Anti-Semitism on U.S. college campuses spiked in 2015, with 302 incidents against Jewish students recorded at 109 schools in 28 states, according to a new report warning that the rise of anti-Israel organizations is fueling hatred and making many campuses unsafe for Jews.
The array of incidents were recorded at many universities and often included Nazi imagery, slurs calling Jews "evil," and calls for Jews be murdered, according to a report published by the AMCHA Initiative, an organization that seeks to protect Jewish students.
The organization created an online database that logs in real time reports of new anti-Semitic incidents at colleges across the nation. Several anti-Semitic incidents have been recorded in the first month of 2016.
Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, AMCHA co-founder and director, warned that anti-Semitism on campus is growing as a result of highly aggressive anti-Israel student movements such as the group Students for Justice in Palestine, which has used Nazi imagery in its campaign to demonize Israel.
"There is a clear correlation between anti-Israel activism—particularly BDS campaigns—and the anti-Semitic targeting of Jewish students," Rossman-Benjamin told the Washington Free Beacon. "For instance, acts of anti-Jewish harassment, discrimination, and defamation are higher in schools where BDS activity is high. The connection between BDS and campus anti-Semitism is undeniable."
Some of the incidents recorded at universities were violent in nature, according to the report.
At the University of Oregon, for instance, a man yelling anti-Semitic slurs threatened to shoot a Jewish student.
At Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, New York, an Orthodox Jewish student "was punched in the face and told ‘Leave the school, you Jew,’" according to the report.
Students also used social media networks such as Twitter to threaten Jewish students.
One female student-athlete at Delaware Valley College came under scrutiny for tweeting, "Can I kill all the [expletive deleted] Jews in Lakewood pleeeasse?!?!!"
Nazi-style demonstrations also were held on campuses in 2015.
Thirty members of a group called the Traditionalist Youth Network at Indiana University "marched on campus holding anti-Semitic signs and wearing Nazi memorabilia," according to the report.
In a similar incident at the University of California at Santa Cruz, members of the Students for Justice in Palestine group—which has been shut down on some campuses for its virulent anti-Semitism—established mock checkpoints around campus and forced Jewish students to "show ID cards."
At least 15 college campuses—including George Washington University, the University of Maryland, and Tufts University—had incidences of anti-Semitic graffiti, including swastikas and anti-Semitic slurs.
"Jews—the root of all evil" was written on a wall in the Brooklyn College campus library, the report found.
Other incidents across the country include mezuzahs being vandalized, swastikas being scrawled on school buildings, and convicted terrorists being invited to speak on campus.
At Towson University, one vandal repeatedly went across campus writing, "Hitler was right" and "with Jews you lose."
Similarly, a the University of California at Berkeley, "Zionists should be sent to the gas chamber" was found "etched on school property," according to the report.
Leila Beckwith, an AMCHA co-founder and professor emeritus at the University of California at Los Angeles, warned that college officials often dismiss discrimination against Jews.
"Anti-Semitism, what many of us thought only a decade or so ago was a sad part of our history, continues to rear its ugly head on campuses from coast to coast," Beckwith said in a statement. "What those of us that monitor cases on a regular basis know is today’s anti-Semitism not only includes swastikas and historical anti-Jewish slang."