Anti-semitism at Wake Forest

Theoden
Thu, 29 Aug 2019 19:33:05 +0000

Talk to Jewish students there. Contact the local Hillel if they have one.

As was mentioned, anti-Israel protests do not necessarily mean antisemitism. I doubt there are many campuses in the US where you will be targeted or harassed for being Jewish.

Having said that, the smaller the Jewish population, in general, the less push back you might have on very active and public BDS movements. In other words it’s harder to get a heavy, completely unchallenged BDS movement going at a place like Muhlenberg College with 30% of the students being Jewish, than let’s say a super progressive liberal arts college with less 5% of the student population being Jewish. Numbers mean something. From the little I see online, it appears the Jewish community at Wake Forest is quite active in pushing back and providing an alternative view on campus.

Also it depends on what you mean by being targeted and harassed. Sometimes, people in the BDS movement will not only say uncharitable things about Israel, but on occasion, some progressives in the BDS movement may make unkind generalizations about Jewish people in tweets/emails. (American Jewish financial influence in pro-Israel lobbies, etc.). A US congresswoman recently has had to apologize about some comments that slipped out. It’s almost always in the context of BDS and then, rarely, but unfortunately, out leaks a mild antisemitism.

The question is, how resilient are you, and what will you tolerate? Can you disagree with others? Can accept the fact, that someone eventually is going to say something deeply offensive that bothers you.

Often, when you find an active BDS movement, if you dig deep enough, you can find something said that’s uncharitable or unkind. Much like on the conservative side of politics, if you dig deep enough, you might find things that are unsavory.

As was mentioned above, the more “middle of the road” a campus is politically, the less likely you are to see extremely provocative behavior on either the left of right.