The Times of Israel reports: The City University of New York in Brooklyn, Northwestern University and many of the schools in the University of California system were found to be among the most hostile campuses for Jewish students, with high rates of anti-Semitic harassment and anti-Israel activity.
According to a major study at Brandeis University into anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiment on US campuses released this month, these universities were considered “hotspots” for such activity.
The study was conducted by researchers at the Maurice and Marilyn Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies and was based on findings from a survey taken in the Spring of 2016 among Jewish undergraduate students at 50 US campuses. All the students selected for the study were US applicants to the Birthright-Israel program, whether they attended the free 10-day trip to Israel or not. Of the more than 19,000 surveys send out to the Birthright applicants, 4,010 were completed which provided the basis for the study.
According to the report, the campuses were not selected randomly “but were purposely sampled based on the estimated size of the campus Jewish population, geographic diversity, public/private status, selectivity, and prior evidence of high levels of anti-Israel hostility or anti-Semitism.”
At the university campuses labeled hotspots, a majority of the Jewish students surveyed said that they “perceive a hostile environment toward Israel,” with one-quarter saying they felt “a general environment of hostility toward Jews” on their respective campuses.
Read more here.