe.” [Forward]

FORWARD FACES IN THE FIGHT:

BECCA ERIKSON & JAKE POWERS

Jake Powers and Becca Erikson outside the U.S. Capitol where they came to lobby for a new rule that would require colleges and universities to standardize how they report incidents of discrimination. (Photo: Courtesy)

Becca Erikson, a junior at the University of Cincinnati, said that she had been subjected to antisemitic comments before the Israel-Hamas war. And since Oct. 7, students who know she is Jewish or involved in Bearcats for Israel have unleashed a barrage of bile.

“Students feel comfortable making antisemitic remarks to me just on the fly,” she said. “‘You’re responsible for Jesus’ death,’ or jokes about me belonging in ovens and going back to Poland.”

Jake Powers, an education major who leads the pro-Israel club with Erikson, said he recently discovered that his Theta Chi brothers had been making rude comments about his Jewish identity behind his back, and complaining about the Israeli flag he hung outside the window of his room in the fraternity house.

He said that when Jewish students report incidents of antisemitism to the administration, school officials often treat them as political disputes. “It’s ‘conflict mitigation,’” he said. “They don’t want it to explode into a whole big thing.”

That’s why Powers and Erikson, along with 21 other students organized by Olami, an Orthodox Jewish student network, are calling on federal officials to require schools to report all incidents of discrimination in a consistent manner. They say this would give advocates a clear data set to better understand and address the problem.

“Universities are fundamentally not built to help Jewish students right now,” said Powers, an education major. “That’s why we’re coming to Capitol Hill.”

MAIL BAG

I was blown away by how many readers took time to reach out after the inaugural edition of Antisemitism Notebook and share your often-contrasting thoughts and concerns. Here’s a few excerpts from my inbox:

Antisemitism on campus? Feh. It’s just adolescent oppositional defiant disorder … Of course, it is countered by more than its share of pearl-clutching … I saw it in the 1960s, I saw it in the 1970s. Heck, I even participated in it — it was fun and gave warm tinglies of self-righteousness. — Joseph

What concerns me most is excluding/singling out Jews or institutions for even the flimsiest connections to Israel. It keeps me up at night knowing that no other group faces this type of scrutiny. — Joshua

What's keeping me up at night is the way the antiwar and pro-Palestinian voices are silenced as "antisemitic" regardless of whether or not they actually say anything antisemitic. It cheapens the word and distracts from real violence against us. — Moishe

I honestly feel that we seem meek and weak. We wait for campus police to rescue students. We cancel school events. A friend's grandson now wears his star inside. What message are we sending about ourselves? — Alan

At 78, I have had the conversation at a Shabbat table with my teen grandchildren about how one decides when it is time to go. Horrible. No one knows how to deal with this. — Deborah

What's keeping me up at night??? The future of my 9-year-old daughter and what she will experience. — Gerald

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