A new movie about campus antisemitism

May 16, 2025 • 9:15 am

Reader Enrico sent me a link to this video called “Blind Spot“, a 2024 movie that’s 95 minutes long. The topic is antisemitism on American college campuses.

The YouTube notes:

“Blind Spot” is the only current film focused exclusively on campus antisemitism. Featuring never-before-seen interviews with students before and after October 7th, along with testimony before Congress and insights from officials, journalists, and university staff, it reveals how antisemitism on campus didn’t appear overnight—and what can be done about it. Described as “like nothing I’ve ever seen” and “a fire alarm ringing,” the film highlights the resilience of Jewish students and the urgent need for change.

It begins with the infamous conflict between Rep. Elise Stefanik and the Presidents of Harvard, Penn, and MIT. The Presidents’ answers about the rules were correct, but the Presidents of Penn and Harvard later resigned, largely because of the hypocrisy of their answers: free speech is indeed within the colleges’ ambit, but they enforced it erratically and hypocritically.

The rest of the video consists of short interviews and statements and scenes of anti-Israel demonstrations from many schools, including the University of Chicago. As we already know, anti-Semitism is pervasive at many of these schools. What impresses me is the resilience and determination of the Jewish students. Compared to the angry, shouty, ace-covered advocates of Palestine, they seem eminently rational. I found it both depressing and heartening.

This film was made last year, but I can’t say things have gotten palpably better in the last year.  As Hamas continues to lose in Gaza, the intensity of Jew hatred has only grown.

BTW, my Belgian colleague Maarten Boudry, a philosopher with whom I’ve published (and an atheist), just published an article in Quillette detailing his impressions of his first trip to Israel.

8 thoughts on “A new movie about campus antisemitism”

  1. My goodness, I’m not sure I have the stomach to watch this. It’s just so depressing to think this evilness is back. I’m hoping for some duckling videos soon. As a counter-weight, you understand.

    1. It’s also heartening, though, as I said. The beleaguered Jews are not scared, but determined. What’s disheartening is the pervasive Jew hatred at MANY campuses that you see.

  2. I queued this up to watch tonight. As with EdwardM, it’s hard to stomach how intellectually and morally bankrupt so many of our college faculty, students, and staff have become. Even worse, they probably have held these hateful views toward Jews and Israel all along, but the current climate has stirred them from the dark holes where they’ve long lurked.

    1. Yes Edward and Norman, it has been around my whole life, but very subdued; i had my first instance from some high school kids one afternoon before Hebrew School when I was 12 and another from some boys from the other side of the tracks on my Pony league team when the coach had not yet arrived. But then only in the shadows (but definitely there) for the next fifty years or so, until recently…

      Along with Anna’s last post, I also have this movie queued up for tonight.

  3. Unfortunately, Maarten Boudry’s Quillete piece, most of it is behind a paywall (so far consulting Archive.Today and the Wayback Machine does not solve the access problem).
    I liked this passage from the part of it in front of the paywall (key sentence in bold, emphasis added):

    Amid the many victim vs. oppressor narratives popular among the Left, there’s no shortage of finger-pointing. Each dimension of oppression has its own designated villain: white people, males, the one percent, straight people, and cisgender individuals. And yet, the biggest culprit in this demonology isn’t a person at all—it’s Western civilisation itself. Western industrialisation is accused of wrecking the planet, Western capitalism of exploiting poorer countries, and Western colonialism of centuries of plundering and conquering. In this blame game, the West is cast as the ultimate bad guy.

    Now, Western civilisation isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, and indeed, many of its harshest critics are enjoying its fruits, living in Western cities and teaching at Western universities. But there is one easy way for progressives to atone for their guilt at the heinous misdeeds of their civilisation, without sacrificing any personal comforts: to demonise Israel. Unlike most of the world’s liberal democracies, Israel faces existential threats from multiple quarters and must often resort to lethal violence in self-defence.

    For the more radical wing of the Left, groups like Hamas and Hezbollah are noble freedom fighters waging a righteous battle against settler-colonialism. While the disappearance of the ultimate settler-colonialist empire, the United States, seems like a far-fetched fantasy, the disappearance of the world’s only Jewish state appears to be just about within reach.

    Though I’d like to add regarding the last quoted paragraph: Israel has nuclear weapons. And so far no country with nuclear weapons has disappeared from the map of the earth.

    Also, feeling guilt for what one’s ancestors have done, I don’t think this makes sense. Collective guilt is not a persuasive idea in my opinion. Plus, the ancestors of today’s so-called oppressed don’t have clean vests either (morally speaking). Jerry already posted it, but here it is again:
    New Rule: Guilt By Civilization | Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO), March 7, 2025, 7 mins

  4. I watched it last night. A good job I think. It reinforces through student testimony what Anna has brought us over the past year. I have always been disappointed in administration responses to the pro-hamas demonstrations, but their lack of action and in some cases the fomenting of the anti-Israel and anti-Jew demonstrations is inexcusable. Why on Earth would a Jewish parent send a child to one of these schools? I am glad that the students have Hillel safe havens on campus.

  5. I went to a similar movie last week called October 8th at the Jewish National Fund. It was uptown on a street I lived on for 6 years never realizing the unmarked almost fortified building nearly next door was the JNF.

    The movie was word of mouth invitation only, guestlisted and ID at the door.

    The JNF building has embassy like hardened security which says it all. I wonder if the Islamic Association or Catholics of America need such defense level architecture? I guess not.

    The movie was about on-campus anti-semitism and context. Since I follow this closely there wasn’t much “news” to me but the movie was a good summary. AND they talked about my favorite topic which is how tick-tok has directly caused a great deal of this campus madness. There’s a lot of data on this.

    D.A.
    NYC

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