It’s truly sad that this is the new reality for young Jewish people in the United States.
The Times of Israel reports:
US Jewish teens are looking at a new factor in their college search: antisemitismEthan Smith ranks fifth in his New Jersey high school class, scored high on the SAT and aced a full slate of five Advanced Placement tests last year. On October 1, he submitted his application to a nearby Ivy League school, the University of Pennsylvania.Six days later, thousands of Hamas-led terrorists brutally murdered 1,200 people in southern Israel and abducted 253 more to the Gaza Strip, launching a war that has been accompanied by a reported spike in antisemitism in the United States — including on college campuses. About two months after that, Penn president Liz Magill told Congress that calling for the genocide of Jews wouldn’t necessarily violate the rules at her school.Magill later resigned, but for Smith, the damage was done. He withdrew his Penn application and now plans to attend his home state school of Rutgers University.“I just felt personally more comfortable there being fully who I am,” Smith said of Rutgers, which has a large Jewish population. He worried that Penn would be a place where he would be “constantly looking over my shoulder, worrying what somebody was going to do once I walked into Hillel.”Smith’s decision is emblematic of a feeling shared by many teens active in BBYO: As they look at colleges, along with thinking about academics, location and the social scene, many have found themselves weighing a new factor: Antisemitism.A new survey of nearly 2,000 BBYO participants across North America, taken in recent weeks, found that 64 percent said antisemitism on campus was an important factor in their decision regarding where to attend college. More than 60% said they had experienced antisemitism in person.
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