“My first reaction was I wanted to call my mom and be like, ‘Did you pay the bill? There’s an eviction notice on the door,’” recalled Rayna Exelbierd. It’s been more than 10 years since she first found the mock eviction notice plastered on her dorm room as a student at Florida Atlantic University (FAU), but she doesn’t hesitate to recount each detail surrounding the attack against her Jewish identity at the hands of other students on campus. “I didn’t think it had anything to do with Israel,” Exelbierd, now 30, said. “I literally thought my mom did not pay, and therefore I was being kicked out.”

It started out as a normal Friday evening for Exelbierd during the spring of her freshman year in 2012, when she attended weekly Shabbat dinners on campus. As an active member of many Jewish organizations, Exelbierd’s presence as a pro-Israel advocate was widely known by her school community. “Israel changed my life. All my clothes were from Israel, all my best photos were from Israel, everything I was talking about was about Israel because that’s what I was passionate about,” she shared recently in an extensive phone interview.

However, it was her date who walked her back to her room following Shabbat dinner who eventually realized that the flier, complete with the Palm Beach County and FAU housing approved stamp, was a mock threat. Organized by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at the university, the notice was their attempt to bring awareness to what they said is Palestinians being evicted from their own homes by the Israeli government. According to Exelbierd, SJP had coerced the housing department to be able to hang these flyers in the dorm rooms through distributing the notices to the doors of 300 students randomly, attempting to not make it appear like a targeted attack against the Jewish student body. But to Exelbierd, it was obvious that she was intentionally included. “When I found the notice on my door, my door was the only one on my floor that had the notice,” she said. “So, number one, not only was I mad by the information, but number two, how the hell did they get an approval stamp for this?”

According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which commented on a similar incident at New York University two years later in 2014, “Mock eviction notices are a disturbing tactic designed to silence and intimidate pro-Israel advocates on campuses around the country rather than promote meaningful dialogue. While students have a right to express their views on campus, targeting students in their residence halls is an unsettling intrusion.”

Friday, the day the incident happened, is also considered to be the holiest day of the week according to the Hebrew Bible. Jewish people observe the Sabbath, more commonly recognized as Shabbat, on Friday evenings to symbolize a day of rest, peace and holiness.

From antisemitic comments directed toward her to student clubs bringing in Holocaust-denying speakers, the mock eviction notice incident was one of many attacks throughout Exelbierd’s experience in college that continues to impact her and influence her work today as an entrepreneur, motivational speaker and author. Growing up in Memphis, antisemitism was not something she confronted prior to college, especially as the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors. “I never experienced racism as a kid,” Exelbierd said. “I never felt different.”

Rayna and her grandfather, Holocaust survivor Joseph Exelbierd. (Rayna Exelbierd/Courtesy)

When Exelbierd traveled to Israel after graduating from high school, she found community in different ways through volunteering in the Israeli army, participating in archaeological digging and coaching Jewish and Muslim children in soccer. Meeting new people, experiencing the culture and developing a sense of belonging intertwined with her Jewish identity was the lens through which she discovered her self-worth. “It was the first time in my life where I was like…Damn. I am cool. I am funny. I am smart,” Exelbierd said.

Rayna (center) volunteered in the Israel Defense Forces before beginning college. (Rayna Exelbierd/Courtesy)

While her experience in Israel was certainly life-changing, it was also there that she was exposed to the idea that come time for college, she might experience antisemitism, meet people who don’t like Jewish people or confront people who believed that being antisemitic and anti-Israel were not inextricably linked.

On the second day of the fall semester at my school, the University of Southern California (USC), the window of the Hillel building on campus was vandalized by an object thrown through and shattering the glass. While USC is no stranger to instances of antisemitism on campus (just this summer the U.S. Department of Education opened an investigation into an antisemitic complaint), many students were not surprised by the attack with the spike in antisemitic cases that have been targeting college campuses across the country.

Erica Fusté, who graduated from USC in May, shared that she heard about the incident from reading headlines online while working as an elementary school teacher through Teach for America in New Orleans. Fusté, 22, had been USC Hillel’s co-president during her senior year and knew it was a matter of time before Hillel, the center of Jewish life on campus, would be targeted. “I've always expected this was eventually going to happen to our building on USC's campus,” she said. “Because I feel as though the sentiments about the Jewish community, particularly Hillel, have always been so deeply negative.”

Erica (bottom center) with friends she met through USC Hillel at FreshFest, a retreat for incoming students. (Erica Fusté/Courtesy)

Hillel, the largest Jewish campus organization in the world, strives to represent all Jewish people in their chapter at USC, which was one of the main reasons Fusté sought out this approachable community. Being born and raised in Puerto Rico to a Jewish mother and Christian father, Fusté stated she wasn’t exactly embraced by the Jewish community there because she did not have a traditional Jewish household. “A lot of the Jewish holidays and the Jewish experiences that I had were kind of makeshift renditions of the holidays, so that we could celebrate at home, and we didn't have to be a part of exclusive communities in Puerto Rico,” Fusté said. “So, when I came to college, it was really important for me to have a Jewish community and to make my Judaism something that I really felt proud of because it was something I was always missing.”

While Hillel is a Zionist organization, meaning that it supports the State of Israel as an expression of Jewish identity and self-determination, Fusté reflected that members define their Jewishness and relationship with Israel in different ways, with religious and Israel-related events not being requirements. “A lot of the people that were able to walk into Hillel, like non-Jews, get over the preconceived notions that they had and actually see that Hillel is not pushing anything down their throats,” she said.

However, it’s not always that easy to change people’s minds.

In the fall of 2021, Hillel was hosting Shabbat dinners in the back parking lot outside the building on campus to accommodate social distancing guidelines during the pandemic. Even though the organizers were excited to find creative ways to continue celebrating their faith during this time, Fusté also remembers some of the concern from the community that it might not be safe, saying that anyone could come in their car, drive into the driveway and run people over. “People were scared of praying in the parking lot and singing the songs, lighting the Shabbat candles and being openly Jewish because the sentiment against our community was just that strong,” she said. “A lot of people in our community felt like they were on high alert.”

Gaya Malka, a sophomore at Brandeis University studying neuroscience and biology, valued a strong Jewish community in the college she wanted to attend. Growing up in a small town in New Jersey as the daughter of Israeli immigrants, she and her sister felt like the only practicing Jews in middle and high school. “I knew that because I wasn't home, I couldn't rely on my parents to continue the Jewish activities. So, I looked for a campus that would have Jewish values embedded in its community,” Malka, 19, said.

Gaya, the daughter of Israeli immigrants, and her parents. (Gaya Malka/Courtesy)

However, even at Brandeis, an institution founded in 1948 by the American Jewish community during which Jews and other minority groups faced discrimination in the college admissions process, Malka still expressed concern over being fully transparent when it came to sharing her Israeli identity. “Whenever someone asks, I'm like, 'Oh, I'm Moroccan.' I'll add something else when I feel like the vibes are good,” she said when explaining how different parts of her background, like being Moroccan and Persian, come across to the average person as less controversial. “Because somehow, you say your ethnicity and it turns into a debate.”

For these three young people, each with a unique Jewish identity, the conversations surrounding the rise of antisemitism have not gotten easier. In a survey conducted in 2021, Hillel International and the ADL found that one in three college students had experienced antisemitic hate directed at them in the last academic year. Additionally, the survey found that most students who experienced antisemitic activity happening on campus did not report it, suggesting there may be a higher frequency of incidents that is not being reported.