RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://thehill.com/opinion/education/4621154-3-reasons-antisemitism-is-swarming-college-campuses/

How is it that in the United States, a country dedicated to protecting the rights of every minority and where hate speech is a crime, antisemitism is surging on college campuses?  

Three reasons:  

In recent decades, our educational institutions have drifted far to the left, encouraging and sometimes aligning with ultra-liberal groups who despise the foundational values of the United States. Young people today study gender politics (search Yale University’s courses for “gender” and find 191 offerings) but are taught little about World War II or the Holocaust (16 courses); they know almost nothing about the foundation of Israel and the history of the Middle East. In a vacuum, they are easily misled. 
Rising antisemitism has been underway for some time in the U.S. and in Europe, but been largely ignored by our political leaders. 
Joe Biden is a coward. He should be standing tall and commanding Hamas-loving thugs barring Jews from campuses and “occupying” schools to stand down. He should demand that university authorities and local leaders call out the National Guard if necessary to arrest and jail those creating chaos and acting illegally. It can be done, but Biden is terrified of losing the Arab-American vote — in particular not winning Michigan, a critical swing state, so he will not do it. 

The protests roiling some of our most prestigious campuses may have started organically, with students genuinely concerned about the fate of Palestinians in Gaza, but the unrest now appears increasingly guided by professional agitators. 

New York City Mayor Eric Adams noted that the tents in the so-called “Gaza Solidarity Encampments” at different schools look remarkably alike, suggesting that some central group may have distributed them to campuses.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/stop-the-mideast-money-fueling-campus-anti-semitism

Combating the anti-Semitism radiating from U.S. college campuses will require work on many fronts. Some of the drivers could take enormous effort to uproot—for example, the DEI culture that has reshaped K–12 and postsecondary institutions. A less frequently discussed factor is easier to address: U.S. universities should stop letting foreign entities shape campus intellectual life.

Centers dedicated to the study of the Middle East, many receiving lavish foreign financial support, do more to promote anti-Zionist and pro-Hamas narratives than virtually any other force on campus. Even a small number of biased faculty can have an outsize influence because the dominant intersectional ideologies leave students primed to embrace anti-Semitic attitudes.

In effect, U.S. campuses have been importing anti-Semitic propaganda for almost 50 years. As the New York Times reported in 1978, “Oil wealth from the Middle East is starting to flow onto college and university campuses throughout the country, bringing a bonanza of endowed chairs and new programs.” That initial flood of money—and specific concerns about gifts to Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies—led to the establishment of foreign gift-reporting requirements in 1986. To this day, Section 117 of the Higher Education Act requires universities to report foreign gifts above $250,000.

Unfortunately, weak enforcement by the Department of Education allowed many universities to ignore the requirement. That changed in 2019, when Secretary Betsy DeVos initiated noncompliance investigations at several top schools. In 2023 congressional testimony, Paul Moore, chief investigative council at the Department of Education during the Trump administration, described the sea change that followed: “enhanced enforcement . . . produced dramatic results,” including the “disclosure of more than $6.5 billion in previously undisclosed foreign gifts and contributions.” The Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), which analyzed the updated disclosures for 2014–19, found that over $2.7 billion in gifts came from Qatari sources, $1.2 billion from Chinese entities, and over $1 billion originated in Saudi Arabia.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20571/canada-rise-of-antisemitism

On the face of it, who can object to diversity, equity and inclusion? It is like objecting to Santa Claus. Unfortunately, these [DEI] workshops too often have been hijacked by radical ideologues who pitted races against each other.

Who indeed is to blame for the wave of hatred toward Jews that is roiling Canadian workplaces, universities, unions, social media postings, even our streets and neighbourhoods? Who are the purveyors of antisemitism?

Over the last several years, Canadian employers have increasingly brought in “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) trainers to rid their workforces of conscious, and even subconscious, racism. On the face of it, who can object to diversity, equity and inclusion? It is like objecting to Santa Claus.

Unfortunately, these workshops too often have been hijacked by radical ideologues who pitted races against each other. The unhappy story of Richard Bilkszto, who committed suicide after alleging he was deemed a racist by one such trainer for observing that Canadians are not more racist than Americans, was simply the publicly exposed tip of that iceberg.

I have had many Jewish clients, even before Oct. 7, complain about how Jews have been treated in these DEI seminars. To what extent has this radical training played a role in the sudden outpouring of antisemitism here?

Who indeed is to blame for the wave of hatred toward Jews that is roiling Canadian workplaces, universities, unions, social media postings, even our streets and neighbourhoods?

Antisemitism has had a long sordid history in Canada and, for some (ironically many of those who have never knowingly even met a Jew), it has always been hidden just below the surface. There was a reprieve after the guilt induced by the atrocities of the Second World War. But it is ascendant again, and surprisingly, its adherents are proudly so.

Who are the purveyors of antisemitism?

Obviously, first are the radical Islamists importing their ancient historic Jew-hatred based on their particular interpretation of the Koran. Their hatred of Christians and other “infidels” is only slightly behind in the hierarchy.

There is the radical woke left, which has, since Israel’s underdog defeat of the combined armies of Jordan, Egypt and Syria in 1967, viewed Israel as an oppressor. I believe much of the antisemitism in the public sector union movement can be attributed to that strain.

There is the influence of DEI which has too often placed Jews at the top of a racial hierarchy, ignoring the fact that Jews have always been, and remain, dramatically more discriminated against than any other group, including those groups at the supposed bottom of the DEI hierarchy of intersectionality: Indigenous, Blacks, Muslims and the LGBTQIA+.

Allied with those forces are universities and colleges, which have been temples of wokeness for years, penalizing students who express views that dissent from their left-wing pronouncements. While campuses are hotbeds of support for Hamas, polls have shown young people who have not been in the clutches of our university and college professors support Israel, as do most other groups in Canada by large majorities.

Although I am distinguishing them, the left, the universities and DEI practitioners are somewhat interchangeable, and have many of the same members.

https://www.thefp.com/p/at-columbia-i-am-told-go-back-to?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Since the first protest on Columbia’s campus in support of a “Free Palestine” on October 12, I have committed, along with my twin brother and a number of our friends, to show up at these protests with our Israeli and American flags.

There are often hundreds of people chanting for “intifada” and a handful of us. Suffice it to say, I can think of more pleasant ways to spend a New York City night. We do it for a simple reason: we want to tell Jews at Columbia—and around the world—that we refuse to be bullied off of our own campus.

For nearly seven months, I have been asked the same question by many people in my life: “Do you feel safe on campus as a Jew?” I wear a kippah—I can’t pass. And I have always maintained the importance of standing our ground rather than letting fear drive us away.

Nothing will stanch that pride, but the situation at Columbia has escalated to a point where my physical safety is in danger.

That is not a metaphor, nor an expression of safetyism. On Saturday night, April 20, I was assaulted and harassed repeatedly inside the gates of Columbia University.

For five days now, protesters have been camped out on Columbia’s South Lawn demanding financial divestment from Israel, an academic boycott of Israel, a call for cease-fire, and an end to Columbia’s real estate purchases. Their newest demand is to defund Columbia’s public safety, the only people on campus supposedly tasked with keeping us safe.

On Saturday night, the situation on campus hit a new low. Amid multiple protests both inside and outside of Columbia’s gates, my friends and I decided to show our pride yet again, as we have on so many occasions since Hamas began its war.

For an hour, 20 of us stood on the sundial in the middle of Columbia’s campus with Israeli and American flags and sang peaceful songs such as Matisyahu’s “One Day” and “V’hi She’amda”—a much-needed ode to the hope and perseverance of the Jewish people in the face of enemies who seek our destruction.

https://www.thefp.com/p/at-columbia-i-am-told-go-back-to?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

For a second, imagine that black students at Columbia were taunted: Go back to Africa. Or imagine that a gay student was surrounded by homophobic protesters and hit with a stick at Yale University. Or imagine if a campus imam told Muslim students that they ought to head home for Ramadan because campus public safety could not guarantee their security.

There would be relentless fury from our media and condemnation from our politicians.

Just remember the righteous—and rightful—outrage over the white supremacist “Unite the Right” march in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, where neo-Nazis chanted “The Jews will not replace us.” 

This weekend at Columbia and Yale, student demonstrators did all of the above—only it was directed at Jews. They told Columbia students to “go back to Poland.” A Jewish woman at Yale was assaulted with a Palestinian flag. And an Orthodox rabbi at Columbia told students to go home for their safety.

Demonstrators on these campuses shouted more chic versions of “Jews will not replace us.” At Columbia they screamed: “Say it loud and say it clear, we don’t want no Zionists here.” At Yale they blasted bad rap with the following lyrics: 

Fuck Israel, Israel a bitch / Bitch we out here mobbin’ on some Palestine shit / Free Palestine bitch, Israel gon’ die bitch / Nigga it’s they land why you out here tryna rob it / Bullshit prophets, y’all just want the profit

These campus activists are not simply “pro-Palestine” protesters. They are people who are openly celebrating Hamas and physically intimidating identifiably Jewish students who came near. We are publishing the accounts of two of those students—Sahar Tartak and Jonathan Lederer—today.

Students—all of us—have a right to protest. We have a right to protest for dumb causes and horrible causes. At The Free Press, we will always defend that right. (See here and here, for example.)

It is not, however, a First Amendment right to physically attack another person. It is not a First Amendment right to detain another person as part of your protest. And while Americans are constitutionally protected when they say vile things, like wishing upon Jews a thousand October 7s, we are certainly free to criticize them and to condemn institutions dedicated to the pursuit of truth who stand by and do nothing meaningful to stop it.

The students who support terror have given in to madness. Refusing to condemn them is madness.

There are courageous students who see that madness clearly. Please read these essays by Jonathan Lederer and Sahar Tartak.

We’ll continue to follow this unfolding story. If you believe in the kind of journalism we do, become a paid subscriber today. — BW

At Columbia I Am Told: ‘Go Back to Poland’By Jonathan Lederer