Targeting Hillel, Antisemites and Anti-Israel Activists Push to Undermine Jewish Life on Campus

Hillel International, the premier Jewish on-campus organization that supports Jewish life at hundreds of colleges across the United States and abroad, has been one of the most frequent targets of anti-Israel activists and other antisemites in recent months, totaling more than a hundred incidents in the U.S. since Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. Jewish students and Hillel staff members have received threatening emails and phone calls; Hillel buildings have been vandalized and tagged with graffiti; and Hillel-sponsored events have been protested; and in some cases, anti-Israel student groups have even launched campaigns demanding that Hillel be banned entirely from universities.

Most recently, on July 19, 2024, an anti-Zionist student group at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee posted a message on social media declaring that “ANY organization or entity that supports Israel is not welcome at UWM,” calling out Hillel and the Jewish Federation by name. The post went on to ominously state that these organizations “will be treated accordingly as extremist criminals. Stay tuned.”

The university administration quickly denounced the threatening language, but UW-Milwaukee Popular University for Palestine — the group that published the original post and also served as a key organizer of the anti-Israel encampment at the school earlier in the spring — doubled down on its rhetoric in a follow-up post that reiterated that Zionist groups “will not be normalized or welcomed on our campus.” The group’s statement was endorsed by UW-Milwaukee’s chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) and others.

The university has since temporarily suspended the SJP chapter and those of SDS and YDSA.

This extreme anti-Zionist rhetoric that seeks to target and marginalize mainstream Jewish organizations reflects a concerning trend that has taken hold across the United States since October 7. This sentiment has manifested in direct actions against the American Jewish community on the ground and online. College campuses, in particular, have been a hotbed of antisemitic rhetoric and activity.

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