Jewish university students across Canada speak out about the rise of antisemitism on campuses since October 7

Fault Lines examines the pressures pulling Canadian society apart and the principles that can hold it together. We look beyond headlines to understand how institutions, communities, and democratic norms are fraying. Our mission is to show how better choices can repair what is broken. Part one in a two-part series looking at the rise of antisemitism on Canadian campuses. In the past three years, Jewish students on university campuses across Canada have faced targeted harassment, threats, and ostracism after a seismic shift towards anti-Israel sentiment and, often, outright antisemitism from their post-secondary peers. The Hub interviewed seven Jewish students on six Canadian campuses to find out what they’ve experienced on a daily basis interacting with classmates, teachers, and administrators, as antisemitism has metastasized since October 7th. Life for many Jewish students on Canadian campuses has changed from a safe place of educational discovery and personal growth to a place where they are hectored and shunned by fellow classmates, and where some professors have openly vocalized pro-Palestine and anti-Zionist opinions within the classroom. At campuses like York University, where the current student president has publicly praised Hamas, things have become especially bleak. “How have we had a student body president who is literally, openly pro-terrorism, pro-Hamas, and praises the massacre of October 7?” asks a York University fifth-year Jewish student to The Hub, wishing for her identity to remain hidden. “How can we feel safe?” The heightened threat against Canadian Jews Antisemitism across the Western world targeting Jewish diaspora communities in the wake of the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel, Israel’s response, and the subsequent war in Gaza, has markedly increased. Antisemitic incidents and hate crimes in countries such as France, the U.K., the U.S., Australia, and Canada all skyrocketed in the last two-and-a-half years; Canada saw a 124.6 percent increase in cases of antisemitism from 2022 to 2024. By the end of 2025, hatred towards Jews hit an inflection point when 15 people were shot down and killed at Bondi Beach by two terrorists targeting 1,000 people gathering to celebrate Hanukkah in Sydney, Australia. So far, Canadian Jews have been spared from becoming victims of a post-October 7 terrorist attack. But just five days after the Bondi attack, three young men in Canada were arrested for alleged hate-motivated extremism directed at the Jewish community and women. One of the accused was also charged with several terrorism counts, including conspiracy to commit murder. Prior to the prevention of this latest alleged Canadian terrorism cell, the RCMP arrested a father and son in 2024 for allegedly being “in the advanced stages of planning a serious, violent attack.” They were charged with conspiracy to commit murder and terrorist offences. Although the RCMP did not disclose which group the alleged father-son terrorist duo were targeting, Jewish advocacy group B’nai Brith Canada and Ontario Conservative MP Larry Brock allege that Canadian Jews were the target. These close calls, along with the spike in hate crimes against Jews within Canada in the last two years, are the backdrop at Canadian university campuses, where the anti-Israel sentiment is the most pronounced, has become normalized, and has often descended into outright antisemitism towards Jewish students. At Concordia University, Jewish students were intimidated, threatened, and physically attacked back in late 2023. In downtown Montreal, at the McGill University campus, masked protestors formed blockades and encampments at three buildings, harassing professors and students they deemed to be allied with Israel and calling for the Jewish homeland to be “decolonized.” More recently, at the end of last year, six people were arrested after a group of anti-Israel protestors targeted Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) Jewish students, breaking into a private event that the student group Students Supporting Israel at TMU was hosting. These are just a few of the myriad reported cases of rampant antisemitism that have become commonplace on Canadian university campuses. The Hub wanted to take a closer look at the day-to-day experiences of Canadian Jewish students since October 7 to get a better understanding of the severity of the rise of antisemitism on their campuses and how Jewish students and administrators are handling this new phenomenon. How Canadian campuses became hostile places for Jews post October 7th All the Jewish university students The Hub interviewed found their campuses to be anywhere from somewhat alienating to sometimes outright hostile places for Jews to attend in the aftermath of October 7. “When walking around campus, hearing hundreds of students yelling things such as ‘Globalize the Intifada’ or ‘Intifada revolution’ causes me an immediate feeling of discomfort,” University of British Columbia third-year student Neta Goldman told The Hub. “Although they are not physically threatening, the shouting and chanting of hostile terms against Jews can make many students at UBC feel unwelcome.” A common refrain from Jewish students was criticism and protesting against Israel immediately after the October 7th attack, protests that have continued after a ceasefire was reached. On the University of Toronto campus, Jewish students applied to hold a vigil a few days after October 7. It ended with Jewish students being surrounded and harassed. “We were about 30 of us there, and it was basically swarmed by a mob of over 100 anti-Israel protesters who were screaming anything from ‘baby killers’ to ‘You should be ashamed of yourself’…And I remember seeing Jewish students just crying, broken down in tears,” said Tal Rozenblit, fourth-year University of Toronto international relations, public policy student and a U of T Hillel board member and VP of communications for U of T Canadian Union of Jewish Students . Western University fifth-year biology and medical science student Julia Mezhiborsky noticed a complete change in her campus post October 7 as well. “Before, it was definitely a lot more calm. I was more comfortable saying that I’m Jewish and speaking freely,” Mezhiborsky admitted. “When we were doing our silent vigil, we got yelled at by a couple people. One guy spat on the floor in front of us. There were some girls laughing and calling us names and filming us and stuff from a distance, and just standing there for the entirety of three hours.” Other students, including University of Calgary fifth-year business student Arielle Cheuk, said there were a lot of Jewish students worried about their safety after October 7. “There was a lot of fear in the first week, especially because they had the Day of Rage that a lot of students on our campus were posting about that was supposed to target Jews and kind of silence us in the idea that October 7 was a resistant movement,” she said. “They viewed all Jewish students on campus as that, and they were trying to find and target us,” Cheuk said. She also recalled a Jewish event hosted by Students Supporting Israel Calgary, where a protester tried to storm into the private meeting. They were called “baby killers” and told they couldn’t hide. Cheuk and the other Jewish students had to escape out of a loading dock, but were stalked by two protestors who told them their “families deserve what they got, and we’re all liars,” she says. Cheuk reported two of the identified harassers and filed a report with the school administration, but the case still remains ongoing. Jewish student groups across Canadian campuses now seek private security for all events, and they do not publicly disclose event locations—instead privately DMing members—because of the constant threat of protestors breaking into the private meetings. Mezhiborsky recalls feeling most afraid when she had an Egyptian friend warn her of possible threats of violence to Jews on campus. “[He warned me to be] careful because there was a recent National Post report that came out, exposing text messages from a group chat of basically people in different profiles and clubs that were discussing being violent on campus, bringing knives, disguising themselves [and] talking about wanting to harm Jews. Like a lot of really violent things,” Mezhiborsky said. She was referring to Western University Jewish students who infiltrated two private London-area pro-Palestinian group chats, where participants shared pro-Hamas videos, antisemitic cartoons, and Hitler memes, alongside tips on how to bring knives to protests. Afraid to be openly Jewish on campus Rozenblit caught classmates he thought were his friends expressing their hatred of Jews in private social media messages he could see while sitting right next to them at a University of Toronto lecture. “I saw them texting between the two of them, basically saying that the Jews are so evil. [Things like] ‘It’s crazy to think how they had just survived the Holocaust and only a few years later, perpetrated the exact same crimes against the Palestinians,’” Rozenblit said he witnessed them discussing. Today, many Jewish students don’t feel safe being themselves on Canadian campuses. “After October 7, I know a lot of students who went and bought crosses or would take off the necklace or take off mezuzahs on our doors, which are to protect our house,” Cheuk said. “That’s just something that I deal with all the time- having to actively think about what I’m displaying…or where my family’s from, I have to make an active decision in that moment to answer truthfully, or, bend the truth [for safety],” Mezhiborsky said. “I know a lot of Jewish students won’t walk by themselves anymore, especially later towards the evening,” said 22‑year-old fourth-year York University electrical engineering student Menachem Guttmann. The change in campus culture and lecture halls Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) second-year performance acting student Sam Sharrett says he finds it isolating to be Jewish on campus these days. “I found it’s been a social block,” Sharrett told The Hub. “You walk on campus, and you see people you know, wearing kaffiyehs everywhere, or you see posters all the time that are calling for the destruction of Israel, talking about the war being a genocide.” The 20- year-old recalled his teacher publicly distinguishing good Jews from bad ones when another student mistook the professor for being related to another professor. “‘No, I’m not related to him,’ [she said]. He’s Jewish. I’m not Jewish… And she goes, ‘But don’t worry. He’s a good Jew. He supports Palestine, not like the bad Jews,’” he recalled her saying, “And that was really uncomfortable…” A constant refrain from the interviewed students was how overt hatred of Jews has become normalized by the student body. “It’s a new antisemitism that has come up. It’s not so much a fear of physical violence or of outright direct, anything physical. I’ll say it’s more subtle. It’s more legitimized,” Rozenblit said. “It’s more through the cover of social justice. It justifies ostracizing Jewish students.” Other interviewed students revealed how classmates turned on them or shunned them once they found out they were Jewish. “There are 22 kids in my acting class, and I would say at least half are very wary of me.” TMU student Sharrett said. “Since [they saw] I went to Israel on Instagram, I was just shunned out of the conversation because I was apparently too close to the matter, talking about Israel and Gaza.” One day, nearing the end of class, Sharrett and other students got into a heated conversation about the conflict. “My class was having a discussion, and things got pretty heated. I shared my opinion, and the professor asked me to leave,” Sharrett said. “I think he did it from a place of safety, maybe he thought I’d be less of a target if I wasn’t in the room. I don’t think he was trying to do anything wrong; it just came across poorly.” Others have noticed anti-Israel, pro-Palestine, and in some cases even pro-Hamas messaging has almost become commonplace on some campuses. “T.A.s and profs are coming to class with kaffiyehs and being openly political,” said a York University varsity athlete and fifth-year communications and media student who spoke on the condition of being a confidential source. “It seems like classes in school and conversation has shifted from challenging topics to TAs and professors [using their positions] as an open platform of their own [anti-Israel political beliefs].” At York University, Jewish students feel especially alienated by their peers. York Federation of Students president Somar Abuaziza caused controversy because of her public social media posts praising Palestinian terrorism, including on the day of the October 7 massacre. She also posted an image of assassinated Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar alongside the words, “lived a hero and died a hero.” She was elected by 2,403 fellow students after her posts. “I think the main thing is that the university administration needs to take action, meaningful action, because so much hatred has spread around, and our rights have to be protected, and they’re not,” said the fifth-year student. “How can we feel safe?” All the Jewish students interviewed found it very difficult to make their voices heard when it came to raising these concerns with university administration, who they say have clearly taken sides. “People are sending anti-Zionist and antisemitic things in group chats that I’m in,” said TMU student Sharrett. “And there’s no outlet for help, because you go to the student office and the person working at the desk is wearing a kaffiyeh.” This concludes the first of a two-part Hub Fault Lines series looking at the rise of antisemitism on Canadian university campuses. The second part, released the following Monday, looks at the fear Jewish students have on campus, the mixed response by school administrators, and the current situation on campuses at the start of 2026.