More than 250 Holocaust survivors have joined an international initiative to share their stories of loss and survival with students around the world. With antisemitism on the rise following the devastating Oct. 7 attack on Israel, the New York-based Claims Conference, which has organized the Speakers’ Bureau, hopes that firsthand accounts of the cruelties endured during the Holocaust will help counter disinformation and denial.                                                                                                                      AP Photo

Rabbi Levi Raskin, director of the JCrafts Center for Jewish Life and Tradition, playfully adds flat discs of dough to  the oven to cook into matzah, as prepared by first graders from Milton Gottesman Jewish Day School of the  Nation’s Capital, during a “Model Matzah Factory” field trip to the center in Rockville, Md., on Thursday, April 18, 2024. To be kosher for the Passover holiday, the dough has to be prepared and cooked in 17 minutes and not allowed to rise.

(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

The number of antisemitic incidents more than doubled in 2023, surging after the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, according to the Anti-Defamation League’s annual audit, which pointed out that more than half of last year’s incidents took place in the last three months of the year.

The report, published in early April, tabulated 8,873 incidents in 2023, 5,204 of them occurring after Oct. 7. By contrast, the League tallied 3,697 in 2022. Incidents included assaults, vandalism, harassment, and painted swastikas. Ten percent of the incidents in 2022 happened on college campuses.

ADL researchers compiled the data using information from victims, law enforcement, the media and partner organizations.

The co-chair of a task force set up by Harvard University to combat antisemitism has resigned. It is the second high-profile resignation in the university’s efforts to address complaints by Jewish students  that they have felt uncomfortable on campus since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack in Israel. In that attack, scores of citizens were slaughtered and nearly 200 taken as hostages, some of them children and seniors.

The co-chair, Raffaella Sadun, a professor of business administration, did not give a reason for stepping down, but a colleague said she appeared to be frustrated at how long it was taking to make

Hillels of Westchester filed a Title VI complaint Tuesday against Sarah Lawrence College on behalf of Jewish students over “persistent and pervasive” antisemitism.

As a response to the tense climate on campus at Barnard College and Columbia University since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, students at Barnard may no longer display messages on their dorm doors, said an email from Leslie Grinage, the college’s dean.

Some students at Barnard and Columbia University, of which it is a part, have placed signs on their dormitory doors charging Israel with genocide in Gaza and of being an illegitimate state. In response, Jewish students have filed a lawsuit, accusing both schools of failing to protect students from “pervasive” antisemitism and anti-Zionism. “Anti-Zionism is not merely a political movement — although many try to disguise it as such — but is a direct attack against Israel as a Jewish collectivity,” the suit reads.

Barnard officials said the new dorm policy is intended to foster an atmosphere “where everybody feels welcome and safe… While many decorations and fixtures on doors serve as a means of helpful communication amongst peers, we are also aware that some may have the unintended effect of isolating those who have different views and beliefs,” the email statement said.

The Faculty for Justice in Palestine at the University of Pennsylvania is suing the school in an attempt to stop it from participating in a U.S. Department of Education investigation into antisemitism on campus.

The New York Civil Liberties Union and an organization that represents pro-Palestinian activists are suing Columbia University for what they describe as the “unlawful suspension” of two pro-Palestinian student groups on campus. But now, Columbia is considering reinstating its chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace.

A New Jersey school group apologized for an email to staff encouraging them to “contextualize” lessons about Ramadan by explaining how Israel prevents Palestinian Muslims from celebrating their holiday as it “enacts genocide.”

A group of pro-Palestinian activists disrupted an astrophysics lecture on black holes by a visiting Israeli professor at the University of Nevada. The lecture had to be cancelled.

Money donated to the JAFI Fund for Victims of Terror; Lev Echad; The Israeli Trauma and Resiliency Center; and One Family-Overcoming Terror Together is to be used for humanitarian purposes that support medical and psychological treatment for former hostages and their families. More than 250 Israelis were taken hostage on Oct. 7, when Hamas attacked Israel. More than 100 were freed in November during a temporary ceasefire. An estimated 136 people remain hostage in Gaza, of whom about 100 are thought to be alive.