Pro-Hamas students staging an anti-Hillel protest as New York City Police Department (NYPD) officers look on. Photo: Columbia Jewish & Israeli Students/Screenshot

Recently, on a layover back from Israel, I walked the streets of Königsbach, Germany, the town where my grandfather grew up. What struck me was not only what remained, but what had disappeared. The town seemed to have largely erased its Jewish memory, leaving few visible traces of the families who once lived there, worshiped there, and considered it home.

As I walked, I found myself wondering: What was the first sign, for my grandfather, that he was no longer safe or welcome in the place where he had been raised?

Then I remembered a story he used to tell.

One Saturday afternoon, my grandfather and his brothers went to the local park to play soccer, as they had many times before. But that day was different. Their friends and classmates told them and the other Jewish boys that they could not play that day – not because they had done anything wrong. Simply because they were Jewish.

There was no assault that day. No broken windows. No police report. But my grandfather understood something had changed irrevocably. Antisemitism had begun to seep into daily life through exclusion, silence, and the narrowing of where Jews could belong.

That moment was only the beginning. As Nazi persecution intensified, my grandfather was eventually forced to flee Germany to survive, leaving behind his home, his community, and the streets of his childhood.

Long before the full horrors of the Holocaust were visible to the world, Jewish children were already being told: you’re no longer welcome here.

Today, campus antisemitism is no longer dominating the headlines, and one may reasonably assume that we’ve returned to a place of safety and stability for Jewish students. But a Jewish college student does not need to be assaulted to feel unsafe on campus. In fact, if administrators only count visible incidents of assaults, harassment, vandalism, graffiti, and hate speech as antisemitism, they miss much of the real and pervasive story of how Jewish students are experiencing hatred and discrimination.

As Hillel International’s Senior Vice President of Campus Solutions, I’ve watched antisemitism today evolve in at least three ways: from overt incidents to ambient conditions, from physical spaces to the digital realm, and from campaigns like the BDS movement into broader Jewish exclusion.

First, antisemitism on campus is not only a series of isolated incidents. It is increasingly a condition students live inside and endure.

Antisemitism expert Dr. Yael Silverstein coined the phrase “ambient antisemitism” to describe a broader climate in which Jewish identity is quietly treated as less legitimate, less protected, or less welcome. That framework is essential to understand, because many Jewish students increasingly are not only responding to a single event, but to an atmosphere of bias.

For example, a Jewish student hears silence after a professor shares antisemitic rhetoric. They wonder whether wearing a Star of David, walking to a Jewish holiday celebration, or speaking about travel to Israel will make them socially suspect. Or they learn that they may be included only if they make others comfortable with the terms of their Jewishness.

Universities are often built to respond to events. They investigate a threat. They clean up graffiti. They discipline a student who violates policy. Those steps matter. But if leaders only respond to the most visible incidents, they overlook the conditions that allow those incidents to occur.

Second, antisemitism is migrating from physical spaces to digital ones.

For many students, campus life is not divided between online and offline experiences. Their residence hall, classroom, group chat, and Instagram feed are all part of the same ecosystem. A student can be targeted online at midnight for being Jewish and walk into class the next morning sitting next to people who saw that antisemitic post, shared it, liked it, or did nothing.

Digital antisemitism is not less real or less harmful because it happens on a screen. Instead, it is often faster, more public, more humiliating, and harder to escape. It can normalize conspiracies, dehumanizing language, and calls for exclusion in ways that quickly affect what’s considered acceptable on campus.

This past academic year marks a turning point: for the first time since Hillel began tracking antisemitic incidents in 2014, we received more reports of targeted online hate than in-person hate. That shift should change how universities understand campus safety.

Third, the BDS movement and anti-Israel activism are evolving to try to exclude Jewish students from campus life.

At The New School, the student senate voted to defund and cut ties with Hillel, the central address for Jewish student life on campus. The administration rejected the vote and made clear that its student government did not have the authority to determine Hillel’s recognition, funding eligibility, or official status. But the fact that Hillel was targeted at all should alarm every university leader.

Universities must not allow this to become a trend – it is still a rare occurrence that has always been defeated.

But BDS has always targeted Jews as well as Israel; it turns support for Israel into a basis for exclusion.

When Hillel is isolated, Jewish students are isolated. When student governments try to defund or delegitimize Jewish campus life, they make Jewish students more vulnerable to harassment and hate.

A boycott of Hillel is not a symbolic gesture. It is an attack on Jewish life on campus. To address these evolving trends, university administrators must make clear that antisemitism – whether violent or not – will not be tolerated or normalized. They must enforce rules consistently, protect Jewish students under existing codes of conduct, and ensure that classrooms, residence halls, student governments, and digital spaces are places where Jewish students can participate fully.

They must also invest in education. Many administrators, faculty, and student affairs professionals want to do the right thing but need additional tools. Universities should bring in trusted partners, including Hillel, to learn about who Jews are, how antisemitism functions, and how institutions can respond with moral clarity and educational integrity.

My grandfather’s experience on that soccer field has stayed with me because it taught me that exclusion is never small to the person being excluded. And the moment a child is told he cannot play because he is Jewish, the world has already changed.

Today’s Jewish college students are not asking universities to shield them from discomfort, debate, or disagreement. They simply are asking for what every student deserves: to walk across campus, enter a classroom, join a club, and live fully as who they are without being told that their acceptance is conditional.

If university leaders wait until Jewish students are assaulted before they act, they have waited too long. The real but necessary work is to address the warning signs earlier, understand the atmosphere, and respond to exclusion before it hardens.

The author is Hillel International’s Senior Vice President of Campus Solutions.