Jonathan Kamel, a student senator at Northwestern University, helped counter the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction movement’s efforts in 2015 to pass a resolution targeted at Israel at the school. 

Kamel was involved with the school’s Hillel, which hosted an event with Israeli journalist Ari Shavit, the author of “My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel.”

He and others also lobbied senators to vote against the student group NU Divest’s proposal to have the school cut ties with six major corporations whose products they said are used by Israel to violate Palestinians’ human rights. 

In February 2015, the student government passed the divestment measure on a 24-22 vote. The resolution was only a recommendation to school officials, and it was also not known whether the school was actually invested in the corporations. 

But Kamel, president of Wildcats for Israel, still described the vote as “a devastating blow.”

The Chicago-native, now a senior, will be among the panelists at an American Jewish Committee event, “Unpacking BDS on U.S. College Campuses,” on May 17 at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Clayton. The other participants are Jacob Levkowicz, AJC national assistant director of campus affairs, and Jeanne Snodgrass the director of Hillel at the University of Missouri-Columbia. The speakers will be tackling the BDS issue at a time when many in the Jewish community are concerned about the growth of anti-Israel sentiment on college campuses. 

 “I would say that it’s becoming more common on campus to see more anti-Israel rhetoric and anti-Israel programming,” said Kamel, a political science major.

In the last two academic years, a number of schools have passed some form of a divestment resolution including:  Depaul University, Loyola University in Chicago, Marquette University, Stanford University, and three University of California system schools. 

BDS movement supporters have been successful in part, Kamel believes, because of their efforts to align themselves with groups that fight against discrimination of minorities on campus, such as Black Lives Matter.

“It drives a wedge between Jewish organizations on campus and other student organizations that represent minority groups,” said Kamel, 22. “It becomes this political issue where lines are drawn. You’re either on one side of the line or the other.”

The organization decided to hold the panel discussion because of parents and graduating high schools seniors’ questions about what it’s like to be an Israel supporter on campus.

“They have started to hear these stories and have been concerned about what they will be facing on their college campuses,” said Joan Silber, president of AJC in St. Louis. “It’s not meant to alarm but to educate. It’s going to be a dialogue and an important educational process.”

In contrast to Northwestern, Israel supporters at the University of Missouri have not faced a BDS campaign, according to Snodgrass at Mizzou. She said Jewish groups at the school “have the luxury of being proactive rather than reactive.”

In April 2015, Mizzou hosted two Israeli reserve soldiers who spoke about their experiences in the West Bank, and a Y Theater Project Jerusalem production in which Israelis and Palestinians performed and then had a dialogue about the conflict with audience members. 

Despite the fact that no BDS campaign has gained momentum at Mizzou, there have been a number of anti-Semitic incidents at the school, including a swastika being drawn in feces on the wall of a dormitory bathroom. That November 2015 incident was part of what prompted a student, Jonathan Butler, to declare a hunger strike until University of Missouri President Tim Wolfe resigned, which he ultimately did. 

The school’s Peace Studies department and Mid-Missouri for Justice in Palestine hosted a campus screening in April of the film “The Zionist Story,” which is described as “the story of ethnic cleansing, colonialism and apartheid to produce a demographically Jewish State.”

The Simon Wiesenthal Center, an organization that seeks to combat anti-Semitism, recently issued a news release stating that university officials had downplayed incidents of anti-Semitism but “vocally responded to incidents reportedly targeting black and other minority students.”

Rabbi Aron Hier, the organization’s director of campus outreach, linked anti-Israel events such as the film screening to anti-Semitism. 

The president’s office at Mizzou needs to say “we are going to treat anti-Semitism or anti-Israelism the same we repudiate any ‘ism.’ ”

Snodgrass said she had not heard anything about the event until a commentary in the publication The Algemeiner criticized the school administration’s lack of response to the film screening and anti-Semitic incidents. She also had not heard students discussing the event.

Despite the fact that the school has not faced a divestment effort like the one at Northwestern or other U.S. universities, Snodgrass is aware that it “doesn’t mean it won’t happen.”

She sees the AJC event as an opportunity “to learn about what has happened at these other campuses.”

She added, “It’s a conversation that needs to happen within the Jewish world.”