Digital Library
Antisemitism, Israel, and Political Ideology on the American College Campus
Topic:
Antisemitism & Antizionism
Principal Investigators:
Graham Wright, Shahar Hecht, and Leonard Saxe
Study Date:
2024
Source:
Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies, Brandeis University
Key Findings:
The analysis identified four groups among non-Jewish students:
Not Hostile (63%) – unlikely to endorse antisemitic statements.
Hostile to Israel (17%) – deny Israel’s right to exist and avoid Israel supporters but do not express explicit anti-Jewish stereotypes.
Hostile to Jews (16%) – endorse traditional anti-Jewish stereotypes but are less defined by Israel-related hostility.
Extremely Hostile (3%) – endorse both explicit anti-Jewish and anti-Israel hostility.The findings provide partial support for a “horseshoe” pattern:
Far-right identities (e.g., alt-right, Christian conservative) are more strongly associated with explicit anti-Jewish attitudes.
Far-left identities (e.g., extremely liberal, progressive, socialist, leftist) are more strongly associated with Israel-related hostility that most Jewish students perceive as antisemitic.
Mainstream moderates and students without strong ideological labels are least likely to fall into hostile categories.
Overall, antisemitism manifests differently across ideological poles: traditional anti-Jewish hostility is more common on the far right, while Israel-denial and social exclusion of Israel supporters are more common on the far left.
Methodology:
The study analyzes survey data from 4,123 undergraduates at 60 U.S. universities (3,810 non-Jewish students included in the primary analysis), collected via an online panel in spring 2024. Researchers developed a measure of “antisemitic hostility” using eight statements about Jews and Israel, selected based on widely used formal definitions of antisemitism (IHRA, Nexus, JDA) and empirical data about how Jewish students perceive such statements. They used latent class analysis to identify patterns of attitudes and then examined how those patterns relate to students’ political self-identification (both a traditional liberal–conservative scale and additional ideological labels), controlling for demographic factors.