ISU students and faculty have said ignorance about the Jewish religion is a bigger problem than anti-Semitism at Iowa State.

Jewish students at the University of California at Irvine, Columbia University in New York City and many other college campuses across the nation have recently reported problems with hostility and intimidation, according to information presented by the Zionist Organization of America to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

Author Gary A. Tobin presented evidence in “The UnCivil University,” published in November, that anti-Semitism is “thriving on college campuses.”

Tobin details findings based on polls and on-site inquiries about incidents of harassment and discrimination on campuses and in college newspaper articles and cartoons.

Evan Johnson, president of ISU Hillel, a Jewish student group, said Iowa State has been very supportive of the Jewish community on campus.

“Iowa State has been very good to us as a group,” said Johnson, senior in biology.

He said he has not experienced the kind of anti-Semitic attitudes reported at other universities directly, but he does acknowledge that there are always groups of people that have anti-Semitic opinions.

“In a group of 25,000 people, there will always be people with an irrational hatred toward specific groups,” Johnson said.

He said these groups are in the minority, however.

“These hate groups thrive on publicity,” he said, recalling incidents such as the placement of neo-Nazi fliers in stacks of Ethos magazines in September. “They’re a very vocal minority.”

Ronald Jackson, faculty adviser for ISU Hillel and staff psychologist for student counseling services, said the prevalent problem at Iowa State is not so much anti-Semitic attitudes as the ignorance there is toward non-Christians.

“Other than the general assumption that everyone is Christian, I can’t say that there is anything specific,” Jackson said.

Johnson said other students may not understand the differences among Jewish people.

“There is some bias in grouping all Jews together, because of the diversity there is within the group itself,” Johnson said.

ISU Police Capt. Gene Deisinger said anti-Semitic incidents reported at Iowa State are minimal.

“There have not been a large number that I can recall,” Deisinger said. “Any is still too many.”

A low number of reported incidents, however, doesn’t mean they don’t happen, Deisinger said.

“If someone writes some kind of anti-Semitic slur on the sidewalk with chalk, for example, that isn’t considered a crime that can be reported as a hate crime,” he said.

The number of incidents has been rising in the past years, Tobin indicated in his book, but Deisinger said the number of incidents is so low that it is difficult to determine if there has been an increase or decrease.

“If you compare [Ames] to other places, we don’t have a very big problem,” Johnson said.

He said he agrees with Jackson that Iowa State is relatively uninformed of non-Christian groups on campus.

“The attitude at ISU can be described more as ignorance rather than hate,” Johnson said.

Johnson said one of the goals of ISU Hillel is to raise awareness and increase the visibility of the Jewish community on campus.