Within-subjects study reveals heightened distress and offense toward Israel-Gaza protests among Jewish students, suggesting the need for harms-based campus policies.
Relatively little is known about Jewish students’ judgments of and emotional reactions to campus Israel-Gaza protest in comparison to their peers. We conducted a within-subjects comparative design study with 337 college/university students (M = 22.02, SD = 4.19, 53% cisgender women, 53% White/European American), across two groups (Jewish vs. non-Jewish), and two image types (exposure to Israel-Gaza campus protest images vs. images of other campus protest). Differences between Jewish and non-Jews students emerged, even when controlling for age, gender, and race. Specifically, Jewish participants rated Gaza-Israel protest images as significantly more offensive than non-Jews (d = -2.14, t = -19.39, p < .001), more unacceptable (d = -1.43, t = -12.86, p < .001), and more emotionally distressing (d = 1.87, t = 16.98, p < .001). Findings highlight the importance of a bottom-up and harms-based approach to campus protest. Implications for mental health and university policy are discussed.
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Kaufman et al. (2026) studied this question.
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