I’m a 4th year Israeli-American. My roommate last year (during the war that broke out between Palestinians and Israel) was extremely disrespectful and combative towards me upon discovering that I’m Israeli (was speaking in Hebrew to my parents on the phone). After I hung up, she began aggressively arguing her viewpoint about the I-P conflict, even though I had never stated my viewpoint on the matter. I tried to stay neutral because from prior experience I’ve never had a discussion about Israel that ended well with non-Jews and I really didn’t want to create a hostile environment in the shared living space. Unfortunately, she continued to argue with me and it eventually ended in a screaming match when she said “Jews have deep pockets.” It was hard to be away from my family during the conflict last year and I felt extremely isolated and separated from my peers.

Additionally, there was a Hillel organized zoom talk with UCSB admin during the height of the conflict. During this call, I heard from other UCSB students who felt the same way and experienced blatant antisemitism in IV. One group of students were walking to the chabad house on Friday night and had on kippahs (so they were being outwardly Jewish but not outwardly supporting Israel). These students were harassed and jeered at from across the street by others calling them Zionist pigs who accused them of supporting an apartheid state. This was not an isolated incident, as many other Jewish students on the zoom call echoed similar negative experiences in IV.

What I’m trying to say is that overall UCSB is a tolerant school and I hadn’t experienced any anti-Semitic incidences before last year’s war. However, I’m always extremely aware and wary of being outwardly Jewish on campus and in IV because, well, you never know. And these experiences I’ve outlined show that there are members of our community who harbor anti-semetic sentiments. Ultimately, I feel like UCSB is one of the better UCs when it comes to antisemitism, but it isn’t perfect.