When most parents send their kids off to college, their worries are ordinary. They wonder if their child will remember to wash their darks separately from whites, if they will find friends to sit with in the dining hall, and if they will manage to eat something green once in a while.
My mom worries about these things, too. But layered on top of them is a dread that no parent should carry: that her child might be harassed for wearing a Star of David, that they might hesitate before attending Shabbat, that a swastika might be drawn on her son’s Jewish fraternity, that a mezuzah on a dorm room door could be torn down in the night. This is the cruel theft caused by antisemitism. It robs Jewish parents of the luxury of ordinary fears.
Her anxieties are not unfounded; the numbers speak for themselves. In 2025, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) reported that antisemitic incidents in the United States reached record levels for the second year in a row, with over 9,000 incidents documented nationwide–an average of more than one every hour. On college campuses, the trend is just as alarming. Hillel International recorded 2,334 antisemitic incidents in the 2024-2025 school year, rising by 500 incidents compared to the previous year and a tenfold increase from 2022-2023, and the numbers continue to climb. Surveys by the ADL and Hillel International show that 83% of Jewish college students have experienced or witnessed antisemitism since October 7th, 2023. These are not abstract figures. They are the pulse of fear, steady and unrelenting, that denies Jewish parents the comfort of rest.
The reality behind the numbers is chilling. At Harvard, a freshman’s mezuzah was ripped from her doorway. At Rutgers, swastikas were scrawled on dorm walls. At San Diego State University, the AEPi Jewish fraternity house was vandalized with paint and smashed windows. And in a Stanford classroom, a lecturer ordered Jewish students to stand in the corner to illustrate “what Israel does to the Palestinians.” Eerily similar to the escalation from the 1930s preceding the holocaust, Jewish students also report being harassed for wearing Stars of David, mocked with slurs, or told to cover them up because they might offend others. From graffiti to vandalism to humiliation in the classroom, the message is consistent and cruel: You do not belong here.
Nowhere did this hostility erupt more visibly than at Columbia University. Jewish students reported being unable to walk safely to class, blocked by protest encampments, and yelled at simply for wearing symbols of their identity. In May 2025, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services concluded that Columbia had failed to protect its Jewish students, and the university ultimately agreed to a $220 million settlement to restore federal funding. If the most prestigious institutions cannot guarantee that Jewish students can enter their classrooms without fear, then higher education has failed its most fundamental test.
Some insist these tensions are political, not personal. Debating over Israel and Palestine is legitimate. But when chants call for Jewish eradication, when “Zionist” becomes a slur, when Jewish students are treated as avatars of a foreign government, the mask slips. This is not politics. It is prejudice with a new vocabulary. Universities that would never excuse racism, Islamophobia, or homophobia as “activism” too often shrug when the target is Jewish. That double standard is bigotry.
Which brings me back to my mom. She should be free to worry about whether I’ll ruin a load of whites or muster the courage to introduce myself to new friends. Instead, her worry is heavier, darker, rooted in centuries of complex history. Antisemitism has stolen her right to ordinary fears. And unless universities act decisively, it will continue to rob Jewish students of something even greater: the promise that higher education is a place of safety, dignity, and belonging.
Colleges must draw an unambiguous line: antisemitism will not be tolerated—whether in vandalism, chants, or classrooms. Codes of conduct must be enforced, hate crimes addressed swiftly, and education provided so that students learn to recognize antisemitism not only in its crude forms but in its modern disguises. Until then, Jewish parents will keep scrolling through Mothers Against College Antisemitism, swapping stories no parent should ever have to tell. And my mom will keep worrying about something far more terrifying than my laundry.
Star of David jewellry that symbolizes Jewish unification and pride.
