As a professor at one of the nation’s most progressive liberal arts colleges, I have had a front row seat to the sharp rise and overwhelming dominance of leftist and illiberal thought and behavior take over the hearts and minds of many in the community. At the forefront of this shift to the left have been Jewish students, many of whom, sadly, may seem like a lost cause. With widespread impulses to shut down free speech and seemingly strong support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction (BDS) movement, it looks like significant numbers of Jewish students have overwhelmingly turned away from their traditional sources of pride, such as support for Israel.
But a deeper look at Jewish students suggests that all may not be lost when it comes to Israel, as their views may be a bit less locked into place than initially appears. Data from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE)’s 2021 survey on the climate of campus speech — which is based on the opinions of over 37,000 students at 159 campuses across the United States and over 1,200 Jewish students — reveals the truly distinctive views of Jewish students about Israel. Far more than other groups, Jewish students find that it is “difficult to have an open and honest conversation about [the Israeli/Palestinian conflict] on [their] campus today.” Jews are more than twice as likely to say so as other students (64 percent versus 29 percent).
Why do Jewish students see the Israel
conversation as a hot-button issue on campus far, far more than others? Interestingly,
we see the pattern — albeit not as pronounced — among Hispanic students talking
about immigration, as well as among white Protestants and Roman Catholics
reflecting on the abortion conversation. It seems that each group has its own
set of issues about which they are especially sensitive. If Jewish students
were so comfortable in their views whether positive or negative about Israel,
they would most likely be as vocal as they are on every other topic queried in
the FIRE survey. But they hold back on Israel.
Specifically, the FIRE survey presents a battery of
15 discussion topics — from gun control
and transgender issues to questions of racial inequality and sexual assault — and Jewish students report that they have little
trouble with discourse around these hot button issues on their campuses. In
fact, on most issues, Jews report greater comfort in campus conversations than
the national average. Sixty-seven percent of Jews, for instance, state that
talking about abortion on their campuses is not a problem compared to barely
half of students (54 percent) on average. Similar strong numbers emerge for
transgender issues (67 percent); immigration (73 percent); gun control (67);
the George Floyd protests (65 percent); and gender inequality (72 percent). As
for the easiest topics to discuss, 84 percent of Jewish students assert that
climate change is not difficult to discuss, 76 percent are happy to talk about
social media de-platforming, and an equal number are open to discussing the politics
of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On the question of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, however, just
36 percent of Jewish students believe that they can easily talk about the
question while 71 percent of other students nationwide state that they would
not have trouble talking about the conflict. This is a huge difference. In all
likelihood, more often seeing difficulty in conducting the conversation on
their campuses, Jewish students are far more likely to self-censor on Israel
compared to other students.
This finding suggests that Jewish students remain extraordinarily invested in and conflicted about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict regardless of their position on Israel today. Some may be passionate BDS supporters and want to see Israel disappear while others may feel a connection to Israel, as remains the norm for Jews nationally. But most Jewish students have not yet perfectly adopted the stances of their progressive or very liberal counterparts. There may still be support for long-standing Jewish concerns about Israel that are in opposition to the dangerous anti-Israel bias present on the far left even though Jewish students are today overwhelmingly left of center.
If Jewish students were perfectly sorted and adopted the complete far-left package, they would then be comfortable talking about Israel in a fairly negative way and have little trouble incorporating the language that has come to dominate the left. The data show that Jewish students see little trouble talking about most salient issues of the day, but there is clear hesitance with respect to Israel. It looks like Jewish students have not completely turned their backs on support for Israel, for if they adopted a purely anti-Israel stance, they would not fear social consequences and retaliation and would have little trouble talking about Israeli issues today. Thus, there is a possibility that Jewish students are not as monolithically leftist and accepting of today’s most progressive principles, leaving room for real discussion and attitude change down the road.
Samuel J. Abrams is a professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence College and a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
The post Jewish students have trouble talking about Israel on campus appeared first on American Enterprise Institute – AEI.