Digital Library
Antisemitism and the College Campus Perceptions and Realities
Topic:
Antisemitism & Antizionism
Principal Investigators:
Leonard Saxe, Theodore Sasson, Graham Wright, Shahar Hecht
Study Date:
2015
Source:
Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies,Brandeis University
Key Findings:
The purpose of this study is to understand the extent of hostility toward Israel and antisemitism on North American campuses and to assess the relationship between these trends and Jewish students’ support for and connection to Israel. The study, conducted in spring 2015, draws on a survey of US and Canadian college students and young adults who applied to Birthright Israel.
More than 25% of undergraduate survey respondents describe hostility toward Israel on campus by their peers as a “fairly” or “very” big problem and nearly 15% perceive this same level of hostility toward Jews.
One-quarter of respondents report having been blamed during the past year for the actions of Israel because they were Jewish.
About one-third of college undergraduate respondents report having been verbally harassed during the past year because they were Jewish.
Nearly three-quarters of respondents report having been exposed at one time during the past year to at least one of six antisemitic statements.
Despite a significant number perceiving their campus environment to be hostile to Israel and Jews, students report high levels of connection to Israel: A third report feeling “very much” connected to Israel and another third report feeling “somewhat” connected. These levels of connection are higher than those found among similar individuals in 2014, before the Israel-Hamas conflict.
A few schools have particularly high levels of hostility toward Jews or Israel. In particular, Canadian universities, schools in the California state system, and, to a lesser extent, large land-grant universities in the Midwest are over-represented among schools with the highest average levels of hostility toward Jews and Israel.
Connection to Israel is the strongest predictor of perceiving a hostile environment toward Israel and Jews on campus and, to a lesser extent, of personal experiences of antisemitic verbal harassment. It is likely that those who are highly connected to Israel become a target of antisemitic or anti-Israel sentiment because they make their support for Israel known. It is also likely that those who are more connected to Israel are more sensitive to criticism of Israel, or more likely to perceive such criticism as antisemitic.
Methodology:
The study is based on a survey conducted by researchers from the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish studies at Brandeis University. The survey targeted a sample of eligible applicants to summer 2015 Taglit-Birthright Israel trips. Data were collected April 15 – May 7, 2015 before any respondents traveled to Israel. The survey was conducted via an online questionnaire, and respondents were offered the opportunity to win one of three $100 Amazon.com gift cards. The sample frame included approximately 32,000 individuals. A simple random sample of 12,049 eligible applicants was drawn from the frame. The response rate (AAPOR RR2) was 26.6 percent with 3,199 respondents completing the survey.
Weights were calculated to adjust for differences between the characteristics of respondents and known characteristics of the population and were applied to each analysis as appropriate.