Jewish students describe going to college in NYC amid intense anti-Israeli protests: ‘Target on my back'

Several Jewish college students talked about their experiences going to school where some of the most intense anti-Israel demonstrations in the country are occurring.

Shoshana Aufzien, Eliana Birman, and Aryeh Krischer appeared on "Fox & Friends" on Wednesday to express their horror and shock at the raucous anti-Israel protests that have taken over Columbia University and Barnard College in New York City throughout the last academic year and the beginning of this one. 

"I honestly don’t find it fair for these students to take away the education that I’ve dreamed of my entire life and for me to just back down and go somewhere else simply because I’m Jewish and simply because I’m a Zionist," Birman told the channel.

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Birman and Aufzien are freshmen at Barnard College, an all-female liberal arts college that shares a campus and faculty with Columbia University. Krischer is a PhD student at Columbia. 

Both Barnard students told Fox News that they committed to attending their "dream school" despite being "disheartened" by the breakout of the protests – and the harassment of Jewish students that came with them – throughout the last year following Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre in Israel. 

Aufzien said, "Like Eliana, I also always wanted to go to Barnard. It’s a women’s college and I’m also in a dual degree program with the Jewish theological seminary, so I’m able to pursue a couple of my diverse interests simultaneously. But believe me when I say that I was disheartened and appalled to see the events that transpired last year."

Krischer admitted that staying at Columbia to finish his program "was something that I definitely thought a lot about," noting that one of his good friends recently switched schools because of the agitators. 

The PhD student said he’s been able to avoid confrontation with angry students most days because he works "near at the back of campus."

"But when I need to buckle down and work, I can get away from it all and buckle down and work. That's not a luxury everyone has," he added. 

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When Birman was asked if she felt her school was working to protect her, she replied, "Absolutely not."

She explained that only a day before she moved onto campus, an article she published in a small Jewish outlet detailing her concerns about attending the school was shared online by anti-Israel agitators at the school and seen by her classmates. As a result, she was bullied as soon as she got to school.

"We moved in the following day and they were asking me how I could even show my face on campus, telling me that it's embarrassing for me to even be there."

She continued, "I don't feel safe on campus even now that I'm here. From my room, I can hear the protests quite clearly. I'm on the second floor, facing Broadway. Walking through campus, I notice fliers being handed out to visibly Jewish students – basically, fliers telling them that they're complicit in genocide. And I just feel like there's a target on my back simply for being Jewish."

Aufzien accused Columbia and Barnard administrators of "all talk, no action" when it comes to protecting Jewish students on campus.

"Columbia has an antisemitism task force that released a pretty damning report of antisemitism and antisemitic incidents that happened on campus this past year and, while that was disseminated to the entire university, I have not seen tangible examples of the administration taking note of that and truly it’s gross negligence," she said. 

Krischer added, "I mean look, when you have antisemitism lurking in the shadows and you deny it instead of addressing it, that sends a pretty clear message about everything else that you're doing."