Though antisemitism on college campuses is no longer the featured story on the nightly news, a larger percentage of Jewish college students report having experienced antisemitism than ever before, according to additional data on college antisemitism that was collected as part of the American Jewish Committee’s annual “State of Antisemitism in America 2025 Report” and shared exclusively with eJewishPhilanthropy on Tuesday. 

According to Adam Lehman, president and CEO of Hillel International, which co-conducted the student section of the report, antisemitism is shifting away from the campus courtyards and quads and becoming weaponized in a more targeted and private way. Yet, he added, students are resilient and still thriving.

The study showed that 42% of respondents reported experiencing antisemitism during their time as a college or university student, compared to 35% in last year’s report. Of those students who experienced it, 55% said they had felt uncomfortable or unsafe at a campus event because of their Jewish identity, and 60% said that they avoided wearing, carrying or displaying things that would identify them as Jewish because of antisemitism. Nearly 7 in 10 (68%) of students who had experienced antisemitism also said that they avoided expressing their views on Israel on campus or with classmates because of fears or antisemitism.

Last week, AJC released its annual report on antisemitism in the United States, finding that nearly a third of all American Jews have experienced an antisemitic incident, and that two-thirds of Jews felt that they were less secure in America than last year.

During the 2025/2026 academic year, Hillel is on track to documenting over 1,800 antisemitic incidents. Recent examples include a Jewish speaker receiving death threats, a Hillel staff member finding a swastika drawn on their car and DePaul University students and Hillel staff getting harassed with “globalize the intifada” chants at a local coffee shop. During the 2024/2025 school year, students reported 2,334 incidents to Hillel, 500 more than the previous year and 10 times the amount of the pre-Oct. 7 2022/2023 year. 

“We’re very grateful for the improved efforts of university administrators to implement time, place and data restrictions and to get much more serious about enforcing their content-neutral codes of conduct,” Lehman told eJewishPhilanthropy, “but we still have a lot of work to do to return campus to a safer, more welcoming environment for Jewish students.”

When choosing where to send their children to study, antisemitism is increasingly a deciding factor for 80% of parents according to the study — more than last year’s 68% — but sometimes, the parents’ concerns do not line up with their children’s, Lehman said. 

“There’s no question that when we look at the experience of the Jewish students that [Hillel is]serving on campus, how they go through their day-to-day lives is thankfully with a lot more resolve, confidence and capacity to be resilient,” he said. “That is often in contrast to parents who — as a parent, I can understand — are very concerned and want to be protective.”

Between 2023 and 2025, Harvard, Columbia, Cornell and the University of Pennsylvania have watched their Jewish population decrease by 3-5%. Increasingly, Jewish students are enrolling in universities in the Southeast and Southwest, at  schools that have not traditionally been viewed as being Jewish hubs, including Southern Methodist University, near Dallas, and Auburn University, in Alabama, tripling their number of Jewish students.

“The realignment is going to change the map of schools that Jewish students and families prioritize and choose,” Lehman said. Because of this, Hillels are increasing their engagement as schools with growing Jewish populations, while working to improve the experience for Jews at schools with troubling track records.

Overall, a third of all respondents said that they have avoided displaying or wearing things that would identify them as Jewish, 32% felt that some campus activities have promoted antisemitism or cultivated hostile environments for Jews, and a quarter reported that they felt excluded from an event or group because of their identity. Of the students who reported not having experienced campus antisemitism, only 9% of respondents felt unsafe at campus events due to their identity, only 16% avoided wearing or displaying Jewish symbols and only 17% stifled their views on Israel due to fear of antisemitism.

Although other recent studies, including one by the Jewish Federation of North America and another by Combined Jewish Philanthropies, have shown that many in the Jewish community are simply defining words differently, especially Zionism, Lehman said that the results of the AJC study were not impacted by whether students considered or didn’t consider anti-Zionism antisemitism or how they defined either term.

“In terms of our own tracking in Hillel of issues of harassment and discrimination, [we] don’t include the mere expression of anti-Zionism or incredibly strong criticism or demonization of Israel,” he said. “Our definitions specifically tie back to where a student has been targeted or exposed to aggressive, harassing, intimidating or discriminating behavior, and that really is quite different and creates a much more consistent way to understand where students are encountering unacceptable issues.”

Even with the report’s gloomy statistics, Jewish students are flourishing on campus, Lehman said.

“We continue to see the vast majority of young Jews being interested in having a relationship to Israel and recognizing Israel as a relevant part of Jewish identity, Jewish history, Jewish culture and Jewish peoplehood, even amidst a really intense demonization of Israel on campuses over the past few years,” he said, pointing to the report’s statistic that nearly 7 in 10 students said caring for Israel is an important part of their identity.

This resilience is something to be celebrated, Lehman said, even as Hillel fields reports of professors lowering grades due to students’ views on Israel, swastikas scrawled on dorm room doors and students excluded from a cappella groups due to their beliefs.

“We always have to view these statistics in the broader context of Jewish life on campus,” Lehman said. “Even at schools where we have continued to see recurring or one off instances of harassment or discrimination, we also are often seeing very high levels of engagement in Jewish life through Hillel or other institutions and Jewish students who are leading on their campuses [and] Jewish communities more broadly, who are engaging in community service, who are pursuing bridge building and dialogue across difference. They are not victims. They are working to make their campuses the kind of places that they believe they deserve and that other students who will follow deserve.”