Since the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent conflict in Gaza, Jewish and Muslim students at the University of Minnesota learned to balance their expressions of religious identity with concerns about increased hate speech and isolation from campus communities.
The number of reported antisemitic incidents across the U. S. was 8,873 in 2023, according to an audit by the Anti-Defamation League, an almost 140% increase from 2022.
A report by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said they received 8,061 complaints of Islamophobia in the U.S. in 2023, a 56% increase from 2022. Half of those complaints were from the last three months of the year, following the attack by Hamas on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
This is the highest number of complaints CAIR has recorded in its 30-year history, according to the report.
Abdi, a fourth-year student at the University who requested to be partially anonymous due to fear for her safety on campus, said despite the large Muslim community at the University, it can be intimidating for a hijab-wearing Muslim woman to walk around campus because of anti-Muslim rhetoric.
“Honestly my greatest fear is being on campus late at night and being attacked because of my faith and because I do outwardly identify as a Muslim woman,” Abdi said.
As a political science major taking classes about global politics, Abdi said it is upsetting that her professors seem to be shying away from discussing the war in class and not facilitating a space for important conversations.
Abdi transferred to the University last year and said in the early days of the war, she remembers her day-to-day life on campus being a time of fear.
With memories of targeted attacks she had experienced when she was younger and news about the rise of hate-fueled attacks on Hijabis, Abdi said she minimized her time on campus.
“My first semester, I would come to class and go home,” Abdi said. “I did not want to be on campus. I did not want to be in a place that made me vulnerable.”
Abdi said the U.S.’s lack of regulation on firearms adds to the anxiety she has about being targeted inside a religious space. Abdi said she prays on campus and is worried about being attacked because of her faith.
“Despite that, I still choose to wear my hijab because I believe that God is bigger than my fear,” Abdi said.
A second-year student, who asked to be anonymous due to fear of being targeted for her beliefs, said as a Jewish student, she has been very conscious about heightened rates of antisemitism in the U.S. and on campus.
The student serves on the council of the University’s branch of Hillel, a Jewish student cultural center. The protests outside of Hillel on Oct. 7, while they hosted a memorial service for the people who were killed on Oct. 7, 2023, were a reminder of the safety concerns Jewish students have, she said.
“Having to make that phone call to my parents the next day and be like, ‘Hey, you were right. There were protests,’ was really startling and a little humbling because who wants to admit to their parents that they were right,” she said.
The student said she feels the argument that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism is sometimes used to excuse actual antisemitism.
She said she remembers being told growing up that there are situations where she needs to hide her Star of David necklace for her safety. After Oct. 7, 2023, she now wears a “bring them home” necklace, a slogan calling for the safe return of hostages in Gaza.
According to the student, at the end of spring semester on her way to class, she was offered a flyer at a pro-Palestinian booth. When she declined to take it, she said they yelled “Zionist” at her, prompting her to turn around.
“They saw my necklaces, and I remember they said ‘Oh, it’s cuz you’re a fucking Jew,’” the student said. “That’s just straight-up antisemitic, you can’t call that anti-Zionism.”
The student said incidents like this harm the Palestinian cause, making it more difficult to have open discourse about the war.
According to her, Jewish students like herself, including those she speaks to as part of her role at Hillel, are dealing with feelings of isolation from the broader campus community.
Izhan Qureishy, a third-year Muslim student at the University, said in Islam, Muslims are called to protect other people, so protesting against the war and raising awareness is a matter of faith, something not always understood by the University community.
“God commands us to defend people that are being harmed, particularly Muslims,” Qureishy said.
Qureishy has been involved in several Muslim student groups including the Al-Madinah Cultural Center and the Muslim Student Association. He also attends mosques in the University area.
Qureishy often wears a turban and said with that physical identifier of his faith, along with him being visibly Middle Eastern, he is not a stranger to being judged for his identity.
While he has always felt a level of discomfort when asking professors to step out of a class to pray or when doing things that differentiate him from other students, Qureishy said that feeling has increased over the past year.
“The reality of being Muslim has completely changed for many, many people,” Qureishy said.
Qureishy said this increase in attention has, in a way, liberated him from feeling like he should care about what other people think, allowing him to concentrate on using his voice as a way to spread awareness of struggles faced by Muslim people.
According to Qureishy, he has felt gaslit by the media and community spreading the idea that people who protest against the war are supporting terrorism. He said this contributes to the idea that Muslims are strange or “other,” something he added Muslims experienced even before the war.
“There is a framing of Muslims as terrorists, as people who are subhuman,” Qureishy said.
Qureishy said the war has given him an opportunity to adjust his priorities in life, and shaped the identity of Muslim-American students such as himself.
“Identity, for a lot of people, myself in particular, has shifted to one of a globalized citizen, a Muslim that cares about justice around the world, rather than an American,” Qureishy said.
An Israeli-American second-year student at the University, who requested anonymity for fear of her or her family being targeted, said she has seen misconceptions about Jewish student beliefs based on their religious identity.
“I still think it’s important for people to realize that not every Jew is pro-Israel, and a lot of Jews are misled about Israel, there’s a lot of shit that many of us have to unpack,” she said.
The student’s father is from Israel and served in the Israel Defense Forces due to mandatory service. She said she has visited Israel to see her extended family five or six times and has spent many months there.
She said she wears her Star of David necklace alongside a Palestinian flag bracelet to show solidarity with the Palestinian people and cause. She said she wants Palestinians to know they are safe with her.
The student said although she sees more antisemitism present on campus now than there was a year ago, she does believe reports have been overplayed by the University and certain groups.
She said at the beginning of the war she believed some pro-Palestinian activist groups tokenized Jewish voices, although that is not as prevalent now.
She said she believes there are “idiots” joining protesting groups on both sides to amplify antisemitism and Islamophobia, but those individuals’ voices are not representative of the beliefs of each side as a whole.
The student said she remembered her and her dad being scared after the Oct. 7, 2023 attack when a former Hamas leader called for a “Global Day of Jihad” on Oct. 13, prompting safety concerns from Jewish communities across the world.
She said that was a conflicting time for her, as it was both “a time of mourning and time of celebration.”
Having supported Palestine for years before the war began, the student said she felt torn. She was scared people would target Jewish people around the world due to their faith, but she also had friends who were pro-Palestine and actively participating in protests against Israel.
She said her stance on the war has made it somewhat difficult to find a structured Jewish cultural community on campus. She wanted to join a Jewish student group or join Hillel last year, but as a student who supports Palestine, she did not feel aligned with their beliefs.
The student said she is constantly affected by the war.
“I’m very surprised that more people don’t live day to day with a pit in their stomach,” she said. “Because I wake up every day and almost every day one of the first things I think about is what’s happening in a place I used to call a second home.”