Morgan Guttman was sitting in her chemistry class during spring quarter at UC Santa Barbara when someone burst into the classroom with a megaphone and called for a divestment from Israel and companies that supported Israel.

“My first thought was, do I need to run?” Guttman said, recalling the experience.

The protesters flooded the classroom and passed out flyers about the graduate worker strike happening at the time and then left, continuing to call for a boycott and divestment down the hallway.

“That scared me, because I wasn’t sure what the deal was,” Guttman said. “I didn’t know if I was safe or not.”

Like Guttman, Jewish students have shared that they’ve felt unsafe on campus since Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel killed 1,200 people and took 250 others hostage. The attacks were followed by a year of war and devastation in Gaza that has claimed the lives of more than 41,000 Palestinians, according to news reports.

In February, the university came under fire after signs were posted at the multicultural center stating, “Zionist not welcome.” Signs also specifically targeted then-Associated Students President Tessa Veksler for her support of Israel, with one sign naming her and stating, “You can run but you can’t hide.”

In May, Veksler sent the university a federal civil rights complaint claiming that she experienced months of antisemitic bullying, harassment and threats online and on campus.

Guttman, who is Jewish and a second-year student studying pre-biology, said everything changed after Oct. 7, 2023. She felt more anxious on campus, especially when the pro-Palestine encampment was going on.

“All of a sudden, there was just this hate on campus,” Guttman said. “A lot of people who I thought I had made friends with started posting things about why Zionists are bad people, and I just felt a lot of hatred for just being a Jew on campus.”

Josh Levine, executive director of Santa Barbara Hillel, an organization that supports Jewish students in Santa Barbara, said they’ve seen anti-semitic graffiti in the past year, posters of the hostages being torn down and Jewish students harassed online. Levine said those instances have been troubling and confusing for students.

“I think one hallmark of the UCSB Jewish student experience is a deeply held belief that we have an equal right to be Gauchos, and we’re not going anywhere, no matter what anybody may prefer,” Levine said. 

Levine said that UCSB and other universities should have paid closer attention to the divisiveness created on campus and the escalating efforts to seek confrontation; however, he said he is encouraged by the University of California taking time to reflect and enact new policies. 

Hillel has helped students navigate how to deal with assignments that require them to share their opinions on global issues, has counseled them through times of distress and offered a space for students to connect with each other. 

It also has hosted numerous educational programs featuring Jewish speakers, non-Jewish speakers, Palestinans and Arabic speakers to talk with students and share their perspectives about what’s going on, according to Levine. 

“We have seen a sharp increase in the number of students who are craving and needing community, safety, and moments of Jewish joy and togetherness,” Levine said. “We’ve also seen a large number of people who come to our educational programs where we’re very clear that we are about illumination and not indoctrination.”

For Guttman, she said Israel is an intrinsic part of her identity as a Jewish person. 

“I’ve grown up always knowing that there was this safe place that I can go to where I’m loved and accepted for who I am,” Guttman said. “If something does go wrong, like the Holocaust, I know that there’s a country in this world that will accept me with open arms.”

Lily Karofsky, who is Jewish and a UCSB junior studying communications, spent last year documenting what was happening on campus for her journalism class at Santa Barbara City College. Karofsky said she saw the Jewish community coming together in their grief, but that she also saw the campus treat Jewish students like the enemy.

“We were really taking the brunt of what’s happening even though we don’t have any control over what’s happening,” Karofsky said. “I think a lot of people want this issue to be so black and white. It’s not.”

Karofsky said she has seen friends yelled at and followed with cameras, and that one of her friends was punched in the face just for saying he was Jewish. 

In June, when pro-Palestine protests occupied Givertz Hall, Karofsky walked through the encampment, known as the UCSB Liberated Zone, after it had closed down for the night to take pictures and look at the signs. 

“Immediately, five or six people were following us around with their iPhone cameras out, definitely trying to get clips of our faces and calling us out by name,” Karofsky said.

Karofsky said the encounter was uncomfortable and that she felt that they were trying to intimidate her.

“We were not going around being destructive or destroying anything. We were walking,” Karofsky said. “We didn’t even pull down any of the signs, even though some of them were insanely offensive.”

Jewish community members and local activists also have seen a shift in the way they’ve been treated since the events of Oct. 7, 2023.

Barbara Parmet, an organizer with Jewish Voices for Peace of Santa Barbara, said she grew up a Zionist but became more critical of Israel in the 1980s.

“Because we’re Jewish, I feel compelled to criticize Israel,” Parmet said. “I feel like that’s my duty. Initially, I was involved because I wanted it to be a better place to live. I wanted it to be a fair place. I wanted it to be a country that treated everyone equally.”

Parmet said she has received more hate for her beliefs after Oct. 7, 2023.

“My friends already knew what I thought. I’ve already been advocating for Palestinian lives for many, many years,” Parmet said. “After Oct. 7, they hated me.” 

Parmet said Jewish Voices for Peace has 750,000 members and 83 local chapters across the country.

“That says a lot to me that a lot of people, including a lot of Jews, have not had a home because they needed a place where they could criticize Israel,” Parmet said. 

Parmet said that through her years of activism, she’s been called an anti-semite and a self-hating Jew, but she argues that criticizing Israel is not the same as criticizing Jewish people.

“They’re saying Israel is Jewish, is Judaism, and if you don’t believe in Israel, you’re not a Jew,” Parmet said. “They’re basically saying that if you criticize Israel, you’re criticizing Jews. That just makes no sense.”

One positive thing to come out of the last year, according to Karofsky, is how the Jewish community has come together. 

“I think that the Jewish community here, but also everywhere, has a really beautiful way of coming together in times of pain, and how we as a Jewish community deal with grief,” Karofsky said. “We’re all feeling that pain, but we’re feeling it together, which, in a weird way, can also be a really beautiful thing, to hold each other in that way.”