'I've Been Called a Nazi on Campus': US Jewish Students Come to Israel to Gain Tools to Fight Antisemitism

JERUSALEM, Israel – As antisemitism surges, a movement is underway in Israel to reverse the trend, especially on American college campuses. Student leaders from top universities, including UCLA, Brandeis, Rutgers, Yale, and NYU, arrived to gain first-hand insight into the aftermath of the October 7th, 2023, massacre and kidnappings at the hands of Hamas, and the hatred for Israel and the Jews that multiplied during the war.

Michael Eglash, co-founder of ambassadors.com, told CBN News, "So they can go back to campus more confident to refute the lies of genocide, the lies that Israel is a racist country, and educate and inspire other people to stand up for Israel and stand up against antisemitism."

They visited areas directly affected by the war along the Gaza border and the Golan Heights, as well as Judea and Samaria, also known as the West Bank, which are at the forefront of the battle ahead.

"The trip is very intense, and it's designed and planned and built with very much a lot of intention to really shake them, but also to give them the right information to be effective activists on campus," Eglash explained.

He added, "You know: for them to see what they saw, to hear the stories and hear about the atrocities, and to meet the heroes and the victims, and then take that information back with them and be more effective pro-Israel leaders on campus."

Eglash, a campus activist himself in the 1990s, believes antisemitism was as big a problem then as it is now.

He told us, "Nothing has really changed. We just have social media. We have more media, and it's elevated and amplified."

The students come from different backgrounds and have had various experiences on their campuses. Even though many have Israeli relatives, the trip was still an eye-opener.

Julia Shulman from Connecticut College revealed that she's experienced antisemitism and anti-Zionism in her class curriculum and from the rhetoric of her professors.

Her highlight here was going through Judea and Samaria.

"Going to the site and the land that people are disputing and talking about was extremely eye-opening for me. We talked to people who actually live there, live in Jewish communities in area C (the area of Judea and Samaria outside Palestinian enclaves, home to 500,000 Jews). We got to see a lookout point where we could see the entire country of Israel all the way from, you know, the Gaza and the Gaza Envelope all the way to Haifa, and Tel Aviv was in the middle.

Shulman continued, "It was very impactful. I think I'm going to use a lot of the knowledge that I've learned and the experiences that I've learned from that day, going back to campus."

Another notable moment for Shulman included biblical Shiloh, where archaeologists have uncovered many ancient treasures.

"Just seeing the historical roots of the Jewish people in the land gave me a lot of it, very empowering,  and gave me a lot of firsthand knowledge and experience that is really undisputed. You can't dispute the ruins that you find when you dig up in the land of Shiloh."

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Virginia Tech's Yoav Kaelter told us that at his school, there's a very small Jewish group facing a large Arabic and Muslim population, driving the point home about Israel even more.

"We have to just be more confident, be strong. Just like Israel and the Middle East is surrounded by all of these Arabic countries. And all these times in the past, we faced hardships, and we faced all of them attacking us at once," he said. "We've still stood by, and by quality, not quantity. So, that's just like what I've learned here. And I hope to be able to bring that back to campus and just be proud and just – even if I'm one voice and they're 100 – I can still be louder than all of them."

While here, Kaelter enjoyed meeting people from different backgrounds, ethnicities, and cultures.

"He explained, "Learning that and being able to go back to my campus and seeing, like, yeah, I've talked to all these different people, and I've learned all these different things. You've only seen videos online. You know, who are you to tell me I don't know what I'm talking about? So, that's been really nice."

Oregon State Senior Yael Raich asserts that life was normal on campus for her until October 7th, 2023.

"I mean, I've been called a Nazi on campus, like I was tabling for October 7th this year, like to bring the hostages home. I was giving like, flowers out on campus, and people came up to me and called me a Nazi for doing that," she recalled.

For Raich, listening to stories from the other students on the tour had a big impact on her.

She observed, "Because, as much as I can say that I dealt with my fair share of antisemitism on campus, I think other kids have dealt with more – like there's some students who go to Canadian schools and the kids who have gotten physically assaulted or had their Hillel buildings burnt down and like things that are just like, absolutely horrible that I couldn't imagine."

Raich had never been to biblical Judea and Samaria, and something she saw in Jerusalem had a message she wants to convey.

"I saw specifically, like, a banner when we were outside of President Herzog's house that said, 'All we want is to give peace a chance,' she told us, and added, "And I think I just want to relay that, like, message to people at home or just tell them to listen to the stories and listen to people, because as soon as you start humanizing a subject and making it not something that's miles and miles away, people start to understand things more than if it's just something like on the other side of the world, a conflict that you have no personal connection to."

Dan Garniek from the University of California, Santa Barbara, said he's encountered pro-Palestinian protests and blatant anti-Semitic incidents, especially if they hear him speaking Hebrew.

"It's important that, you know, you can't really defeat anti-Semitism," he stated. "What you can do is build yourself up, be strong, and be able to take care of it."

Garniek's most important time came during their meeting with leaders at the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. There, he saw the work needed unite the different student groups.

"And because of the fact they're fighting seven fronts, sometimes you can get lost in the fact that you're fighting eight fronts, and there's a front on the campuses, and it's something that I, as a student, have to take responsibility for," he insisted. "And I urge my community, and not even the Jewish community, but the community that knows how to stand up to terror, knows how to stand up for what's right, what's morally right, to take action."

Visiting Kibbutz Be'eri, one of the hardest-hit communities on October 7th, gave Garniek new insight.

"It was a very difficult experience," he recounted, "Seeing all the burnt houses and hearing all the stories, and I gained so many new perspectives during this trip, and I feel like I'm truly ready to come back to campus and fight the antisemitism."