Several Jewish students spoke out against rising antisemitism at their respective college campuses in a Thursday press conference at UCLA’s Hillel, with one student saying: “We are terrified.”
The press conference was held the same day as the UC Board of Regents meeting, which was held at the Luskin Conference. The first student to speak was Sophia Brodie-Weisberg, a fifth-year student at UC Davis, explaining that the day before, she received a call from a student asking for help because he was harassed for being Jewish by a group of students while riding his bike to class. She has received multiple calls from students this past week alone about antisemitic incidents on campus.
“Reporting the incident to the university does not lead to the necessary clear, empathetic and productive response as it should,” Brodie-Weisberg said. “This was an issue before October 7 and has significantly increased since then. Jewish students report antisemitism to the campus and are either still waiting on a response––even a month after the incident––or are told that what they experienced does not warrant any action by the UC. Why are antisemitic incidents on campus not taken seriously? Your students do not feel safe on campus. Your students are in danger and are being attacked on campus.”
She added that Jewish students are avoiding parts of campus or classes altogether as well as hiding their Jewish identity. “The harassment on campus that they experience is hindering their ability to learn,” Brodie-Weisberg said. “To the regents of the University of California and the UC Davis administration, we say: antisemitism will not disappear, as long as you are soft in your condemnation and response to antisemitism on campus.” She urged for the adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism and implementing antisemitism training on campus.
Naum Yankelevich, a second-year student at UC Riverside, described the past month as being “turbulent” on campus. “Our small Jewish population is heavily outnumbered by the volume of Middle Eastern and Arab students,” he said, adding that while they typically all got along, that has changed after the October 7 Hamas massacre. “Last week, students put up banners calling for the destruction of Israel,” Yankelevich said. “The UCR Hillel, the only established Jewish organization on campus, was vandalized. Last month, at the first class after the terrorist attack, my professor promoted the third intifada without providing any context onto the situation in the region.”
He called UC Riverside’s response “half-hearted” and “reactionary” and further accused humanities teachers (Yankelevich said he’s studying to become a “critical thinker”) at the school of being “passive.” “Why are they failing to be role models when it comes to critical thinking?” he asked. “Why do they fail to address the misinformation that is becoming more prevalent by the day? We have seen what happens in the world when misinformation goes unaddressed. In this case, misinformation has resulted in broken friendships, the alienation of our students and an echo chamber where hate against Israel, Israelis, and the families of our Jewish students are normalized.”
“Unless something is done to rectify this, then fear will become the norm,” Yankelevich warned.
Elizaveata Borroum, a third-year bioengineering student at UC San Diego, said that she was the first person in her family to not be born into a country of “state-sponsored antisemitism, and yet every day I have to make the decision between my safety and my education. I’m not alone in this choice.” Borroum proceeded to share two instances of antisemitism that she has experienced on campus: during the spring, someone drew “swastikas in human feces” in a bathroom at a dormitory that housed 12 Jewish students; one of the students was someone that Borroum had mentored. The school’s response was “hollow,” Borroum claimed, as they offered words of support “but no actionable items were implemented to support our safety.”
The second instance of antisemitism, which happened after October 7, involved a student targeting and harassing Borroum over her Star of David necklace. “They made me feel unsafe and unwelcomed on campus,” she said. “I did not receive any resources from administration to help me feel safe on campus despite reporting the incident.”
Borroum elaborated on the incident further after the press conference in an interview with the Journal, explaining that she was walking to class and was wearing blue jeans and a white t-shirt when a person noticed her necklace and color scheme and assumed a “connection to Israel because of the Star of David with the blue jeans and a white t-shirt,” the colors of the Israeli flag. “He followed me, he said names, he flipped me off,” she said. “He made it so I don’t feel safe on campus over a religious symbol that I’ve worn since I was 13.” Borroum said that when she reported it to the university, she was told they couldn’t move forward with an investigation because she couldn’t identify the perpetrator.
In the press conference, Borroum urged the UC schools “to listen to us when we say that Jewish students are scared to be on campus, to be visibly Jewish. We are being targeted, harassed, and threatened for our identities … I should be in my engineering lab section right now. But instead, I chose my safety over my education today.”
Eyal Wrobel, a fourth-year student at UC Santa Barbara and president of the university’s Students Supporting Israel chapter, declared at the press conference: “Today, we are terrified. I am terrified. Terrified because a Jewish man was murdered 10 days ago in LA. Terrified because my family who was once hiding in an attic is now hiding in a bomb shelter. Terrified because so-called activists, whose hate for the state of Israel is stronger than their love for their own people, are attending the same classes as I am.” He also claimed that it took “two seven-hour sessions” for the UCSB student senate to condemn Hamas and that one of his professors “openly made fun of religious Jews while spreading lies about my people, my religion.”
“How am I supposed to learn in an environment I do not feel welcome in?” Wrobel later asked. “How am I supposed to earn a degree in a place I do not feel safe in? How are we supposed to reach peace on the land if we are not even capable of recognizing and denouncing hate 10,000 miles away from it?”
Another fourth year UCSB student, Michelle Lebowski, followed Wrobel by saying: “It has been so ingrained in people’s psyche that standing up against Jewish people is used in the façade of activists standing up for what they believe is a colonial fight for land.” Lebowski, who is on the UCSB student senate, claimed that the student governing body couldn’t vote on a resolution the night before that denounced both antisemitism and Islamophobia. “I sat there, with my fellow senators, baffled,” she said. “I have no words for that.”
Additionally, Lebowski claimed that there is a professor on campus “who is proud to be antisemitic,” noting that this professor is one of the faces featured on antisemitism watchdog website. “He continues to spread antisemitic rhetoric continuously throughout his classes without being held accountable for his actions,” Lebowski said. “This professor is not alone. It is our educators’ blame for a great of deal this. How can we continue to allow these people to educate future generations?”
UC Irvine student Daniel Avidon recounted an incident on October 26 when pro-Palestinian activists “stormed a classroom and screamed that students’ tuition funds genocide. The administration did not condemn these actions.” A Tuesday lecture on the Israel-Hamas war was also disrupted, Avidon claimed, causing “chaos and intimidated Jewish students yet again … these incidents are becoming more frequent and no action has been taken in a timely manner.”
Danielle Sobkin, a UC Berkeley student, pointed out that two Jewish students have been assaulted on camera in broad daylight. “Why? For being Jewish? For holding an Israeli flag? For openly expressing their Jewish identity?” Sobkin said. “UC Berkeley, is this a problem? A problem that becomes more evident each day as Jewish students are advised to avoid certain parts of campus at certain times, to lower their gazes during rallies, to exist unobstrusively in the shadows … is this the inclusive environment you boast of?”
She added: “We’ve been patient. We’ve been told to wait, to trust administrators to handle it. But how long must we wait?” While Sobkin acknowledged that the university has taken steps to try and address the problem, “the issue remains unsolved: there is a clear, evident distinct problem on campus. The behind the closed doors strategy isn’t working, it’s failing. It’s a strategy that breeds more uncertainty and more fear.” Sobkin urged the university to adopt “transparent decisive action” and “policies that are not just words on a page” but actively enforced.
“We must collectively reject the normalization of antisemitism,” Sobkin continued. “We must stand together not in silence but in solidarity asking for change and ensuring safety of all students. UC Berkeley: the world is watching. What we do now … will not only define our present but will resonate into our future.”
UCLA graduate student Ella Petter explained at the press conference that she moved from Israel to the United States a couple years ago for her graduate studies program. “I was impressed by the strong emphasis given for inclusivity, diversity and respect on campus towards every individual and community,” Petter said. “We were taught that words matter. I never expected that when my own community needed this protection, the boundaries of tolerance would be stretched so thin and Jewish students would feel unsafe and unwanted on campus.”
Petter claimed that there are weekly pro-Palestinian rallies on campus that “have become a platform for chants inciting for violence, such as ‘only one solution intifada revolution’ and ‘from the river to the sea.’” “Suddenly it is ‘words matter, but…’” she added. “The gaslighting that tends to downplay the impact of these words only contribute to the toxic atmosphere here. We are told there are various interpretations for these phrases, but their historical meaning is not ambiguous at all: they directly call for violent attacks on Jewish people and Israeli civilians.”
Petter also claimed that pro-Palestinian student groups on campus “circulate flyers” that “often includes imagery of weapons and stone throwing. These are direct threats targeting our communities, families and homeland.” Petter highlighted the recent video of pro-Palestinian students beating a pinata of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to show that “it is not just words anymore.”
“Personally, I’ve been avoiding coming to campus lately,” she said. “I’ve witnessed friends removing or concealing their Star of David jewelry and many, many others who once considered this campus their home feel unwelcome and questioned their belonging here.”
Hannah Schlacter, a UC Berkeley student, concluded the press conference by urging people to visit the website ConcernedCal.org, which urges the UC system to undertake a series of actions, including adopting IHRA as well as antisemitism training. The ConcernedCal.org petition specifically criticizes UC Berkeley for not classifying two alleged assaults against Jewish students in October as being hate crimes.
In response to the ConcernedCal.org petition, UC Berkeley Assistant Vice Chancellor Dan Mogulof told the Journal that in one of the October incidents, the victim “did not report that he was assaulted or struck, but, yes, there has been one case of alleged battery, and that is one case too many as far as we are concerned. I must note that what the petition claims about how both of these incidents are being investigated and pursued is simply inaccurate. While neither case was initially classified as a hate crime based on what was initially reported, UCPD keeps all possibilities open when conducting an investigation. If the investigation reveals facts that indicate a hate crime was committed, then they will update the classification. The initial classification has no bearing on the final charge.”
Mogulof added: “We do not have a campus definition of antisemitism for a good and important reason: we don’t want to inadvertently narrow or distort the possible range of antisemitic expressions or action. Our prioritization and focus is on impact, and so we have made clear to students that all that matters to the campus is whether they have been discriminated against, harassed, or hampered in their ability to pursue their education due to their Jewish identity. If they believe they have, we are telling them, they must report that to our Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination. If an action or expression results in the harassment of, or discrimination against a Jewish student that, for us, is an antisemitic act that will be responded to. In addition—and crucially—that office oversees compliance with the federal Title IV statute and every staff member is well aware that the federal Office of Civil Rights is required by law to consider the IHRA definition of antisemitism. In other words, Berkeley could not have a more expansive definition of antisemitism, and nothing is ignored once reported, and all reported incidents are responded to.”
He also said that the university acknowledges that they “can always do better” and that the university has been receiving guidance from the campus’ Antisemitism Education Initiative.
The Journal spoke with some of the students after the press conference. “The campus climate has definitely deteriorated,” Bourroum told the Journal. “A lot of the discourse has shifted away from demonstrating First Amendment rights … towards a discourse of harassment, threats of violence.” Consequently, “a lot of Jewish students are not comfortable going onto campus. A lot of students just like to do their classes online from home or from Hillel.” Bourroum herself said that she still doesn’t feel safe on campus after being threatened. “I have made the decision some days to just not go to class because of different things going on campus that day or just in general I didn’t have someone to walk with me to class,” she said.
Bourroum urged the UC regents to implement better safety measures on campus––such as an enhanced security presence––and adopting IHRA.
Petter told the Journal that the pro-Palestinian rallies often turn into marches. “You can hear it everywhere,” she said. “I have friends who attend class at Science Court and they say that’s all they hear.” Petter said that Jewish students have sent emails to university administrators complaining about the matter but have only received “generic” responses condemning antisemitism.
Lebowski told the Journal that one of her friends, who is an Israeli, saying that she was barely able to finish her midterm because she could hear pro-Palestinian protesters outside chanting, “Intifada intifada.” “That’s frightening,” Lebowski said.
Wrobel told the Journal that since the events of October 7, “people have released statements, a lot of organizations have said stuff condemning Israel and not even mentioning the October 7 massacre.” “I spend a lot of time tabling on campus trying to have a conversation with people and I feel like those people who release statements and condemn Israel, they never show up to have conversations … they see us as the devil,” he said. “At the end of the day, we’re never gonna reach peace if we’re not even capable of talking to each other.”
Lebowski said that she believes that UCSB Chancellor Henry Yang “supports us but it’s very hard because we are a public university. But the rest of the staff of UCSB is completely silent.” Wrobel argued that the university staff is supportive of pro-Israel students, but they’re scared that “releasing a statement condemning Hamas will make the anti-Israel students. It’s really not about picking a side, it’s about condemning terror and doing what’s right.” Wrobel did recall that during a recent pro-Palestinian protest on campus, some university staff supervising the protest checked on pro-Israel students nearby to make sure they were doing alright. “I think they definitely support us, but by not saying anything, that hurts us more than saying something,” Wrobel argued.
Lebowski’s message to the UC regents is that “our educators need to stand up for us because students and other professors are changing history as they see it and making their narrative truth. It’s extremely dangerous … they owe their students the respect of truth and history.”
Other speakers at the press conference included JPAC Executive Director David Bocarsly and Maya Parizer, a survivor of the Nova music festival massacre.
This article has been updated.
