Rising Antisemitism on European Campuses: Violence, Exclusion, and a Climate of Fear

By: Fern Sidman

European universities are facing what Jewish leaders and watchdogs are describing as an unprecedented surge in antisemitic hostility, with Jewish and Israeli students — as well as faculty — increasingly subjected to intimidation, exclusion, and even physical violence.

This week, events in both Italy and France highlighted the alarming trajectory. At the University of Pisa in Tuscany, pro-Hamas protesters stormed a lecture hall, assaulted a professor, and left both him and a student injured. Meanwhile, at Paris’s prestigious Panthéon-Sorbonne University, Jewish students were excluded from an online group chat simply because their surnames “sounded Jewish.”

As The Algemeiner reported on Wednesday, since Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre in Israel, these incidents are part of a broader wave of anti-Israel activism across European campuses that has increasingly morphed into raw antisemitism.

On Tuesday, a group of anti-Israel activists barged into a classroom at the University of Pisa, waving Palestinian flags and chanting slogans laced with antisemitic vitriol. The target was a professor who had publicly opposed the university’s recent decision to cut ties with two Israeli universities.

According to Italian media cited in The Algemeiner report, the confrontation escalated when a student attempted to defend the professor and was physically attacked. The professor, stepping in to shield the student, was beaten and later hospitalized with head and arm injuries.

The assault sent shockwaves through the academic community in Italy. Rather than merely voicing opposition to Israeli policies, protesters had crossed into physical violence against faculty for refusing to toe a political line.

On the same day, another anti-Israel protest disrupted a lecture by a visiting Israeli scholar at the Polytechnic University of Turin. Demonstrators stormed the classroom, shouting antisemitic slogans and denouncing the speaker for defending the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). In a move that critics said amounted to rewarding mob pressure, the university swiftly announced it was cutting ties with the speaker.

The Algemeiner report observed that for Jewish and Israeli academics these developments illustrate the precariousness of intellectual freedom in European higher education: scholars risk being silenced or assaulted if they refuse to adopt a stridently anti-Israel stance.

Meanwhile in France, antisemitic hostility manifested in digital spaces central to student life. On Monday, first-year economics students at Panthéon-Sorbonne University set up a class group chat on Instagram. Within hours, Jewish students found themselves excluded.

One organizer, according to French media reports, declared: “If there are any other Zionists in this group besides those I’ve already kicked out, leave now — we don’t want you here,” punctuating the statement with a Palestinian flag emoji.

This came just weeks after another Sorbonne student created a WhatsApp poll titled, “For or Against Jews?”

Yossef Murciano, president of the Union of Jewish Students of France (UEJF), condemned the atmosphere of intimidation. “We reported the incident to the university, but so far nothing has been done. We were told that measures would be taken, but we don’t know when or how,” he told reporters, in remarks in The Algemeiner report.

While the university issued a statement denouncing “unacceptable behavior” and pledged to submit evidence to the public prosecutor, Jewish leaders questioned whether administrative condemnation would be followed by meaningful action.

The French government weighed in swiftly. Higher Education and Research Minister Philippe Baptiste called for “zero tolerance” in a post on X, insisting that universities must be places of inclusion, not exclusion.

Yonathan Arfi, president of CRIF — France’s umbrella group of Jewish organizations — characterized the exclusionary incidents as “not a pro-Palestinian campaign, but a campaign of antisemitic intimidation.” His words echoed concerns long raised by The Algemeiner, which has documented how anti-Israel activism in France often veers into explicit hostility toward Jewish students, creating a climate of fear across campuses.

The Pisa assault and Sorbonne exclusion are not isolated. As The Algemeiner report noted, they follow months of intensifying anti-Israel activity since Hamas’s Oct. 7 invasion and massacre in southern Israel. Across Europe, Jewish students report being singled out, ostracized, and, increasingly, unsafe.

In Germany, watchdog groups have tracked a marked uptick in antisemitic incidents on university campuses. A recent joint report by two international Jewish organizations and a German monitoring body concluded that post-Oct. 7 activism has fostered a “climate of fear” for Jewish students.

That conclusion was echoed in another global study published earlier this week by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the World Union of Jewish Students (WUJS). As The Algemeiner reported, the survey revealed that more than three-quarters of Jewish students worldwide feel compelled to hide their Jewish identity or Zionist beliefs to avoid becoming targets.

The Italian cases are particularly alarming because they signal a shift from rhetorical antisemitism to outright physical aggression. The University of Pisa assault represents, in the words of one Italian commentator quoted in The Algemeiner report, “a dark day for academic freedom in Europe.”

Italy’s universities have historically prided themselves on openness and scholarly debate. But the decision by institutions such as Pisa and Turin to sever ties with Israeli academia has emboldened protesters to treat pro-Israel voices not as interlocutors but as enemies to be shouted down — or worse.

That a professor was hospitalized for defending academic collaboration with Israeli institutions illustrates how polarized and dangerous the campus environment has become.

France, home to Europe’s largest Jewish community, has long grappled with antisemitism on campuses. The recent Sorbonne incidents, however, reveal an alarming normalization of antisemitic exclusion in everyday student life.

When Jewish students are expelled from basic online groups for having Jewish-sounding names, it signals not only antisemitism but also the weaponization of anti-Zionism as a tool of social ostracism.

As The Algemeiner report pointed out, the conflation of “Zionist” with “unwanted Jew” is one of the clearest examples of antisemitism in contemporary academic culture.

For many Jewish students, these incidents confirm what surveys have been documenting: a pervasive sense of vulnerability.

The ADL-WUJS report cited in The Algemeiner report found that 78% of Jewish students globally conceal their Jewish identity on campus, while 81% hide their Zionist beliefs. Women were particularly vulnerable, with 85% reporting that they masked their support for Israel.

Eric Fingerhut, president and CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America, told reporters that Jewish communities are spending approximately $1 billion annually on security, but government support remains essential. “There’s a war of a kind happening domestically,” he said — a war whose frontlines increasingly include Europe’s universities.

Administrations across Europe are struggling to balance freedom of expression with protection of students and faculty. Yet critics say they have often erred on the side of appeasement.

At Turin, the decision to sever ties with the Israeli speaker following a protest has been described in The Algemeiner report as a capitulation to mob pressure. At the Sorbonne, promises of disciplinary measures remain vague.

For Jewish leaders, the message is clear: failure to act decisively emboldens antisemitic activists.

The rise in campus antisemitism is not just a Jewish issue. It speaks to the erosion of universities as spaces of dialogue, tolerance, and mutual respect.

When professors are beaten, students are excluded, and academic partnerships are terminated based on nationality, the very principles of higher education are undermined.

As The Algemeiner reported, universities risk becoming breeding grounds for hatred rather than incubators of ideas unless administrators, governments, and civil society confront antisemitism head-on.

The incidents in Pisa and Paris highlight a disturbing new normal: Jewish and Israeli students and faculty in Europe are not only subject to rhetorical hostility but also to physical danger and social exclusion.

The condemnation by officials such as Minister Baptiste and CRIF’s Yonathan Arfi is welcome, but Jewish leaders stress that words must be matched with action. Universities must enforce discipline, governments must ensure accountability, and civil society must recognize that anti-Israel activism too often masks antisemitism.

As The Algemeiner report emphasized, the fight against antisemitism on campus is inseparable from the defense of academic freedom and democratic values. The events of this week in Italy and France show how urgent — and how difficult — that fight has become.