Following Columbia University President Minouche Shafik’s testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and the Workforce on April 17, a major explosion of antisemitic incidents occurred on American college campuses, with Columbia at the epicenter. Students occupied Columbia’s South Lawn, chanting “Say it loud, say it clear, we don’t want no Zionists here.” There have also been countless antisemitic expressions, such as when a protester shouted “We are all Hamas,” another said “October 7th is about to be every day,”  and a group of Jewish counter-demonstrators were met with a sign reading “Al-Qasam’s Next Targets” with an arrow pointed to them. 

Similar “autonomous zones” were carved out at other institutions across the U.S. At Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, a Jewish student was allegedly stabbed in the eye with a Palestinian flag after Yale students established their own “Liberated Zone,” similar to the one at Columbia. These encampments, and the antisemitism they foment, also arose at Miami University (Ohio), the University of Michigan, the University of Texas at Austin, the New School, UC Berkeley, California State Polytechnic University, Brown University, and the University of Pittsburgh, among other universities.

The blatant antisemitism on display at Columbia and other schools has drawn widespread and bipartisan denunciations. President Joe Biden, House Speaker Mike Johnson, New York Governor Kathy Hochul, Texas Governor Greg Abbott, and New York City Mayor Eric Adams are some of the most prominent elected officials who have voiced condemnation.

In Jersey City, New Jersey, residents were alarmed to discover flyers on their doorsteps accusing Israel of committing genocide. In Dallas, Texas, the neo-Nazi Goyim Defense League (GDL) distributed antisemitic leaflets. In Longmeadow, Massachusetts, a man was arrested after he made threats in front of the local Jewish community center.

In the United Kingdom, London police apologized to a Jewish man after an officer told him he was “too openly Jewish” to approach an area where an anti-Israel protest was occuring. In the Netherlands, an award was given by the Silver Camera Association to a journalist who had previously referred to Palestinian terrorists as “martyrs.” In Warsaw, Poland, a commemoration of the Warsaw Uprising against Nazis was protested by a man holding a Palestinian flag.

In the Middle East and Northern Africa, anti-Israel protests have continued to proliferate, occuring in Tunisia, Jordan, Pakistan, and Iran. In Pakistan, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif claimed Palestinians were “suffering under Israeli barbarism” and declared that Pakistan was on the side of the “oppressed Palestinians.” 

This week’s Global Antisemitism Report highlights 113 new incidents, categorized as follows: 84 (74.3%) as anti-Israel or anti-Zionist manifestations of antisemitism, 15 (13.3%) as Islamist, 8 (7.1%) as classical antisemitism,  4 (3.5%) as unattributable, and 2 (1.8%) as Holocaust minimization and distortion..