For some students at this university, the past semester has been defined by the Israel-Hamas war. For them, winter break can’t come fast enough.
“Since the war broke out, I’ve been more stressed,” said Ella Elimelech, a freshman information sciences major. “It’s hard to remember what it was like being a college student for that one month before the war started.”
Antisemitism has sparked globally since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks on Israel and the country’s retaliation in Gaza. When “Holocaust 2.0” was chalked on a Hornbake Plaza sidewalk at a pro-Palestinian rally last month, this university’s community was left shocked.
Elimelech said that before the war, she never had to confront hatred against her own people.
“I went to Jewish day school pretty much my entire life, so I grew up in a very Jewish bubble,” she said. “I knew that people have always thought this way, and there was always antisemitism, but it shocked me that I was in a place where there was antisemitism,” she said.
Jess Daninhirsch, a sophomore journalism major, said she’s felt fatigued and tired as the semester nears an end. Events since the war began, like the chalking on Hornbake Plaza, have made her look differently at antisemitism.
“It’s just causing me to look at everything in a much more critical way,” she said. “Like, is there underlying antisemitism here? If so, how do I address it?”
A surge of events and fundraisers by the Jewish community have taken place since the start of the war. Leah Bregman, a senior studying marketing and management, and president of this university’s Jewish Student Union, said events like JSU’s Hanukkah party have helped her feel connected to Jews on campus and de-stress.
“The Hanukkah party was a great way for everybody to just take a step back and relax, and remember what it’s like to just enjoy being Jewish and all the amazing things that come with that,” she said.
Bregman said the community is anxiously awaiting winter break.
“It’s been really difficult for everyone, balancing their feelings about what’s happening in Israel and balancing classes,” Bregman said. “I think that everybody needs to reset and have a second to process everything that’s been going on.”
