A new “Antisemitism Tracker” was launched by a watchdog group on Wednesday, which monitors and combats anti-Jewish activity on American college campuses, in the hope to assist the public in navigating incidents that have taken place nationwide since 2015, The Algemeiner reported.
The AMCHA Initiative’s new search engine offers users the possibility to search their database by city, state, zip code, geographical region, year, date range, university, and three types of incident categories. Incidents flagged by the group include the targeting of Jewish students and staff, anti-Semitic expression, and activity supporting the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which advocates for the destruction of the Jewish State.
The database also keeps a list of anti-Zionist campus groups, of incidents involving disruptions and swastikas, and of faculty members who have committed to supporting academic boycotts of Israel. Users can also examine the results of BDS votes on various campuses, as well as testimony from students subjected to anti-Jewish prejudice.
“An important part of AMCHA’s mission is to document and expose incidents of campus anti-Semitism and make this information easily and readily available to the public,” said Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, AMCHA’s director and a former lecturer at the University of California, Santa Cruz. “We hope our new searchable databases will make it easier for parents, students, alumni, researchers, journalists and anyone in the community to access the information they are looking for.”
In addition, the group launched a library of open-source images and videos documenting incidents, which students can submit evidence to. “Today every student has ready access to a camera on their phone,” Rossman-Benjamin said. “They will now have the opportunity to take a more active role in documenting and exposing the anti-Semitism they witness.”
AMCHA was founded in 2011 and has long warned of rising levels of anti-Semitism on American college campuses. The group said in a report released last month that anti-Semitic acts involving Israel were “far more likely” to create a hostile climate for Jewish students than “classic” anti-Semitic abuse, and increasingly led to boycotts of individual students. This is consistent with a 2016 AMCHA study that found a strong correlation between anti-Israel boycott activity and on campus anti-Semitic incidents.
[Photo: Amcha Initiative / YouTube ]