Witnessing bullying and harassment caused more trauma and anxiety in people than being a victim. Nearly 70% of Jewish college students observed anti-Israel and anti-Semitic comments, online bullying, harassment, and vandalism from peers and faculty.
Those were some of the findings presented by psychologists Dr. Tara Liberman and Dr. Anna Vaynman at the ADL’s “Anti-Semitism on Campus and its Mental Health Implications” Zoom meeting on Thursday, January 30.
Dr. Liberman is a licensed psychologist in private practice specializing in psychotherapy for children and adolescents. She is the founder and director of the Jewish Community Mental Health Initiative, which currently provides 25 free virtual support groups for the Jewish community.
Dr. Vaynman is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Trustworthy AI in Law and Society at George Washington University. She is a trained Experimental Social Psychologist with a PhD in psychology and law from the CUNY Graduate Center. She led the study.
Witnessing bullying and harassment predicts Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) to a greater degree than experiencing it. Not only Jewish students suffer, “but anyone who’s observing that bullying, that anti-Semitism, is suffering as well,” said Dr. Vaynman. Whether observing or being victims, Jewish students suffer more PTSD and anxiety symptoms than non-Jews.
Nearly 2,000 diverse Jewish college students from more than 350 campuses in the US and Canada filled out an online survey about what they experienced and witnessed. Some 780 non-Jews from more than 240 campuses filled out surveys as a comparison group. The researchers used the psychological screening tools SPAN and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) 7 tests.
More Jewish students scored as having PTSD than not. A large number of students, both Jewish and non-Jewish, scored as having moderate and severe Anxiety on the Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) 7 test.
More than 60% of Jewish students experienced anti-Israel comments from their peers. More than 30% experienced anti-Semitic comments. “They’re reporting slurs, insults, or bullying and harassment, racist comments from peers, and academic retaliation,” said Dr. Vaynman. The comparison group of non-Jews suffered this less than 20%.
Two-thirds of Jews feel afraid to be Jewish on campus always, often, or sometimes. Almost half of Jewish students felt uncomfortable or unsafe expressing their opinions or questions in class. The vast majority downplay their Jewish identity by not wearing a kippah or a Jewish Star.
The researchers did not use exact percentages, because their manuscript is under the Peer Review Process and they want it to be “pristine” before publication.
As far as responses by college administrators, the research study started in early December 2023 and stopped “shortly before the encampments started. They thought, “This is all going to be over soon, so we better collect data and see what’s going on. And unfortunately, that is not exactly the reality on the ground.”
About 70% of Jews on campus reported significantly higher or somewhat higher levels of stress. Less than 1.5% reported their stress levels as lower.
Students who felt their colleges were taking adequate steps did not score as having symptoms of PTSD or Anxiety. When they perceived “no steps or inadequate steps were taken, they suffered the most. They experienced the highest levels of Anxiety, the highest levels of Depression,” said Dr. Vaynman
“There’s a direct relationship between students feeling like the university is doing something about it, students perceiving that they are safe or that they have somebody taking care of things and their mental health and well-being.”
“Students were being excluded from spaces that once were their places that felt like home and their places of comfort,” said Dr. Liberman. Students were “not being able to go to class in their typical route, trying to avoid protests or other kinds of exhibits of behaviors that were uncomfortable for them.”
“Jewish students are reporting a much higher prevalence of bullying and harassment” than other students. Sometimes twice or three times higher than other students.
“Students were struggling to trust others” and some struggled to trust their ideas, views, and feelings about themselves in the world. “They had changes in world views and students were feeling helpless and hopeless, and they weren’t sure how to proceed,” said Dr. Liberman.
Jewish college students have either been revisiting their Jewish identity or hiding it. “Some were exploring it, trying to become more connected, and others were trying to hide it to feel more safe.” “Students were struggling to trust others,” said Dr. Liberman.
One student wrote in the comments section of the survey, “I try to hide that I am Jewish. Sometimes I also do not share my political beliefs about the war anymore after losing friends because of my support for Israel.”
One graduate student wrote that he is “more scared but also proud to be Jewish. I’ve been more in my faith than ever. It’s important to stand together.”
One student wrote not feeling “like I fully had a space that understood me with my non-Jewish peers.” The person feels the campus Jewish leader and organizations have failed. “Luckily, many other Jewish students on campus have the same, and in time, we have found each other and formed our own groups and spaces where we can hold complexity, grief, and activism.”
Dr. Liberman said Jewish students are changing how they interact with their peers, in their classes, and how they behave. Many feel “very torn between their learning environment, their opportunities, their academic and professional opportunities and their identity as Jews, and their ability to kind of function in that very difficult space.”
The specially trained clinicians at the virtual support groups from the Jewish Community Mental Health Initiative report “feelings of isolation, loneliness, and avoidance, fear of going out, exploring friendships, places they usually would frequent, and a lot of internal reflection and confusion and self-doubt,” said Dr. Liberman.
Traumatic Invalidation, a concept from Dialectical Behavior Therapy, is when “an individual or a community feels ignored, invalidated, dismissed, sometimes criticized, sometimes being blamed for your feelings or experiences.” Those symptoms are “what we were seeing in our support groups across the board.”
Students are reflecting “on their decisions, wondering if they want to continue on the path they had gone or do they want to change. We’ve seen many leave graduate programs, and switch careers.”
It also has been difficult for them to date. They’re not sure about how to share their Jewish identity with others. They’re struggling with “their friend groups, often having to maybe change communities because they’re not welcome any longer in a place where once was their home and their place of support.”
For those who work with adolescents, Dr. Liberman said to “create space for those young people to share and express their fears or stress about this transition.” Help them cope by planning how to handle and respond to situations. Know the student organizations on campus, where they can find Shabbat dinners, and other Jewish peers, and make a plan ahead of time who they can talk to if something happens.
“The most important thing the researchers found “is finding a way to be connected. This is the way to be able to have that safe space to process what your experience is.” It doesn’t have to be a large group, it can be just one, two, or three people in your life.
Free virtual support groups are for anyone who identifies as Jewish and is 18 or older. Go to jcmhi.com. Links to clinical directories are on their website.
David White, Associate Regional Director of Jewish Outreach at the Anti-Defamation League, said ADL partnered with Hillel International to produce the Campus Climate Survey, which assesses anti-Semitism at colleges and universities.
They recently found that 83% of Jewish students have either witnessed or experienced anti-Semitism during this past academic year; 25% observed this from faculty. More than 50% did not feel comfortable having others know their Jewish identity. Almost 10% of all of the anti-Semitic incidents reported to the ADL came from college campuses.
Schools in the New York and New Jersey region “are open to working with us and to make improvements.”
The ADL created a Campus Legal Line by partnering with the Brandeis Center and the Gibson and Dunn law firm. Victims of anti-Semitism can also file an Incident Report with the ADL who will follow up and investigate.
The ADL’s Not On My Campus is a website for school administrators, parents, and students “so people feel like they have the tools they need to be able to confront” anti-Semitism at their schools, said David White.
The ADL’s Campus Report Card assesses 85 colleges for their Jewish vitality and how the schools handle reports of anti-Semitism. The ADL created the Ronald Birnbaum Center, exploring anti-Semitism at college campuses and in K-12 schools.
To volunteer for activism with the ADL, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
By David Schneier
