As the war between Israel and Hamas rages, students across the Bay Area have become tangled in its ideological crossfire. And as the death toll in the Middle East mounts, the vitriol across American campuses has too, with threats, discrimination and online harassment popping up at universities from coast to coast.
It has grown so contentious that two University of California, Berkeley, professors from opposites sides of the conflict felt compelled to plead with students on a campus that was the birthplace of the Free Speech Movement to stop the harassment.
“We are two professors on this campus who disagree, vehemently. But we have always treated one another with respect and dignity,” wrote the two professors — one Palestinian, and the other Israeli — in a message to the student body last Thursday. “We love this campus with its diverse communities and all of our students and are heartbroken to hear of incidents of near violence between students in recent days.”
That message, written by professors Hatem Bazian and Ron Hassner, came right below another from the university chancellor, acknowledging the “growing prevalence” of online threats and harassment tied to the war.
The backlash is growing. After students at Harvard University signed a statement saying they held Israel “entirely responsible” for the violence unfolding in the Middle East, for example, the conservative group Accuracy in Media circled Harvard with a digital billboard. The sign flashed photos and names of the letter’s signatories with the headline, “Harvard’s Leading Antisemites,” the New York Times reported. Soon after, the group published those names on a page called HarvardHatesJews.com.
“Which campus should our Anti-semite Accountability Project visit next?” asked Adam Guillette, the president of Accuracy in Media, on X (formerly Twitter) last week. “UVA? UPenn? NYU? Berkeley? We want your feedback.”
Last weekend, a law professor at UC Berkeley echoed a similar sentiment, urging firms not to hire his students who have publicly blamed Israel for the war — and asking if their clients would “want an attorney who condones hatred and monstrous crimes” in an op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal.
Still, such tensions are not one-sided. Just days before that op-ed was published, a Stanford instructor was removed from the institution after he reportedly downplayed the Holocaust and singled out students “based on their backgrounds and identities” in class. Students responded by placing blue ribbons across the campus, an act meant to symbolize the 1,300 Israeli lives lost in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.
For Judith Frydman, a professor of biology at Stanford, hearing about that class was a gut punch. Frydman, who is Jewish, grew up in Argentina — and at just 12 years old had been forced to stand up for being Jewish on her first day of school.
“That was something that happened in a banana republic with an autocratic dictatorship,” said Frydman. “This is not supposed to happen in the U.S. … And you can just ask yourself: Why did he feel he had the right to do these things?”
Like UC Berkeley, Stanford said it has received concerns from Jewish students, faculty and staff who were worried about their safety, along with reports of Palestinian students receiving threatening emails and phone calls. Or Gozani, a Stanford biology professor with Israeli roots, said several Jewish students have reached out to him for support, especially among a flurry of signs and emails that Gozani said contained antisemitic sentiments.
“They asked, how could the administration have left them so isolated? How could they not be doing more to protect them?” said Gozani. “I know those students are experiencing a lot of pain right now.”
Those feelings have also surfaced at the high school level, sometimes for the opposite reason: a lack of acknowledgement at all. Tali Lehrer, a Jewish student at Palo Alto High School, said she hasn’t been able to focus on her classes, homework or much of anything since the war began.
“I thought that at least in my history class, the teachers would have mentioned something,” said the 15-year-old. “I understand that it can be difficult, and we need to make sure everyone feels heard. But what happened on October 7 and the days after that is not political. It’s just about what is humane, and that Israelis were brutally murdered.”
Aisha Garcia Jajeh, an 18-year-old at the University of California, Davis, felt the same — but in reverse. Jajeh, whose mother is Palestinian, said the university’s “vague, both-sides approach” to the war was infuriating and failed to question what events led up to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
On Wednesday, about 1,500 high school students in San Francisco, Berkeley and Oakland walked out of class and took to the streets in protests organized by the Arab Resource and Organizing Center to condemn Israel’s retaliation in Gaza.
To date, at least 4,300 people have been killed in the Israel-Hamas war — including about 3,000 in the Gaza Strip and 1,300 in Israel — according to UNRWA, the United Nations agency focused on the Palestinian refugees. Over one million in the Gaza Strip have been displaced inside the territory, while hospitals, schools and homes have been hit by airstrikes.
In many communities, clergy are meeting with teens to help them cope with the emotions of the politically turbulent times that are touching their lives.
“People are upset and angry and puzzled and numb, and oftentimes, they’re holding all of those emotions within the same person,” said Jon Prosnit, a rabbi at Los Altos’ Congregation Beth Am. “Their hearts are breaking for the tragedy that is happening, and there is a lot of pain and a lot of questions.”
