This article first appeared in Times of Israel Blogs.
Nobody who supports Israel and
cares about anti-Semitism can be pleased with the scenes coming out of our
universities and cities in which thousands of protesters are screaming for
blood against Israel and also against Jewish people in general. At the moment,
New York City and Columbia University are in the spotlight, and the scenes are
disgusting. Meanwhile, we have a doddering president who is trying to thread
the needle in his approach to the Gaza war, condemning anti-Semitism while
trying to placate Muslim/Arab voters, particularly in a crucial swing state
like Michigan, where their numbers are most concentrated.
It is truly a depressing state of
affairs, especially when you see how Jewish students in universities all over
the nation are afraid to show their Jewishness in class and on campus. Those of
us who have been fighting anti-Semitism on our campuses are sickened by the
ever-increasing expressions of hate being directed toward our Jewish students
and Jews in general.
But amid all the despair and the
outrage, is there anything encouraging to be found-a silver lining, so to
speak? On the surface, it is easy to say no, but in one respect, there is a
silver lining. When I first got involved in the issue of anti-Semitism at the
University of California at Irvine as a part-time teacher around 2007, it was a
struggle just to bring the problem to the attention of the local Jewish
community in Orange County, let alone the US as a whole. The universities were
in denial there was a problem, largely out of fear of their Muslim student
activists and organizations like CAIR, who stood behind them and were ready to
charge Islamophobia at the drop of a hat.
In addition, major Jewish
organizations like Hillel, the Anti-Defamation League, and the various chapters
of the Jewish Federation were reluctant to air complaints publicly because they
preferred to work quietly behind the scenes with the universities, and they did
not want to discourage Jewish students from attending the respective schools
where they operated. Thus, many activists and Jewish students who chose to
speak out were often criticized, sometimes even ostracized within their own
communities. It was said that they were making things worse and that the
universities had it all under control. They were wrong. Today, they are not
making that claim.
I personally recall the lack of
action by the local ADL in Orange County to the problem at UC Irvine. I was not
optimistic things would get better with Jonathan Greenblatt, a noted liberal,
taking over the organization. Today, Greenblatt is speaking out about the
outrages going on at Columbia and other universities and is calling for arrests
and law and order. That is a positive development.
It is also a positive development
that in the past few years, the public at large is now fully aware that there,
indeed, is a resurgence in anti-Semitism in the US, and that the center of that
problem is on our college campuses. They are now seeing it front and center on
the nightly news, some media more than others, but nobody can claim ignorance
including our cowardly university administrators. I give kudos to the
Republican-led Education and Workforce Committee in the House of
Representatives for bringing several university presidents in to testify. The
result is that the public has seen clearly how feckless and cowardly these
people are in general. The presidents of Harvard and the University of
Pennsylvania have rightly been forced to resign. More should follow. Many more.
More than ever, our universities
are being exposed as cesspools of indoctrination against the very values that
America and the West hold dear. The non-stop agitation against Israel has now
been exposed as little more than an exercise in Jew-hatred, which should have
no place in our society.
In addition, it is important that
we clearly identify who the perpetrators of this hatred on our campuses are.
They are not MAGA supporters, conservatives, white nationalists, neo-Nazis, or
KKK-types. They are Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace,
extremist Muslims and their anarchist stooges, people like Antifa and others
who have jumped on the anti-Israel bandwagon because they want to bring down a
key American ally, people who want to bring down America itself.
So if there is a silver lining in
all this ugliness, it is that the American public is now fully aware of the
problem of anti-Semitism and the role of our universities in stirring up this
hatred. This is definitely going to affect the universities, primarily in the
bottom line. Donations are going down, Jewish students are deciding to avoid
schools like Columbia, and more parents, Jewish and non-Jewish, will decide not
to send their kids to these schools with their already outrageous tuitions
going to pay for radical professors and layers upon layers of administrators
who cannot or will not do their jobs.
I still believe that the
overwhelming majority of Americans are decent people who, when shown that there
is actual injustice, will do the right thing. Most of us abhor anti-Semitism
and support Israel, including in this current struggle against Hamas in Gaza.
There is much to be done in fighting anti-Semitism in the US and much to be
done in reforming our universities, but at least now, nobody can deny the
problem. Campus anti-Semitism is no longer able to operate in the darkness. And
that, I believe, is a silver lining.
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