A Jewish student at Columbia University doubled down after harassment and threats — over her accurate and consistent reporting on campus anti-Semitism — initially spurred her to flee campus. She fired back, writing an article for Rolling Stone Magazine about the anti-Semitism that has infected her college campus and others.
Rebecca Massel, a senior staff writer for the student newspaper — The Columbia Daily Spectator — wrote the article for Rolling Stone after she got backlash for reporting on the on-campus assault of an Israeli student and the ongoing anti-Semitic protests, marches, and harassment that she and other Jewish students had seen.
The assault in question had occurred just a few days after the horrific attack perpetrated by Hamas terrorists against Israeli civilians — as anti-Semitic demonstrations began to pick up speed worldwide — and the victim was reportedly afraid to have his full name printed in the paper.
Following her report on the assault, Massel wrote that she received an email with the subject line, “You are disgusting.”
The text of the email was worse: “I hope you f***ing get what you deserve … you racist freak.”
Next came a campaign of attacks on Sidechat, which Massel described as “an anonymous social media platform open to those with a Columbia email address” — where criticisms focused primarily on the fact that Massel was Jewish, and alleged that her reporting was biased because the victim was Israeli. The threats and harassment continued until she fled campus, feeling for the first time that she might not be safe there.
“This was the first time that I felt unsafe and unwelcome at Columbia. Following the online comments and the harassing emails about my story, I left campus out of safety concerns and only returned after Columbia Public Safety and the Public Safety interim director confirmed that being on campus would not pose a physical risk,” Massel said.
She referenced another Spectator article, published about one month after the Hamas attacks in Israel, for which she had spoken to a number 0f Jewish students on campus to talk about their experiences. Among the 54 students she spoke to, she said that 33 had reported feeling “unsafe or targeted.” Another 13 said that they had been harassed, and 12 reported trying to hide their Jewish identity — and nearly all of them said that they were uncomfortable with their full names being published.
Massel went on to describe a series of incidents — anti-Semitic protests, marches, threats, and harassment — that had been reported on other college campuses across the United States, noting that the problem was quickly becoming a universal one.
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“Antisemitic incidents on campus are not new,” Massel continued. “A Columbia graduate student shared with me in a Spectator interview that on the first day of classes last year, when she mentioned that her family is Israeli, a professor said, ‘So you must know a lot about settler colonialism. How do you feel about that?’ In a meeting with another professor, she says the professor told her, ‘It’s such a shame that your people survived just in order to perpetuate genocide.’ Now, she avoids mentioning her Israeli connection.”