Physical Attacks Against Jewish Students on Campus Are Climbing

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We’re quickly approaching the 1st anniversary of the 10/7 attack by Hamas against Israel. Perhaps in anticipation of that date, there have been a growing number of attacks against Jewish students on college campuses.

University of Pittsburgh students Asher Goodwin and Ilan Gordon were walking to the first Shabbat service of the school year on Aug. 30 wearing yarmulkes. As they made their way to the campus Hillel building, they said, an older man wearing a keffiyeh approached them from behind and started to beat them with a large glass bottle. 

“He grabbed my Star of David necklace that I was wearing and ripped it off,” Goodwin told NBC News. “I am struck on the back of my neck and the bottle shatters. Glass shards cut across my neck.”

The man, whom police later identified as Jarrett Buba, a 52-year-old white man from Pittsburgh, also allegedly struck Gordon in the right cheek, according to court papers. Buba was charged with two counts of felony assault.

The motive behind Buba’s attack is unclear. He has been connected to another attack on a stranger, also involving a glass bottle. The victim in that atttack was not Jewish. Still the fact that he was wearing a keffiyeh when he attacked two Jewish students might not be a coincidence. In any case, this is not the only such incident at the University of Pittsburgh. This one happened last week:

A Jewish student at the University of Pittsburgh wearing a Star of David necklace was attacked by a group of people who used antisemitic language in Pittsburgh’s Oakland neighborhood early Friday morning, police said. 

According to Pittsburgh police, the victim told detectives he was walking in the area of Semple and Ward streets around 2 a.m. when he saw a group of about eight men. When the group saw his necklace, police said they “hurled insults about Israel” and at least three of them began punching and kicking the victim.

There is a similar pattern developing at the University of Michigan.

In a letter released to the University of Michigan community Monday, Sept. 23, University of Michigan President Santa Ono gave the following details:

“At 1:20 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 21, a brief verbal exchange took place between a male student and an individual who was with a larger group on the front porch of an off-campus house occupied by members of a historically Jewish fraternity. The male student was punched once by the suspect, who then fled.

“At approximately 1 a.m. Sunday, Sept. 22, a group returned and threw glass bottles at the house.”

A few days later, two more Jewish students were attacked at the same fraternity.

Ann Arbor police are investigating two more reported assaults over the weekend of University of Michigan students who are Jewish.

The assaults represent at least three reported attacks on Jewish students at the Ann Arbor university in roughly a week. Ann Arbor Police Department spokesman Chris Page noted local and university police have promised to increase patrols, saying they’re committed to keeping all students safe.

While Page said the motivation for the latest attacks remains unknown, he confirmed both students attacked are Jewish and they were reportedly assaulted outside a home where students from a Jewish fraternity live. He said a group confronted the Jewish students in front of the residence on the 1000 block of East University Avenue, but declined to provide additional details about the attack. 

The ADL says there have been 28 assaults on Jewish students on campus during the previous school year. And of course the violence isn’t limited to campus.

Ben Goldies, 54, wearing a “Bring Them Home Now” baseball cap in solidarity with the Israeli hostages held in Gaza, joined a small group of pro-Israel counterprotesters in front of the school. Within seconds, a man blew a whistle in his face, Goldies said.

“Next thing I know, he just punches at me with a motion to, like, cut me,” Goldies told NBC News. “I felt my eye, and then I saw blood. The police tackled him, put him in handcuffs.”

Alou Bathily, a 26-year-old Black man, was charged with third-degree assault, police said…

Goldies, who needed five stitches over his left eye, warned that people should stop depicting campus protests as peaceful. “They are totally violent,” he said “It’s not about Israel, they’re just out there to try to attack Jewish people.”

This is another situation where the media won’t make the “climate of hate” argument even though it’s obvious this spike in aggression coincides with a lot of left-wing activism on campus. They reserve that argument for things which can be blamed on the right.