Following one of the most tumultuous years in the university’s modern history, this new academic year has brought a sense of trepidation and even fear for students, staff, faculty, and administrators. What was most disturbing about the past year was the breakdown of the compact that bound the people who visit and work at the university into a community.
This rift began on October 7, the day Hamas committed a horrific massacre of Israeli civilians. Some students and faculty members at colleges across the country expressed support for the attack or refused to condemn it, making many Jews on campus feel very unsafe. Then, when the Israeli military campaign began to inflict thousands of casualties in Gaza, growing protests on campus expressed strong support for the Palestinian victims. Many protesters (though, sadly, not all) were motivated not by solidarity with Hamas but by support for the Palestinian cause and deep concern about the loss of innocent lives.
As we have seen UCLA And USCCampus life became tense and stressful. Relationships deteriorated, and openness to different viewpoints eroded. Administrators, caught up in the throes of a sudden, lurched from one crisis to another.
What can administrators and public officials do to prevent such incidents from recurring? We need a better way to determine what is and is not anti-Semitic in the context of mass protests against Israel. This is the question asked by a group of scholars. nexus projectRecently, many, including us, started working on it. The result was a new “A campus guide to identifying anti-Semitism in confusing times,
The guide acknowledges that anti-Semitism is a real problem in our society And That not all harsh criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic. In fact, political speech can be painful or offensive to people who strongly identify with Israel without being anti-Semitic.
Sadly, there have been expressions of anti-Semitism and boycotts on campuses this past year, leading to a feeling of uneasiness among Jewish students, staff, and faculty members, particularly those who strongly support Israel. Anti-Semitism must be condemned at every turn.
And yet it would be simplistic to reduce the protests to a malicious, anti-Semitic campaign. Just as Jewish students have felt attacked for supporting Israel, students supporting the pro-Palestinian movement have also felt attacked for their views. They have faced hostility from right-wing, pro-Israel counter-protesters, been turned a deaf ear by university leaders, and often faced violent responses from law enforcement agencies. In addition, they have often been accused of being anti-Semitic for supporting the Palestinians and criticizing Israel, even though a notable number of Jews have participated in the protests.
So how can one tell whether criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic? The guide proposes several questions to help determine this. First, does the criticism rely on traditional anti-Semitic stereotypes such as the notion that Jews are greedy or have intentions of global domination? Second, does it promote discrimination, violence, and hostility against Jews simply because they are Jews? And third, does it conflate Jews with Israelis – for example, by holding all Jews responsible for the actions of the State of Israel or by assuming that Jews support all actions of Israel until proven otherwise?
The guide uses these questions to assess some of the words and slogans commonly used in protests, including “from the river to the sea”, “intifada”, “apartheid”, “genocide” and “by any means necessary”. Are they anti-Semitic? The simplest answer is that it depends. But the baseline assumption should be No These words and phrases may be antisemitic, unless it can be established that they are associated with antisemitic stereotypes, hatred of Jews as Jews, or conflation of Jews and Israelis.
For example, the guide says the phrase “from the river to the sea” is not anti-Semitic if it proposes a single state in which all citizens, Jewish and Palestinian, have equal rights. In contrast, if the phrase calls for the elimination of Jews from the land between the Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea or for relegating them to second-class status, it is anti-Semitic.
Of course, detecting intent in speech is extremely challenging. However, in the absence of evidence, one cannot assume that the speaker intended a more malicious interpretation of the slogan. What can be done is to redouble efforts to explain to the campus community what anti-Semitism is and how deadly and pervasive it has been for millennia.
Likewise, “apartheid” is a legal term that sounds offensive to the ears of many Jews when applied to Israel, and one can vigorously dispute its applicability. But if it is not linked to traditional anti-Semitic terms, it is not prima facie anti-Semitic.
These distinctions are needed to help restore the nuance to campus debates that has been lost over the years. They can also provide essential guidance for university administrators, who feel compelled to take sides and often struggle to distinguish between legitimate political speech and anti-Semitic expression.
To rebuild the trust that has been eroded over the past year, we must focus on listening to and trying to understand different viewpoints, rather than rushing to judgment. We can start by adopting a new and careful way of distinguishing between anti-Semitism and political speech that may upset some people but is not inherently anti-Semitic.
David N. Myers is Distinguished Professor of Jewish History at UCLA. Nomi M. Stolzenberg is a professor at USC’s Gould School of Law.
