Targeting Hillel, Antisemites and Anti-Israel Activists Push to Undermine Jewish Life on Campus

Hillel International, the premier Jewish on-campus organization that supports Jewish life at hundreds of colleges across the United States and abroad, has been one of the most frequent targets of anti-Israel activists and other antisemites in recent months, totaling more than a hundred incidents in the U.S. since Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. Jewish students and Hillel staff members have received threatening emails and phone calls; Hillel buildings have been vandalized and tagged with graffiti; and Hillel-sponsored events have been protested; and in some cases, anti-Israel student groups have even launched campaigns demanding that Hillel be banned entirely from universities.

Most recently, on July 19, 2024, an anti-Zionist student group at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee posted a message on social media declaring that “ANY organization or entity that supports Israel is not welcome at UWM,” calling out Hillel and the Jewish Federation by name. The post went on to ominously state that these organizations “will be treated accordingly as extremist criminals. Stay tuned.”

The university administration quickly denounced the threatening language, but UW-Milwaukee Popular University for Palestine — the group that published the original post and also served as a key organizer of the anti-Israel encampment at the school earlier in the spring — doubled down on its rhetoric in a follow-up post that reiterated that Zionist groups “will not be normalized or welcomed on our campus.” The group’s statement was endorsed by UW-Milwaukee’s chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) and others.

The university has since temporarily suspended the SJP chapter and those of SDS and YDSA.

This extreme anti-Zionist rhetoric that seeks to target and marginalize mainstream Jewish organizations reflects a concerning trend that has taken hold across the United States since October 7. This sentiment has manifested in direct actions against the American Jewish community on the ground and online. College campuses, in particular, have been a hotbed of antisemitic rhetoric and activity. 

Antisemitic Targeting of Hillel-Affiliated Individuals and Property

Since October, antisemites and others have frequently targeted members of the Hillel community or Hillel property. The ADL Center on Extremism has tallied incidents on dozens of US campuses over the past 10 months.

Many of these incidents have included references to the Israel-Hamas war, engaged in a classic antisemitic practice of holding Jewish people around the world accountable for the actions of the State of Israel. 

On October 13, an individual on a bike yelled, “Fuck the Jews” as he passed students marking Shabbat in the front yard of Hillel at the University of California, Davis. At Ohio State University on November 9, two individuals entered the Hillel building, vandalized two Israeli flags that were on display in the lobby, and yelled expletives and anti-Israel statements at staff. 

On February 2, Jewish students eating Shabbat dinner at the Ohio State University Hillel were interrupted when other students allegedly began banging on the windows and shouting, “Free Palestine.” At the University of California, Riverside on February 16, an individual entered the Hillel building and harassed students, yelling, “Free Palestine,” “Fuck the IDF” and “You are terrorists.”

Hillel employees and Hillel-affiliated accounts have frequently received threatening and conspiratorial notes via email, phone, text message and social media since October 7, often referencing Israel or other common antisemitic slogans. 

An antisemitic email sent to a Hillel chapter on November 23, 2023. (source: reported to ADL)

A week after Hamas’s attack, Jewish students and Hillel staff members at Miami University in Oxford, OH received antisemitic emails that stated, “The best Jew is a dead Jew.” 

Later in October, Hillel employees in multiple states received antisemitic emails stating, “Israel did 9/11.” In November, a Jewish student at the University of Texas at Dallas received anonymous antisemitic and anti-Zionist text messages that included comments such as, “Death to Jews.” In January, staff from Hillel and the Office of Jewish Life at Lehigh University and Lafayette College in Pennsylvania received several harassing messages, including one that threatened to bring members of Hamas to campus.

Also in January, at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, the Hillel chapter received an email that read: “In the name of the innocent Palestinian women and children who have been raped and murdered en masse by the Satanic U.S.-backed IDF, I will be shooting any and all Jewish students and/or teachers I can find on campus.” At the University of Denver, a Hillel employee received a threatening antisemitic text message that included “I will not feel guilty sending you all back in time to die in the holocaust [sic].” 

“Free Palestine” graffiti discovered at the University of California, Riverside Hillel on November 7, 2023 (left; source: reported to ADL) and at the Texas Hillel building at the University of Texas, Austin on March 13, 2024. (right; source: Instagram).  

Hillel buildings have also been frequently vandalized with similar antisemitic and anti-Zionist messages and some have been tagged with slogans like “Free Palestine” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”

Posters, signs and other displays on Hillel property commemorating those who were killed or kidnapped on October 7 have been defaced and damaged. In February, an antisemitic flier was placed on the University of Virginia Hillel that included the words: “Go back to Europe, Free Palestine.” 

Campaigns and Protests Seeking to Ban Hillel from Campuses

Calls to ban Hillel are in effect calls to fundamentally undercut Jewish life on campus for students and community members. These demands emerged earlier in 2024 and, as previously reported by ADL, became increasingly prevalent during the wave of anti-Israel student encampments that began in April.

In some cases, demonstrations in support of these explicitly antisemitic demands have been coupled with antisemitic tropes and imagery. 

In late February, anti-Israel protesters at Hunter College, part of the City University of New York (CUNY) system, held a protest to declare “Zionist donors and financiers out of Jewish campus life.” In announcing the protest, organizers — including Not In Our Name (NION) CUNY, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) Barnard/Columbia, Palestine Solidarity Alliance (PSA) of Hunter College, Jews Against Zionism at NYU, and others — wrote: “Hillel International has played a critical role in indoctrinating Jewish youths into Zionism and distorting values of Jewish community…We call upon New York City Jewish students, alumni, staff, and faculty, to join us in raising our voices against this insidious multi-billion-dollar project and to join the call in divesting from Zionism, standing in solidarity with Palestine, and building new Jewish campus spaces free from racist violence.”

At the protest, demonstrators addressed Hunter College’s Jewish community, chanting: “Jews on campus pick a side!” These chants echoed age-old antisemitic tropes accusing Jews of disloyalty. 

At the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) in March, anti-Israel students and faculty protested a “Jewish Unity Walk” hosted by the school’s chapters of Hillel, Chabad, Alpha Epsilon Pi, and StandWithUs. Protest organizers stated: “Let’s make it clear…zionism [sic] is not welcome on our campus.”

This declaration was emphasized later in the spring when the UCSC SJP chapter and other groups launched an encampment on May 1 and explicitly called for UCSC to “cut ties” with Hillel. Jews Against White Supremacy (JAWS) at UCSC and Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP) at UCSC reiterated this demand in a lengthy Instagram post on May 9 under the headline “Why universities must cut ties with Hillel.”

A social media post calling for universities to cut ties with Hillel, shared by Jews Against White Supremacy (JAWS) and Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP) at the University of California, Santa Cruz on May 9, 2024. (source: Instagram)

Similar demands were made by students at the School of Visual Arts in New York, NY. When they began a sit-in at the university’s administrative building on May 2, the school’s SJP chapter demanded that the university “cut ties with Hillel International and any other Zionist institutions.”

The SJP chapter disparaged Hillel as “an explicitly Zionist club” and attacked the organization for facilitating Jewish students’ travel to Israel via the Birthright program. In another published statement, sit-in organizers reaffirmed: “We demand that the school doesn’t foster a space for zionist [sic] organizations such as Hillel.”

At Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA, students launched an encampment on May 18 and demanded that the university “immediately terminate Drexel's chapter of Hillel, a global zionist [sic] campus organization,” as well as Drexel’s chapter of Chabad, another Jewish campus organization. The list of demands further stated that these “organizations must be replaced by non-zionist [sic] Jewish ones that in no way support the ongoing genocide, occupation, or apartheid in Palestine or are funded by such.”

Similarly, when University of Pittsburgh anti-Israel students relaunched an encampment on June 2, they explicitly called for the university to “REJECT the normalization of ties with the Zionist regime. Namely, CANCEL all official partnerships with organizations promoting the normalization of apartheid and occupation. Immediately terminate Pitt’s chapter of Hillel.”

On June 5, anti-Israel student groups across several New York City universities held a “Rally against Hillel” at Baruch College, part of the City University of New York (CUNY) system, to declare “no fascists on campus.” Co-sponsors included SJP at Baruch College, SJP at FIT, CUNY for Palestine, Not In Our Name (NION) CUNY, CUNY Gaza Solidarity Encampment, Palestine Solidarity Alliance (PSA) of Hunter College, Within Our Lifetime (WOL) and others. The protest announcement stated: “As part of the CGSE’s [CUNY Gaza Solidarity Encampment’s] 5 Demands, we demand CUNY sever its partnerships with Hillel International for its direct complicity in genocide in Gaza.”

A social media post shared by organizers of an anti-Hillel protest at Baruch College in New York, NY on June 5, 2024, states protesters’ demand that “CUNY ends all partnership with Hillel International.” (source: Instagram) 

Both on social media and in person, protesters inserted inverted red triangle imagery (which since October 7 has frequently been used to glorify Hamas violence against Israel and Zionists) into the Hillel logo alongside the slogan, “It is right to rebel; Hillel go to hell!” Protesters were also seen wearing headbands bearing the logos of U.S.-designated terror groups Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP); chanting slogans like “Hillel, Hillel, what do you say? How many kids did you kill today?”; and carrying a banner depicting antisemitic imagery of a swastika inside a Star of David.

Protests Against Hillel-Sponsored Events and Related Actions

Numerous Hillel-sponsored events on college campuses have been disrupted by anti-Israel activists since October 7. In many cases, protesters sought to harass or silence Jewish speakers — even when the speakers’ remarks were not focused on Israel. 

For example, on February 29 at Gallaudet University in Washington, DC, anti-Israel students protested a Hillel-hosted event sponsored by the university’s Division of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusive Excellence. Protesters stood outside the room where the event — an “Ask Me Anything” session with a deaf rabbi who lives in Israel — was taking place, chanting slogans like “We want justice you say how; Zionists off our campus now!”

A protest leader affiliated with Maryland 2 Palestine told the crowd outside the Gallaudet event: “We have a responsibility to plan more protests, to show up at every disgusting Hillel event!” That same speaker added, “I don’t have the ability to be friends with Zionists…There’s no neutrality here. There’s [sic] no two sides. There’s one side — one right side — and one wrong side. And all of you here are on the right side. Everyone who’s hiding in there [indicating the room in which the Hillel event was taking place] is on the wrong side.” As individuals who had attended the Hillel event left the room, protesters harassed them, shouting “Shame on you!”

Videos posted on social media by anti-Israel student groups at Gallaudet University documenting their protest against a Hillel event in Washington, DC on February 29, 2024. (source: Instagram) 

On April 4, SJP members and others protested a Hillel-hosted event at the University of California, Riverside featuring transgender Israeli man Michael Alroy to speak about “gender identity and Judaism.” Protesters highlighted Alroy’s past Israeli military service, with SJP UCR writing on social media ahead of the protest: “UCR Hillel is bringing Michael Alroy, a known former IDF [Israel Defense Forces] soldier to our campus, and utilizing this event to pinkwash a genocide.”

On May 3, anti-Zionist student protesters at New York University (NYU) and other NYC schools announced a protest designed to coincide with the Hillel-sponsored “Shabbat for 2000,” an annual on-campus Shabbat dinner that brings together thousands of students, alumni, and other community members. The protesters initially planned to gather directly outside the building where the Hillel Shabbat was taking place but relocated at the last minute apparently due to NYPD blocking certain streets.

Hillel-sponsored events related to October 7 or the ongoing Israel-Hamas war have also been frequent protest targets, with protesters often harassing the Hillel members and Jewish students attending these events. 

Anti-Israel students at the University of Pittsburgh protested a Hillel-hosted event on January 24 featuring Yadin Gellman, an IDF veteran and Israeli actor, shouting “fucking Zionists” at attendees. Afterward, protest organizers SJP at Pitt, the Pittsburgh Palestine Coalition, and the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) Pittsburgh chapter thanked those who had joined their protest and declared on social media: “We cannot allow the genocidal zionist [sic] regime to be normalized here in Pittsburgh or anywhere!”

On February 15, anti-Israel students protested an event featuring an October 7 survivor sponsored by Hillel, Chabad, and Students Supporting Israel at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, KS. Protesters stood outside the room where the event took place, chanting slogans like “There is only one solution; Intifada, revolution” and “Intifada, Intifada; Long live the Intifada.”

After the protest, the university’s SJP chapter released a statement doubling down on its support for terror and its explicit call for the exclusion of Zionists from campus. The KU SJP statement read, in part: “It should be clear: just as ‘israel’ has no right to exist, Zionism has no right to be on KU’s campus…Just as Palestinians have a right to resist our oppressors in Palestine, so too do we have a right to resist them when they show their faces right here at KU. Here as much as in Palestine, be sure that the resistance will never cease until Palestine is freed from the river to the sea. Glory to the martyrs! Glory to the Resistance! Long live the Intifada!”

On March 6, a Hillel-sponsored event featuring an IDF soldier at The New School in New York, NY was forced to relocate multiple times due to anti-Israel protesters. Protesters harassed Hillel members as they entered and exited the venue and left red-painted handprints on the glass doors of the building.

Two days later, protesters disrupted an on-campus, Hillel-hosted Shabbat dinner featuring two IDF soldiers at Florida International University in Miami, FL. Protesters were eventually removed from the building, but remained outside the exits, with Jewish students reporting that they were harassed and intimidated as they left the event.

Even Hillel-hosted events seeking to facilitate dialogue related to the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict have been targeted by anti-Israel student activists who are increasingly employing an anti-normalization approach — the complete rejection of any cooperation or association with individuals or organizations who accept or support Israel’s existence.

A “Side-By-Side” discussion at Ithaca College on February 6 featuring an Israeli and Palestinian speaker and hosted by Hillel was protested by Ithaca College Students for Palestine, who staged a sit-in outside the campus building where the event took place.

On March 27, three masked individuals stood in front of the Ohio State University Hillel building in Columbus, OH holding a banner that read “OSU Hillel invites you to visit a genocidal state.” The demonstration coincided with a scheduled informational session for an upcoming “Fact Finders Israel Trip,” a Hillel-run program that facilitates dialogue between Jewish and non-Jewish students via a trip to Israel and the West Bank. 

Protesters also entered the building apparently intending to disrupt the info session, which was postponed due to the demonstration.