‘I was told to go die’: What Canadian Jewish students said about the antisemitism they’ve experienced on campus

Canadian authorities, by and large, now regard antisemitism as a significant and growing problem, and universities have become one of the places where, post-Oct. 7, 2023, it has manifested itself most visibly. 

When Prime Minister Mark Carney identified antisemitism in Canada as having reached levels not seen in generations, he specifically highlighted the plight of Jewish students being driven from common spaces on University campuses.

Hundreds of experiences like that and far more egregious instances of antisemitism are detailed in the Campus Antisemitism and Student Experiences (CASE) report issued last week. 

Here’s a verbatim sampling of what some Jewish students say they have experienced on Canadian campuses taken from that report:

I was told “Hitler should have finished you off” when people found out that I was Jewish. 

I saw graffiti saying “Zionism is a death cult,” “Zionists invent false allegations of sexual assault,” “Death to Zionism,” and “Death to Israel.”

A professor wrote that we need to kill all Zionists, that she had worked with them and saw how evil they were. 

I went to the bathroom; someone saw my (Star of David) and said, “Welcome to your gas chamber,” while people were vaping.

I was told to go die when I said I was a Jew from Israel.

My friend was walking through (REDACTED) Hall. He also wears a kippah, and a group of students shouted, “There’s a Jew…let’s get him.” They then chased him out of the building.

I was told by a professor, in class, in the middle of the lecture, that Jews belong in Poland and need to go back. 

I was told that it was a shame Hitler did not finish the job.

I heard a Jewish friend being called a Zionist whore and spat on because she was wearing a visible Magen David.

I faced extreme pressure from other student organizations to release a statement against Zionism in my position as president of the (REDACTED) student union, and had my name placed on a list circulating on and off campus as a “known Zionist.” 

Students asked me to remove my chai necklace because it was too Jewish. 

Professor assigned us to listen to a podcast that discussed how Zionism was similar to Nazism, which was unrelated to the course. 

I was harassed online … She went as far as spamming my art page for five days straight, sending me radical reels, calling my elderly family “killers.”

Various (protesters) shouted antisemitic slurs at visibly Jewish students on campus, including phrases such as “Hitler should have killed all of you.” 

In first year, several mezuzot were torn from the doors of my residence. They never caught the people who did it.

Residents at my on-campus residence started rumours about me that I am a child killer, white supremacist, racist, and Zionist, all because these people found out that I was Jewish. 

Jews were described as greedy for money in a lecture.

In a course that had nothing to do with Israel, my professor spent three weeks talking about Gaza and the creation of the State of Israel. He never mentioned the Holocaust as a precursor to its founding, repeatedly calling the state a “Zionist political project.”

When discussing characters in a book, my professor described one character by saying that “based on his last name, he is clearly Jewish and probably has a hooked nose.”

I and many other members of a Jewish organization unrelated to Israel received phone calls containing death threats after October 7. 

Someone waiting in line in front of me said: “The Holocaust did not really happen. But if it did, Hitler was right.” 

I cannot speak Hebrew with my parents on the phone on campus; I have stopped wearing Jewish symbols; I cannot talk about my holiday plans because they are Jewish; I have to hide who I am and where I come from. 

Many students minimize the Holocaust and Jewish trauma, say that Gaza is the modern Auschwitz, and accuse Jews of “becoming what you swore to destroy.” 

We were excluded from our (Equity, Diversity, Inclusion) community when it held a “pro-Palestinian” support meeting and said it was not offering a support group for Jewish/Israeli students. So we created our own support group. 

Working in my labs, I have had people refuse to work with me due to my Jewish identity and purposely try to mess up my data. 

Several faculty members in my program minimized the Holocaust or used it to condemn the Israeli response immediately after October 7.

My classmates required me to share my opinions on Israel as a condition for joining a student-led EDI initiative that should have been open to all graduate students in my department. 

I heard a professor say that “Hitler was a hero.”

I was in the library and saw written on a desk: “Just because Hitler killed 6 million Jews does not mean he is a bad person.”

When I was at the campus gym, while wearing a kippah that made me visibly Jewish, a student came up to me and said he wished all Israelis would die because we are “a bunch of colonizers from Europe.” 

Shortly after October 7, I told my PhD supervisor that I did not feel safe on campus and she replied: “Well, you should see the other side.” 

A member of my anti-racism research lab at the university minimized the impact of the Holocaust while the other lab members remained silent. For example, she said: “The Holocaust was not the first time gas chambers were used. They were first used against Indigenous peoples in Canada.” When I raised this with my research supervisor, now tenured, her reaction was to protect the student responsible. For example, she said: “What happens in the lab stays in the lab.” 

I was told to leave a public space because I was wearing a kippah. 

One of my friends asked me what I was doing for Christmas, and I answered that I do not celebrate it because I am Jewish. She immediately asked whether I was Zionist. I answered yes, and she began excluding me from activities and making hateful remarks when she saw me on campus. 

Many students minimize the Holocaust and Jewish trauma, say that Gaza is the modern Auschwitz, and accuse Jews of “becoming what you swore to destroy.”