Blind Spot Movie

Blind Spot is a 2024 American documentary film about campus antisemitism in the United States, prior to and after the October 7th attacks.

[Blind Spot Movie @blindspotdoc]

Jewish students are fighting a modern-day civil rights battle - too often alone. Blind Spot is the first film to expose campus antisemitism before and after October 7 - a powerful wake-up call told through the voices of those living this reality. 🎬 Watch the trailer now.

[Blind Spot Movie @blindspotdoc]

Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) describes three categories of Jew-hatred: Anti-Judaism (hatred for Jews as a religious community), antisemitism in the traditional sense (hatred for Jews as a race), and anti-Zionism (hatred for Jews as a nation). He eays that anti-Judaism and traditional antisemitism typically come from the far right; and anti-Zionism typically comes from the far left; and that those combating it are fighting a two-front war.

He warns against politicizing antisemitism. The blind spot on the right, he explains, is the inability to see antisemitism on the right - and only seeing it on the left. The blind spot on the left is the inability to see antisemitism on the left - and only seeing it on the right. He says we must recognize that it comes from both ideological directions, and condemn antisemitism no matter where it comes from, what form it takes, or who is responsible.

Torres notes that in New York, a disproportionate number of hate crimes target the Jewish community, and that the FBI reports more than half of religiously motivated hate crimes are directed towards the Jewish community, with the Orthodox Jewish community disproportionately affected. While there are multiple causes, he points to the systematic dehumanization and demonization of Jews in both mainstream and social media as factors in inciting violence against Jews.

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Maya Sobel describes how a friend received a death threat in May 2021 for posting about Israel on social media - and has never posted since. She says that pattern is common on campus: Pro-Israel students posted in 2021, then stopped because it's exhausting and difficult, because people don't listen, and because the way these conversations are approached makes people wonder what the point even is.

Maya says she still posts proudly about her own identity and views, but the opposition, as she puts it, doesn't sleep - and after hearing what happened to her friend, she has had to ask herself whether she should be more careful.

She closes on a more hopeful note: She is inspired by her peers' willingness to stand up for what they believe in. Standing your ground and saying what you believe is true is an important life lesson - but, she adds, students also need to be willing to step back and ask what's the other side of the story. Speaking out is a double-edged sword: it can be powerful, and it can be harmful. She doesn't dislike anyone for speaking critically of anyone - the UVM administration, the Israeli government, or even her own community - because we're all human, and we should all be able to take criticism and understand it.

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Blind Spot Executive Producer Leonard Gold, himself a concerned alumnus of the University of Pennsylvania, recounts a moment that he is still having difficulty processing during a recent talk given by Dr. Mark Wolff, chairman of Penn's Antisemitism Task Force.

Dr. Wolff had been appointed by Penn President Liz Magill several months prior to her resignation in the wake of being asked at the widely-viewed December 2023 congressional hearing whether calling for the genocide of Jews would violate Penn's code of conduct.

Speaking at a Long Island synagogue to a predominantly Jewish, concerned audience, Dr. Wolff told the group, "I just want you to know that no Penn student is required to take the course of an antisemitic professor."

Lenny found it extraordinary that the chairman of Penn's Antisemitism Task Force was openly acknowledging that Penn has antisemitic professors on its faculty, a fact that the ADL's most recent report card and other evidence supported, yet the only comfort that he could offer was assuring us that no Jewish student would be required to take the course of any such bigoted professor.

Lenny asks the obvious question: even if no student is required to take any of these courses, plenty of students still elect to - and are being told in those classes that Jews are bad and that Israel is bad, and are being indoctrinated and brainwashed with no pushback and no opportunity for discussion or exposure to other points of view. That, he notes, only puts us back to where we were on October 6.

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Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) shares his origin story: Born and raised in the Bronx in poverty, the son of a single mother who supported three children on a $4.25 per hour minimum wage, growing up in public housing with mold, mildew, leaks, lead, and unreliable heat and hot water. He got his start in politics as a housing organizer, and at age 24 — with no money, no party machine, and no political experience — won his first race by campaigning door-to-door, face-to-face, becoming the first openly LGBTQ elected official from the Bronx.

Torres explains that he measures the value of a life by its impact on others, and wants to be remembered for living life on his own terms and according to his own values, and he says that fighting antisemitism is among those values. He describes today's antisemitism as a modern manifestation of an ancient hatred — one with a long, ugly history of scapegoating Jews for whatever afflictions a society happens to face. What's unprecedented, he argues, is not the antisemitism itself but its algorithmic amplification on social media.

He believes much of the antisemitism unfolding in American society originates on college campuses, and that social media then enables it to permeate outward into the broader society - a combination that has brought antisemitism into the mainstream to an extent we have not seen in recent memory.

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Maya Sobel recalls that around her freshman year at the University of Vermont, a teaching assistant publicly tweeted that they would dock students' grades if their families were from Tel Aviv or if students went on Birthright.

She questions why her grades should be impacted by where her parents are from, or why she should have to renounce her family's home country to be treated fairly in class. She points out that students from no other country are forced to pass that kind of litmus test, and asks if a teacher would dock points against students from Moscow, or who visit Russia, because of what Putin is doing.

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Dion Pierre, campus correspondent for the Algemeiner, reflects on his years of daily reporting on campus antisemitism and argues that "higher education ultimately failed to uphold values that 10, 12 years ago, it was destroying lives to defend."

Since 2021, Dion has been documenting Jewish students being gang-assaulted, spit on, called the K-word, expelled from sexual assault survivor groups, and suffering all manner of other indignities and injustices. He points out that if this were happening to Black students, Al Sharpton would be cashing checks every day, because so many people would be calling on him for advocacy.

The politics, he says, ultimately don't matter - what matters is that universities align themselves with traditional American values of equality and tolerance, and they are not doing so for Jewish students, and that has to be corrected.

He rejects the idea that there is an exception to the law for someone who is progressive, wears ripped jeans, and thinks they are against the system. Racism is not something you get to condemn selectively while telling everyone what a virtuous, open-minded, cosmopolitan person you are.

Dion also observes that the ideology motivating these decisions lazily and destructively projects the history of American race relations onto the very different history of Jews and Arabs, and Israelis and Palestinians - and in doing so, totally erases the experience of Middle Eastern Jews who faced expulsion and persecution and who do not fit America's conception of "white."

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Blind Spot Executive Producer Lenny Gold joined @algemeiner campus correspondent Dion Pierre for a wide-ranging conversation on the current state of campus antisemitism. They cover where the problem stands today; why the underlying problem persists even as overt incidents decline; why Blind Spot probably could not be produced today; the apparent dichotomy between Harvard's vigorous defense of the federal government's antisemitism case against it while apparently doing some of the very things that the government is seeking, such as hiring more pro-Israel Jewish and Israeli faculty; and the extraordinary admission from Penn's Antisemitism Task Force chairman that antisemitic professors remain on faculty - and his suggestion for how Jewish students should deal with that reality. Lenny and Dion dig into Title VI enforcement, the horseshoe of far-left anti-Zionism and a resurgent far-right, and the double standards that Jewish students still face. Essential viewing for high school students, parents choosing a school, and anyone trying to make sense of where higher ed is now for Jews. 🔗 Watch the full episode on The Algemeiner's YouTube channel https://t.co/av6bcJofCS

[Blind Spot Movie @blindspotdoc]

Brandy expresses concern about schools that not only allow bullying of Jewish students but also have professors who espouse antisemitism, and administrators who are complicit by knowingly allowing it to happen. She notes that such conduct would result in the firing of professors if it were directed at any group other than Jews or Israel.

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Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) explains why advocating for the Jewish community is not, for him, a question of "why" — it is a question of "why not." He points out that one need not be Jewish to fight antisemitism, just as one need not be Black to fight anti-Black racism, and recalls that Jewish civil rights workers Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were among those murdered in Mississippi so that people who looked like him could vote and live freely without the undignity of Jim Crow.

He has the sense that we are all in this together, and we have a moral obligation to fight extremism, regardless of which form it takes. He cites Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s observation that the greatest tragedy is not the strident clamor of the bad people but the appalling silence of the good people. In a time of rising antisemitism, Torres says, every person faces the same simple moral choice: be appallingly silent, or speak out. Either we can be part of the problem or part of the solution. His values, he says, require him to be part of the solution.

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UVM student Maya Sobel points out that while right-wing antisemitism on campus is readily recognized, left-wing antisemitism often isn't - and many people aren't willing to acknowledge that it exists at all. She traces part of the problem to a culture in which reading a single infographic is enough to make someone feel like an expert on Israel and the Middle East, leaving no room for dialogue or nuance.

Maya shares her own background: a first-generation American whose parents were both born and raised in Israel, where they met before moving to the U.S. in the 1980s. She loves her family, her culture, and her people - and notes that Israelis are themselves often the first to criticize the Israeli government.

In January 2023 she traveled to the West Bank and spoke directly with Palestinians and Israelis, Muslims and Jews. After nine years of studying the conflict, she still won't call herself an expert, because she doesn't believe you can learn enough in a short amount of time. She marvels that people who started paying attention to the conflict two or three years ago - or only when rockets were firing in 2021 - were "all of a sudden ...experts."

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An audience member asks how antisemitic brainwashing on campuses can be countered,and how students can be encouraged to watch Blind Spot without dismissing it as propaganda.

Executive Producer Leonard Gold acknowledges the difficulty of hosting campus screenings of Blind Spot, and suggests alternative ways to counter misinformation. These include teaching Jewish history, explaining that Zionism is not a racist ideology but a common human aspiration for a homeland, and organizing trips to Israel so that individuals can form their own conclusions.

Gold also emphasizes the importance of proactively ensuring that accurate information is taught in schools, balancing faculty perspectives, encouraging critical thinking, fostering civil debate, and teaching students how to disagree respectfully.

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Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) draws a direct link between the historical experience of gay people being told that they have to be in the closet and ashamed of who they are, and the present-day experience of pro-Israel Jews on American college campuses being told that they have to be in the closet about who they are, that they have to be ashamed, and that they have to renounce their sense of identity and history.

That, Torres says, is not progressivism - it is a perversion of progressivism. It is not pride - it is a perversion of pride. He pledges to fight for the right of every American, including Jewish Americans, to be who they are and live freely and openly without fear of intimidation, harassment, or violence, and nowhere more so than on America's college campuses. Invoking Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s ethic of moral interconnectedness, "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere," Torres says that an assault on Jews is an assault on all of us.

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Brandy believes that certain organizations are hesitant to call out antisemitism from the Black community, Islamist movements, or the far left out of fear of losing allies.

She rejects the idea that confronting antisemitism is somehow a betrayal of solidarity, arguing that it doesn't matter where antisemitism comes from. If someone expects silence in the face of antisemitism in exchange for partnership on other causes, they were never an ally to begin with. She says it is cowardice to believe that one can partner with someone on climate change or reproductive rights but remain silent about antisemitism from that same person.

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Occidental College alum Alissa Bernstein shares the experience that shaped her path as an advocate for Jewish students.

During her time at Occidental, years before October 7, the school administration and student body publicly condemned Jewish varsity football players for posting a photo in solidarity with Israel against terrorism in response to a terrorist attack. The school demanded that the athletes apologize for affiliating the school with their political views, despite allowing Students for Justice in Palestine to distribute antisemitic pamphlets bearing the school logo.

Alissa's subsequent internship with AJC helped her implement the school’s first-ever antisemitism awareness training as part of mandatory freshman orientation.

She also reflects on the emotion of seeing her brother, Ben Bernstein, featured in Blind Spot, doing similar work at Tulane and speaking about it in his interview. She says that Ben and so many other students like him are the reason she has continued her work to protect Jewish students in K-12 schools and on college campuses, and why she is proud and honored to support Blind Spot.

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Brandy describes her alarm as a doctoral student in a school of education regarding the one-sided far-left ideology, rhetoric, and resources which were infused into the training of education students in how to teach core subjects in grades K–12.

She explains that this activist, foundational ideology includes a running theme that the United States is a settler-colonialist state which deserves to be dismantled, and that this narrative includes a running antisemitic theme referred to as “from Turtle Island to Palestine.”

She notes that K-12 students whose teachers are trained this way then go on to hear more of the same ideology from their university professors, and she worries that we haven't yet seen the full force or end result of this problem in K–12 classrooms.

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In a pre-10/7 interview, Fordham's President, Tania Tetlow, reminds viewers that Fordham has always welcomed Jewish students for the same reason that it was founded to welcome Catholic students, i.e. because both groups were not welcome at elite institutions.

She views contemporary antisemitism in America with great alarm, and blames social media for not only fueling much of antisemitism but also for chipping away at democracy itself.

She takes pride in Fordham's harder and slower but more effective approach to combating antisemitism, which involves offering (and having hundreds of students per year enrolling in) courses in Judaism as a religion; antisemitism; and Jewish life, culture, art, and history - courses which ask students to put themselves in the shoes of the Jewish people, to tell the story not just of the violence, oppression, and horror, but of the lives led by Jewish communities throughout history.

She asks where is the line between the profound need in higher ed for the ability to disagree and have ideological debate, and that which is hurtful, harmful, and makes people feel threatened?

She believes that most students on both sides feel most nervous and silenced by other students rather than by the school, so it is the school's job to create the spaces where students can speak and represent their identities to be their full selves.

She says that part of the job of universities is not just to play defense and tell people what they can and cannot think but to engage in the complexity and insist that people examine their preconceived notions and go to the facts, details, and history. She notes the challenges of overcoming the tendency of the phenomenon of "the simple tends to win" when the reality is complicated, and that part of the enemy is entitlement, self-righteousness, and selfishness which leads to students throwing out deeply threatening and hateful language because they are trying to provoke and revel in self-righteousness.

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At a Q&A panel following a Blind Spot screening hosted by Sinai Temple in Los Angeles on 1/21/26, an audience member asks how to support Jewish students in 2026, noting that many organizations have been “preaching the same old things to the same old people” since October 7, 2023.

Recent Tulane graduate Bali Lavine explains the challenge of sustaining the pro-Israel movement on campus. She emphasizes the importance of reaching into the broader community to find student leaders, both on college campuses and in K–12 spaces, and supporting them.

Lenny Gold, Blind Spot’s Executive Producer, shares a story from two Penn students who note that while students feel safer wearing their Magen Davids openly on campus, antisemitic professors are still teaching there. This forces Jewish students to choose between avoiding those classes entirely or hiding their identities, reminding the audience that vigilance remains essential - and that the failure to remain vigilant is how we got here in the first place.

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Brandy considers it an insult and an example of cultural appropriation to compare Palestinians with Black Americans. She explains that it is inaccurate to equate a population descended from enslaved people, brought to a foreign land against their will, with a population descended from people who came from the Arabian Peninsula, colonized the land, and have lived there for roughly the same amount of time that white Europeans and their descendants have lived in the United States (which, in neither case, makes such people indigenous).

She further says that there is no comparison between current conversations about reparations for Black descendants of slaves and aid money to Palestinians, which she claims has been used to harm not only Jews and Israelis but also fellow Palestinians and other Arab civilians.

She laments the failure to teach Black history, which has led to a false sense of solidarity.

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According to the Campus Antisemitism Report Card published by the ADL, the percentage of colleges receiving either an A or B grade jumped from 23.5% in 2024 to 58% in 2026.

But are campus climates really improving for Jewish students, or is this a misleading case of grade inflation?

Citing the University of Pennsylvania as an example, Lenny Gold, executive producer of Blind Spot, joins JBS’ Teisha Bader to discuss the disconnect between the ADL's grades and the reality of antisemitism which students still face in their classrooms - and to respectfully suggest that no school’s grade should improve until Jewish students no longer have to choose between avoiding classes taught by antisemitic professors or hiding their Jewish identities in those classes, because antisemitism in the classroom only puts us back to the status quo on October 6: a tinderbox of hatred waiting to explode.

Special thanks to @AlizaLicht for her assistance spreading the message of Blind Spot.

[Blind Spot Movie @blindspotdoc]

Grateful to John Reid for hosting Blind Spot Executive Producer Lenny Gold on The Reid Revolution for an honest conversation on the rise of campus antisemitism, the line between civil discourse and civil rights violations, the blind spot towards Jews when those violations are committed against them, and a comparison between anti-gay sentiment and antisemitism.