Want to Fight Anti-Semitism? It Starts on College Campuses

A white supremacist's decision to walk into a Pittsburgh synagogue and murder 11 Jews in cold blood shocked the nation. 

Many are asking what could be the cause of such blatant and deadly anti-Semitism. Some blame the Trump administration, others blame hateful rhetoric. 

According to Nolan Finley from The Detroit News, it all begins on college campuses. 

"Just two days after the slaughter of Jewish worshippers inside a temple in Pittsburgh, the University of Michigan staged a teach-in dedicated to the nationwide drive to prod universities to shun Israel," Finley writes. 

The University of Michigan's Center of Middle Eastern and North African Studies held a town-hall Monday promoting boycotts, divestments, and sanctions (BDS) against the Jewish state. 

The BDS movement accuses Israel of stealing Palestinian land and being an apartheid state. 

Finely says, "its a thin line between demonizing Israel and dehumanizing Jews."

Former student Molly Rosen attended the meeting and was shocked by what she saw.

 "I was not prepared to be told that, if I cared about human rights, I could not support Israel. I was not prepared to be told that my community was racist," she told TDN.

"I was not prepared to see my fellow students attacked with anti-semitic slurs." 

While the university has unequivocally condemned BDS against Israel, Rosen says anti-Israel students who serve on student government are not backing down. 

 "Every week certain individuals would urge students to take action against 'the racist, Nazi state of Israel'; and every week I would sit there feeling utterly helpless," she explained. 

While the anti-Israel rhetoric on college campuses is dangerous, Finely says "anti-Semitism is rarely called out because campuses are the purview of the left, which also gives refuge to such Jew-haters as Louis Farrakhan and Linda Sansour."

Pittsburgh's tragedy proves anti-Semitism isn't just staying in academia, but bleeding into all areas of life. 

The Anti-Defamation League says the number of anti-Semitic incidents in the US rose nearly 60 percent last year alone.