College and University Monitor

As a freshman at Columbia University in September 2000, the toxic anti-Israel atmosphere burgeoned in front of my eyes with the start of the Second Intifada. My roommate, a political science major, went toe to toe with anti-Semitic professors in classrooms, who presented Israel as an apartheid, imperialist state. He received hate email for his “dissenting” views, and we felt compelled to lock our door at night. I thought to myself, “He could fight the fight better than me.”

I was silent.

The predecessors of Students for Justice in Palestine filled College Walk, physically intimidating Jews walking to the dorms.

The evidence appeared before me, but I remained silent....