Cornell investigates antisemitic threats targeting Jewish students as campus tensions escalate

On Sunday, October 29, Cornell University's president Martha Pollack announced that campus police were investigating a series of antisemitic threats posted online targeting the university's Jewish community. The messages, which appeared on a website unaffiliated with Cornell, included specific threats to shoot Jewish students at 104 West—the building housing the Center for Jewish Living and the campus kosher dining hall. Some of the usernames making the threats contained references to Hamas. The posts also encouraged others to harm Jewish students, according to reporting by The Cornell Daily Sun.

The timing of the threats reflected a broader eruption of antisemitic incidents across American college campuses following the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza. According to the Anti-Defamation League, antisemitic incidents in the United States increased by nearly 400 percent in the days after those attacks. Universities nationwide found themselves navigating a difficult terrain: administrators at institutions including Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania struggled to acknowledge the range of student concerns about the conflict while also responding to pressure from influential donors demanding clearer institutional positions.

Cornell's response was swift. University police increased patrols and arranged additional security for Jewish students and organizations both on and off campus. By Monday, New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced that state police would increase their presence on the campus. Speaking at the Center for Jewish Living alongside Pollack, Hochul called those responsible for the threats "terrorists" and promised that anyone making such threats "will get no refuge." She pledged that perpetrators would be "caught and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law." The FBI was notified of the threats as a potential hate crime and issued a statement saying it was working with Cornell and law enforcement partners to assess the credibility of the threats and take appropriate investigative action.

The threats targeted a specific location deliberately chosen because of the perpetrator's bias, according to the Cornell University Police Department. The building in question houses not only the kosher dining hall but also serves as the home of the Center for Jewish Living. On Sunday evening, Cornell's Jewish Hillel organization warned students and staff to avoid the building out of caution. The university's police department remained stationed at 104 West to ensure student safety.

Cornell's Jewish student population comprises approximately 3,500 students—roughly 22 percent of the total student body. For many of them, the threats carried particular weight. Zoe Bernstein, a Cornell senior and president of Cornellians for Israel, told CNN that reading the antisemitic posts had been heartbreaking. She described the experience as unprecedented in her life and in the lives of her peers. Bernstein, whose family includes Holocaust and pogrom survivors, noted that the threats were especially disturbing for students with that family history. She said the combination of the war and the rising campus tensions had begun to consume the focus of many students, making it difficult to concentrate on academics. Her hope, she said, was that the situation would eventually calm enough to allow students to return to their studies, and that no violence would occur on campus.

The incident at Cornell was not isolated on the campus itself. Just days before the threats, several sidewalks on campus had been vandalized with anti-Israel graffiti, according to The Cornell Review. President Pollack acknowledged the broader pattern in her statement, writing that the virulence and destructiveness of antisemitism was real and deeply impacting Jewish students, faculty, and staff, as well as the entire Cornell community. She called the violent threats "absolutely intolerable" and said the university was committed to prioritizing community safety. New York Attorney General Letitia James called the threats "horrific" and wrote on social media that campuses must remain safe spaces for students.

The Biden administration announced new actions on Monday aimed at combating antisemitic incidents on college campuses across the country. The Cornell investigation remained ongoing, with university and federal authorities working to determine the credibility of the threats and identify those responsible. For the Jewish students at Cornell, the immediate reality was one of heightened security, increased vigilance, and the weight of knowing that their presence on campus had been specifically targeted.