Antisemitism has become so pervasive on college campuses that Democrats have finally begun to speak out against it.
Since Oct. 7, 2023, a sharp increase in the left’s nationwide antisemitic movement, which originated in higher education, has inflated the hostile climate toward the American Jewish community across the country. With the issue having become so pervasive, Democrats now look to reverse its course.
“We’re watching, on many college campuses, a lot of young people who actually maybe didn’t grow up with the Jewish community at all, get to campus and maybe repeat what they’re hearing, sometimes not even understanding or knowing,” Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), who is Jewish, stated on Wednesday to the Jewish community on Capitol Hill.
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“What is new and what I think has so many in the Jewish community on our heels is that new left-wing antisemitism and how to approach it. One of our responsibilities as Jewish leaders and Jewish activists is to try and really parse through how to deal with antisemitism on the left,” Slotkin continued.
Slotkin’s remarks have made her one of the few, if not the first, Democrats to call the radical left’s antisemitic narratives on college campuses.
Members of her own party, like Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and four of his colleagues, called on President Donald Trump in April to stop taking down antisemitic movements on college campuses, referencing his legal attacks towards them as “extra.”
Others, such as Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and 11 other House Democrats called for the release of an antisemite graduate student at Columbia University, Mahmoud Khalil, who organized antisemitic blockades toward his Jewish peers attempting to attend class.
Zohran Mamdani, the co-founder of antisemitic college group Students for Justice in Palestine and advocate of a “globalized intifada,” is on the verge of becoming the mayor of New York City, which houses the largest Jewish population outside of Israel.
On college campuses alone, Hillel International found 2,334 antisemitic incidents on campus during the 2024-2025 academic year, which is the highest since the organization began tracking the incidents in 2019.
In the same press conference where Slotkin made her remarks, the CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America, Eric Fingerhut, told the Jewish Insider that Slotkin’s remarks are a step in the right direction, since the Democratic Party has either remained silent or propelled antisemitic narratives in the past.
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“We have a domestic terror crisis here, and it needs the level of attention and coordinated leadership by the federal government that we get in national defense.”
As stated by Fingerhut, antisemitism needs action from both sides of the aisle in the federal government. The only way this country will address antisemitism is if congressional leadership from both parties unify and prepare to address it accordingly, instead of allowing it to continue to ravage communities.