The uptick in antisemitic hate crimes in the United States is at all-time terrifying highs. Since the October 7, 2023 brutal slaughter by Palestinian Arabs from Gaza of roughly 1,200 people in Israel, radical Muslim and far-left socialists have been celebrating the torture of Jews and promising to bring the “intifada” to the streets and campuses of the U.S.
The heinous antisemitism is promoted and supported by alt-left Muslim women in congress like Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) who has called Jews the sinister plotters “behind the curtains” that kill Black and Brown people “from Gaza to Detroit,” and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) who says that there are only two types of Jews: “pro-genocide or anti-genocide.” But The New York Times is trying to defend its own rather than cover the news, so is sticking with a narrative that antisemitism only exists among Republicans.
On the front page of the May 12, 2024 paper, The Times published an article titled “The Antisemitic Tropes Echoed by Republicans.” It continued on with a full two-page spread inside, complete with charts and graphics under the banner “How Republicans Echo Antisemitic Tropes.” Both headlines had sub-headers that were clear that the “declared support for Jews” was a ruse to get their votes.
For good measure, the paper added another article about the Orthodox Jewish governor of Pennsylvania. It made sure to add that he’s “A Rising Pro-Israel Democrat” in the headline.
The Times has long promoted the idea that only White people can really be racists and antisemitic, as other minorities are simply “punching up” and trying to succeed. If a Black preacher like Louis Farrakhan shouts clearly vile antisemitic things, the Democratic establishment says nothing and the Times buries the story, lest Black Americans turn on the party.
Antisemitism is not limited to the Democratic Party but it has become deeply embedded in the left flank “Squad.” Mainstream media is worried that Jews will abandon their comrades in an election year, so is spinning narratives that Jews must stay loyal to the party despite the rot, and keep lunatics like Jamaal Bowman in office.
Jewish Americans see and feel the hatred, as well as the poorly constructed cover-ups by left-wing anti-Jewish and anti-Israel media.
Jews have enemies, and they are public and proud about gunning for Jews. Some are deranged individuals but others are members of organized groups like American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) with thousands of supporters and growing power.
HAMAS
Hamas is the ruling authority of Gaza and a political party which controls 58% of the seats of the Palestinian parliament. They are considered a terrorist group by much of the West, and just a political party by the United Nations.
Hamas’s stated goal is the eradication of the Jewish State of Israel. It has a religious calling, infused with a radical jihadi philosophy.
Hamas’s 1988 Foundation Charter is the most antisemitic political document in history, a sick combination of Adolph Hitler’s Mein Kampf and the Russian forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It’s goal of killing Jews with global support is found throughout the charter:
“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it.” (Opening)
“Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious.” (Preamble)
“raise the banner of Jihad in the face of the oppressors, so that they would rid the land and the people of their uncleanliness, vileness and evils.” (Article 3)
“raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine” (Article 6)
“Moslems fight the Jews(killing the Jews)… there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him” (Article 7)
“Nothing in nationalism is more significant or deeper than in the case when an enemy should tread Moslem land” (Article 12)
“There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time” (Article 13)
“In face of the Jews’ usurpation of Palestine, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised…. the Palestinian problem is a religious problem, and should be dealt with on this basis.” (Article 15)
Zionist “organizations, hostile to humanity and Islam, will be obliterated.” (Article 17)
“In their Nazi treatment, the Jews made no exception for women or children… [Jews] attack people where their breadwinning is concerned, extorting their money” (Article 20)
“With their money, they took control of the world media, news agencies, the press, publishing houses, broadcasting stations, and others. With their money they stirred revolutions in various parts of the world with the purpose of achieving their interests and reaping the fruit therein…. They obtained the Balfour Declaration, formed the League of Nations through which they could rule the world. They were behind World War II, through which they made huge financial gains by trading in armaments, and paved the way for the establishment of their state. It was they who instigated the replacement of the League of Nations with the United Nations and the Security Council to enable them to rule the world through them. There is no war going on anywhere, without having their finger in it.” (Article 22)
“The Zionist invasion is a vicious invasion… using all evil and contemptible ways… infiltration and espionage operations on the secret organizations… aim at undermining societies, destroying values, corrupting consciences, deteriorating character and annihilating Islam. It is behind the drug trade and alcoholism in all its kinds so as to facilitate its control and expansion…. Israel, Judaism and Jews challenge Islam and the Moslem people.” (Article 28)
“the ferocity of the Zionist offensive and the Zionist influence in many countries exercised through financial and media control.” (Article 30)
“Peace and quiet would not be possible except under the wing of Islam… It is the duty of the followers of other religions to stop disputing the sovereignty of Islam in this region… The Zionist Nazi activities against our people will not last for long.” (Article 31)
“The Zionist plan is limitless. After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying.… here is no way out except by concentrating all powers and energies to face this Nazi, vicious Tatar invasion. The alternative is loss of one’s country, the dispersion ofcitizens, the spread of vice on earth and the destruction of religious values… fight with the warmongering Jews.” (Article 32)
“everywhere in the Islamic world will come forward in response to the call of duty while loudly proclaiming: Hail to Jihad. Their cry will reach the heavens and will go on being resounded until liberation is achieved, the invaders vanquished” (Article 33)
“Moslems were able to retrieve the land only when they stood under the wing of their religious banner… This is the only way to liberate Palestine… Nothing can overcome iron except iron.… confront the Zionist invasion and defeat it… rid themselves of the effects of ideological invasion.” (Article 34)
Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)
CAIR should in theory, be a non-violent or toxic organization that advocates for Muslims in the United States. Alas, it is headed by antisemites who wish to attack Jewish institutions and run them out of the public square, as well as to destroy the only Jewish State.
The head of CAIR, Nihad Awad, defended the October 7 savage butchering of Israeli civilians. He has long said that “Zionist organizations” are “enemies of the Muslim community” and that “Zionist organizations make up the core of the Islamophobia network in the United States.”
CAIR-San Francisco Bay Area Executive Director Zahra Billoo, addressing an American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) conference, made clear that all Zionists are enemies. “Know your enemies, and I’m not going to sugar-coat that. They are your enemies. There are organizations and infrastructure out there who are working to harm you. Make no mistake of it. They would sell you down the line if they could, and they very often do behind your back. I mean the Zionist organizations, I mean the foreign policy organizations that say they’re not Zionists but want a two-state solution. I’m not a Palestinian myself but it’s my understanding that that is laughable. So know your enemies.” Billoo listed some of them: “We need to pay attention to the Anti-Defamation League. We need to pay attention to the Jewish Federation. We need to pay attention to the Zionist synagogues. We need to pay attention to the Hillel chapters on our campuses. Because just because they’re your friend today, doesn’t mean that they have your back when it comes to human rights. So oppose the vehement fascists but oppose the polite Zionists too. They are not your friends.“
Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)
The far-left DSA has long been against Israel and its “platform proudly states continued support for and involvement with the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, and efforts to eliminate U.S. military aid to Israel, while resisting the “normalization” of relationships between the Israeli government and other governments.”
The DSA chapter in New York City asked candidates to pledge to not even visit Israel and see firsthand what is happening, and blindly follow Palestinian propaganda. The questionnaire asked “Do you pledge not to travel to Israel if elected to City Council in solidarity with Palestinians living under occupation?”
The organization went further and stated that EVERY Israeli Jew is fair game for violence in a June 2023 tweet that said “in a settler colonial context there are no such things as “civilians”, but disregarding that even, it’s total folly to honestly compare settlers perpetuating pogroms to resistance groups deploying violence to liberate themselves.” Note that the Palestinian narrative considers all of Israel to be a settlement, and thereby calls the presence of any Jew to be a member of the military and fair target for violence. Rep. Ritchie Torres was apoplectic and rebuked the DSA for “declaring them [Jews] fair game for violence and terror.“
Within Our Lifetime (WOL)
Within Our Lifetime is a group that creates loud rallies calling for the destruction of Israel and calling to confront every group that supports Israel everywhere, including the United States. They insist that every Jew must be routed from “Palestine,” “We don’t want no two states. We want all of it!”
In their call to “Globalize the Intifada” they have a map of “Zionist organizations” in New York City (4:30) with a call for people to visit each of the locations.
In the immediate aftermath of October 7, the group chanted support for the killing of Jewish civilians in New York City’s Times Square in what they hoped was a war to destroy the “Zionist entity.”
SJP, within Our Lifetime and Palestine Youth Movement celebrate the killing of 1,200 Israelis in the immediate aftermath of the massacre
SJP is a hate group with about 300 groups on college campuses around the United States. It believes that every Israeli Jew and Zionist is an enemy to be confronted “by any means necessary,” which means burning families alive, as Gazans did on October 7.
In the aftermath of the Gazan barabrity, SJP said this is a “historic win for the Palestinian resistance,” and “This is what it means to Free Palestine: not just slogans and rallies, but armed confrontation with the oppressors.
Israeli Jews have other enemies, such as the Palestinian Authority. The PA is headed by a Holocaust denier who has demanded a country devoid of any Jews. Palestinian Arabs are the most antisemitic group by far, with 93% holding antisemitic beliefs according to the ADL.
But these days, one has to put the garden-variety Jew-haters on the back-burner and focus on the antisemites who want to do Jews harm and have the means to do so. Those with weapons like Hamas must be fought with weaponry. Those with political clout like CAIR and the DSA must be fought politically. And those inciting violence like WOL and SJP must be fought legally.
Jihadis and the alt-left declared Zionists as sworn enemies and to be confronted “by any means necessary.” On October 7, the world learned what that means. How will Jews, Zionists, their supporters and governments protect them?
Amid the alarming rise of antisemitic incidents happening at schools across America, liberal mainstream media decided to call the issue #FakeNews, and a fabricated Republican spectacle to make liberals look bad.
That is no exaggeration.
CNN’s coverage started with a headline that Republicans were simply conducting a “‘gotcha’ antisemitism hearing.” The article – not an opinion piece but a news story by Matt Egan (who normally writes about business) – wrote that “It’s no coincidence that the witnesses at Wednesday’s hearing represent school districts in liberal cities. Republicans have sought to score political points by attacking “woke” policies that they say allows for hate speech.”
CNN opinion piece masquerading as news that antisemitism hearings were spectacles fabricated by Republicans
The New York Times wasn’t much better. In articles posted throughout the hearing, the liberal outlet inserted ‘Republican’ everywhere as if the issue of Jews being harassed, intimated and attacked was something that both political parties and every American shouldn’t care about.
Despite what someone might infer from the disgraceful coverage by CNN and The Times, the antisemitism is very real and immediate.
The Brandeis Center and the Anti Defamation League have filed complaints against the Department of Education about the districts brought to the hearing, including the Berkeley Unified School District. The latest letter is dated May 6, 2024 and served as a supplement to the original complaint of February 28, 2024.
In the latest Brandeis letter, numerous examples of antisemitism were listed including: violent antisemitic graffiti such as “Kill Jews”, bullying by peers, celebrating a suspended teacher who had created a hostile environment for Jewish students, vilification of parents who brought civil rights claims, use of anti-Israel propaganda in classrooms, pro-Hamas walkouts and posters, and antisemitic hostility at school board meetings.
The breadth and depth of antisemitism at the school is not in question.
Has belittling Jew hatred become a mainstream media value?
Antisemitism in society is a major and growing problem, as is liberal media’s attempt to whitewash it as a Republican political stunt. Lawsuits and new laws may help fix the former but only boycotting the papers, including withholding and redirecting advertising dollars, can fix the latter.
Four university presidents of America’s leading academic institutions came to the United States capital to address a congressional hearing on antisemitism on college campuses. Most failed to satisfactorily answer a very simple question: “Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate the school’s code of conduct?” As private institutions, the question had nothing to do with free speech, and in framing the question about “the genocide of Jews”, there was no debate about what “intifada” or “Free Palestine” meant.
The answers should have been clear and unambiguous, just as if the question were about students shouting to drown gay people or lynch Blacks.
Not long after America’s theoretically best-and-brightest failed Morality 101, campuses around the country actually began calling for the genocide of Jews and the destruction of America. Right in New York City, the capital of Diaspora Jewry, people called for a repeat of the October 7 massacres, to kill Zionists and Israeli businesses and to run Jewish organizations out of the public square.
Pamphlet from New York University anti-Israel encampment
Somehow, this has caught New Yorkers and Americans off guard, as if October 8th happened from thin air. As if there had not been antisemitism and anti-Zionism in the United States. As though the situation for American Jews was at perfection on October 6.
This dynamic recalls the story of the Jews in Persia 2,500 years ago, as told in the Book of Esther. Hints about the current tragedy are laid out in how the story is chanted in synagogues.
That story, retold on the holiday of Purim, began to unfold around the year 483BCE. The Jewish exile had come to a close with most Jews having returned to the land of Israel after the First Temple was destroyed one hundred years earlier. Still, many Jews decided to remain in the Persian kingdom in the Jewish diaspora, as their lives had become quite good.
As laid out in chapter three, there was an opportunist named Haman who saw that the laws of the land were capricious. In that backdrop, he saw a wealthy, non-conformist community that was easy prey and offered the king 10,000 talents of silver in exchange for the fate of the Jews. Every single Jew – from infants to the elderly – were to be exterminated, leaving no heir for Haman to consider as he stole the lives and property from every unsuspecting Jew, yielding himself multiples of the 10,000 talents of silver.
The edict against the Jews was not made in secret. It was put in public in every province and every language. At the end of the chapter, the text states that the king and Haman sat down together “but the city of Shushan (the capital) was bewildered.”
The Book of Esther is sung in a unique set of happy cantillations, but there are a few parts that are read in an unhappy melody used for the Book of Lamentations. One would imagine that the entirety of chapter three describing the condemnation of the country’s Jews for annihilation would be read in the sad tune, but it is not. Only those last few words “the city of Shushan was bewildered” are sung in the sad melody.
Why? Why would the rabbis leave the call to annihilate Jews in a happy tune but the dumbfoundedness of Jews and non-Jews of Shushan emphasized in tragic song?
There are a few explanations.
Some suggest that the Persian Jews should have moved back to the land of Israel. That foreign laws turning on Jews should not be shocking. The Persian Jews had deluded themselves that they were living in the heart of civilization in a protected lifestyle. It was that delusion and failure to return to the holy land that was the tragedy; the new antisemitic edicts were to be expected.
Another approach builds on that theme. Jews had become trained to only think of antisemitism in a certain way: the blocking of particular rituals like kosher, observing the Sabbath and circumcision. If those were practices were not infringed upon, the general breakdown of a legal framework in the country was ignored.
These ideas are familiar to Jews in America today.
American Jews were trained to think of society as not inherently antisemitic because their synagogues got built and they attained corporate success. While they saw the reports that Jews suffered the greatest number of hate crimes, it was generally dismissed as being a problem for the outwardly devout, while those focused on just living and working with their heads down would do just fine.
Jews ignored politicians saying that wealth is in the hands of the “wrong people.” They didn’t complain when edicts for DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) specifically excluded Jews and promoted other minorities. Jews observed themselves being systematically removed from positions of power and joined the celebration; diversity replaced meritocracy, seemingly in line with “social justice” and “tikkun olam“, even if not universally fair.
Somehow, it never dawned on American Jews that they were facing a threat as they watched a legal and financial system which was based on fairness and hard work in which they participated and excelled, being trashed as inherently racist. Jews nodded approval that a proper response to the War on Terror on a couple of Muslim-majority countries was to facilitate billions of dollars and tens of thousands of students and professors from other Muslim-majority countries into leading American universities. They did not consider that the curricula was being gutted to vilify America, capitalism, Jews and the Jewish State.
America and American Jews – like Persia and Persian Jews 2,500 years ago – were duped into believing that antisemitism was only about Jewish customs and ignored the reality that the seeds of antisemitism are planted when a legal framework that protects EVERYONE is dismantled in favor of a select few. More specifically, laws that excluded Jews in favor of people of preference.
To be bewildered is to be caught off guard, a horribly sad situation for a people who have thousands of years of history from which to learn.
Holocaust Remembrance Day, Yom Hashoah, is when Jews around the world remember how Nazi Germany systematically slaughtered its own defenseless Jewish citizens. In 2024, the day shared focus with recent events, coming in the shadow of the worst mass slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust on October 7 by Palestinian Arab sadists from Gaza.
To help mark the day, local jihadists in the United States wanted Jews to focus on more than their 6 million Holocaust and newly dead; they sought to have Jews become overwhelmed by anarchy and antisemitic chants.
Pro-Hamas groups assembled at Columbia and Hunter Colleges in a “Day of Rage”
Students chanted in the streets of New York City to “Globalize the Intifada”, to kill Jews everywhere
Columbia University canceled its main graduation ceremony
Hunter College canceled classes and moved online
Police descended onto the streets to protect the Met Gala, even as universities admitted that they couldn’t guarantee safety so capitulated to the mobsters
The Jewish population in Palestine in 1936 was 400,000, and Arabs rioted to stop Jewish immigration and to halt the creation of a Jewish State. The Arabs effectively got the British who were administering the mandate to cap Jewish migration to only 75,000 Jews over the following five years, sealing the fate of hundreds of thousands of Jews fleeing Europe.
The inheritors of that same strain of antisemitism are now rioting in New York City’s streets, this time to destroy the Jewish State.
Telegram from Nazi Heinrich Himmler to Palestinian Grand Mufti of Jerusalem about the common enemy of the Jews
The United States in 2024 is not Nazi Germany of the 1930s, but the radical mobs on college campuses are echoes of the Arab riots of the 1930s, seeking to terrorize Jews and alter the government’s position on the Jewish State. Consequently, Jews on this Holocaust Remembrance Day will not just remember the atrocities of the Nazis but of Palestinian Arabs who helped facilitate the death of hundreds of thousands of Jews.
The defenders of free speech on campus are out in force. Far-left members of congress like Ilhan Omar and Jamaal Bowman defend the right of agitators to yell for the genocide of Jews and destruction of the Jewish State as a matter of “uncomfortable speech” that should be allowed. Lawyers debate what crosses the line when calling for killing a group of people generally as being protected speech in public spaces but similar language directed at individuals and/or what could be considered an immediate call for violence, which would be prohibited speech.
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) was spotted smiling at the anti-Israel encampment at Columbia University. (Photo: Reuters)
One would therefore imagine the free speech advocates easily standing alongside students drawing the Islamic prophet Mohammed on placards around campus, and most definitely, showing Mohammed in art classes, much the way paintings and statues of Jesus, Moses and David are discussed.
But the opposite has been the case.
Professors are being fired or intimidated to not show artwork with Muhammed. In Minnesota, Erika López Prater was fired from her position at Hamline University for showing a 14th-century painting depicting the Prophet Muhammad in a lesson on Islamic art. A student complained that she was upset and that it was blasphemous to show a depiction of the Islamic prophet and got the school to fire the professor. The professor had zero malicious intent and was simply reviewing artwork of religious figures but was nonetheless terminated.
The French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo often lampoons religions and has made cartoons of the Islamic prophet as well. Jihadi radicals were incensed when their prophet was the subject matter, and shot up the company’s offices in 2015. The Islamic killers then shot up a kosher supermarket which had nothing to do with the magazine, simply to kill Jews.
A couple of months later in 2015, Pamela Geller held a “Draw Muhammed contest” in Texas, and two Muslim extremists shot up the event but were themselves killed. Both the Geller and Charlie Hebdo events were lampooning religion and Islam specifically, but covered under American and French ideals of free speech.
It will be an interesting spectacle to watch campuses with anti-Israel protests have counter-protests with Mohammed featured prominently on their placards with such statements like “Would Muhammed endorse Hamas’s rape of women?” and “What would Muhammed say about Hamas’s shooting the elderly?” Will Ilhan Omar rise to the defense of actual peace advocates the way she defends supporters of genocide?
The United States was alarmed and appalled at the “Unite the Right” mob march in Charlottesville, VA in August 2017. As right-wing marchers descended on a university holding torches, wearing Nazi symbols and yelling “Jews will not replace us,” the country watched a scene of racism and antisemitism unfold into a crime scene. PBS called it a “watershed moment for the white supremacist movement.”
The real life play is being revealed once again in real time, with a new set of actors and fashion brandished by radical jihadists and the alt-left, once again yelling “Jews will not replace us.”
Radical Jihadists
Radical jihadists are typically located in Muslim-majority countries in the Middle and Far East including Iran, Qatar, Pakistan, Indonesia and Somalia. They believe that Islam should dominate the world, especially in any location which was once dominated by Islamists such as the land of Israel.
The jihadi extremists began to slowly migrate into Europe and the United States starting in the 1960s but accelerated their movement in 2015/16 as the “Arab Spring” and Syrian Civil War decimated their homelands. They came to Europe (2015) and the United States (in 2016) and brought much of their instilled antisemitism.
The United States also encouraged foreign students to attend American universities. In 2003, as the American War on Terror raged in mostly Muslim countries, the Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study Program was launched. The goal was to bring “High school students from countries with significant Muslim populations [to] live and study in the United States for an academic year through the U.S.” In the 2015/6 academic year, 61,000 students from Saudi Arabia were at U.S. universities. That high figure represents 0.2% of the entire population of Saudi Arabia to a single country. By way of comparison, the ENTIRE American students abroad cohort all over the world is around 162,000, or 0.05% of the U.S. population.
The U.S. continues to push for foreign Muslim students at American schools. On September 12, 2023, the U.S. embassy in Israel posted an advertisement that the U.S. State Department “is seeking a group of Arab citizens of Israel secondary school students to participate in a Study- in-the-USA initiative for high school students during the 2024-2025 school year.” (bold in original). No Jewish students from Israel were invited to be part of the program.
And what do radical jihadists, faces covered in kaffiyehs, preach abroad and in the United States?
They consider the entire State of Israel to be an illegal project that must be terminated
Palestinian Arabs demand a “right of return” to towns where grandparents used to live along with an expulsion of Jews who refuse to live as second class “dhimmis.”
In short, radical jihadists are chanting that “Jews will not replace us!” in Palestine, as they seek to “Free Palestine” from the clutches of the Jews.
Alt-Left
The far-left cohort in America is seeking to end capitalism and pursue a broad redistribution of wealth and power. They have advanced the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) into schools and corporations that demand the minorities of preference (Blacks, Hispanics, LGBT) be given priority in admission, compensation, title and power before Whites or somehow “privileged” minorities such as Asians and Jews.
The alt-left considers Jews to be part of the uber elite class, occupying too many CEO, Supreme Court and political positions. They attribute Jewish success as a matter of Jews only looking out for themselves, and cheating or stealing from the labor of the working class, in classic antisemitic tropes.
When Black Israelites shot up a kosher supermarket in Jersey City, NJ in December 2019, several leaders of the Black community were clear that they felt the killers were only REacting as a form of self defense: “Black homeowners were threatened, intimidated, and harassed by I WANT TO BUY YOUR HOUSE brutes of the jewish community.”
Jews do not belong. In the housing or their jobs.
“Jews will not replace us!” rained down in a hail of bullets in Jersey City and in federal and state mandated DEI programs.
Alt-Right
The alt-right coined the phrase “Jews will not replace us!” but far from monopolized the theme.
The alt-right version of the phrase in many ways is the most preposterous. White supremacists believe that Jews are so powerful that they are advancing a program of importing millions of non-White and non-Christian foreigners to dilute the White Christian backbone of the country. How and why that would have any remote advantages for Jews is never explained.
Muslim extremists, woke progressives and White nationalists have very different philosophies but congregate around a belief that Jews are cheats and thieves who are robbing the rightful owners of land, money, jobs and prestige. And they are coming for this beleaguered minority-minority “by any means they deem necessary,” much as antisemites have done for centuries.
We are at a “watershed moment for the jihadi and alt-left movements” in the United States to destroy Judeo-Christian values, capitalism and the West. How the government’s leaders and population respond will set the tone for our future.
On April 30, 2024, while many pro-Hamas students at Columbia University chanted for an “intifada revolution” to destroy the Jewish State and kill diaspora Jews, and as other students broke into and took over one of the school buildings, the university issued a statement about the takeover being disruptive and “a noisy distraction that interferes with teaching.” In taking action, the university said “this is about responding to the actions of the protestors, not their cause.” The full statement is here:
Early this morning, a group of protestors occupied Hamilton Hall on the Morningside Campus. We regret that protesters have chosen to escalate the situation through their actions. Our top priority is restoring safety and order on our campus.
We made it very clear yesterday the work of the University cannot be endlessly interrupted by protesters who violate the rules. Continuing to do so will be met with clear consequences. Protesters have chosen to escalate to an untenable situation–vandalizing property, breaking doors and windows, and blockading entrances–and we are following through with the consequences we outlined yesterday.
Students occupying the building face expulsion.
Protesters were informed that their participation in the encampment violated numerous university policies. We gave everyone at the encampment the opportunity to leave peacefully. By committing to abide by University policies, they would be allowed to complete the semester.
Students who did not commit to the terms we offered are now being suspended. Those students will be restricted from all academic and recreational spaces and may only access their individual residence. Seniors will be ineligible to graduate.
This is about responding to the actions of the protesters, not their cause.
As we said yesterday, disruptions on campus have created a threatening environment for many of our Jewish students and faculty and a noisy distraction that interferes with teaching, learning, and preparing for final exams, and contributes to a hostile environment in violation of Title VI.
The safety of our community remains our top priority.
As we prepare for a commencement to honor our students’ achievements, we continue to urge the protesters to remove the encampment and voluntarily disperse so as to not deprive their fellow students of this momentous occasion.
We have followed through on our very clear warnings of consequences and are initiating disciplinary action against those who continue to violate our rules.
An “Intifada” banner waves over Columbia University after students seize Hamilton Hall on 116th Street in New York City, April 30, 2024. (photo: JESSICA SCHWALB)
Imagine the university downplaying racism if students chanted that gay people should be kicked off campus or Hispanics should be sent to wherever they came from. What if people chanted that Muslims are pathological killers and the United States should bomb Iran and neighboring Muslim countries out of existence. Imagine thousands of students denying that Black people were ever slaves in America and inventing an entire new origin story for African-Americans in the center of campus.
Would protestors’ free speech rights be prioritized? Would the university’s statements be packed with excuses that the school does not have any issue with the protestors chants? Or would the university clearly denounce the slogans and give priority to the mental health of the targets of the venom?
Columbia University well understands mental health and has a page on its website devoted to it called CopeColumbia. One section is devoted towards “Racism, Stress and Coping.” It discusses systemic racism faced by African-Americans, and impacts on health outcomes. It is copied here – except edited to address rampant Jew-hatred taking place at Columbia today – to show the disparity in how little the universe has extended itself for its Jewish faculty and student body.
The stress and trauma of racismantisemitism in our society for communities of colorJews is informed by a long history of violence and social injustice. Provided here are resources centered around racialreligious disparities and promoting healing, growth, and avenues for change.
The COVID-19 pandemic has accentuated significant health disparities for Black and LatinxJewish communities in the U.S. Populations of colorhave been vilified as having caused and profited fromcontracted COVID-19 at higher rates than White individuals; with greater morbidity and mortality.1,2 We are learning that systemic racismantisemitism is a major factor in these disparate outcomes: a disproportionate number of African-American and LatinoJewish individuals work in settings in the medical professionthat are high risk for exposure, and they are more likely to be accused of profiting from the pandemic and medical treatment rather than thanked for efforts to turn back the global scourge oflack medical insurance, the means to be tested for coronavirus, to be adequately treated for underlying conditions, or to receive early treatment for COVID-19.2
The stress and trauma of racismantisemitism in our society for communities of colorfaith is informed by a long history of violence and social injustice. The effects of systemic racismantisemitism, especially on African-AmericansJews in our country, permeates our society with consequences including negative outcomes for physical and mental well-being. Images, media portrayals and public discourse have triggered post-traumatic stress symptoms across in many of us, with the heaviest toll being that on racialthe very small Jewish minorities. Protests have sparked a discussion most feel is long overdue to address the effects of oppression on African-AmericansJews after the senseless murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylorin the Pittsburgh Tree of Life Synagogue, Poway Synagogue and kosher store in Jersey City. We are aware that these conversations, although emotionally charged, are necessary for change; take courage and bravery to achieve a more raciallyreligiously just society.
The mentalemotional health effects of racismantisemitism are vast. The inability for communities of colorfaith to access mental healthprotective resources creates a barrier to basic safetythe path of treatment and recovery. Lack of resourcesa sizable population coupled with diminished political cloutdistrust of the medical field due to past transgressions towards African-Americans, in particular, and the stigma associated with mental health treatment in communities of color create a perfect storm for untreated intergenerational mental healthphysical and emotional illness.”
Columbia University understands that Jewish students on campus are deeply traumatized not only by the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust on October 7 in Israel, but that the barbarity is celebrated by Columbia faculty and students who gleefully taunt them as they try to attend class. While the school makes efforts to systematically change the school’s culture and curricula to address the mental and emotional impacts of racism, it dismisses vulgar antisemitic slogans as “a noisy distraction that interferes with teaching, learning, and preparing for final exams.“
Antisemitism is so deeply entrenched in America’s universities, they cannot even pause to recognize Jewish trauma even as they haul away protestors looking to destroy the Jewish State.
Kosher food is eaten by Jews and non-Jews. Some Jews don’t eat kosher food and prefer non-kosher items. But “kosher” is definitely Jewish, as defined in the Bible outlining which foods are permissible and not permissible for Jews.
Many Jewish men get circumcised at eight days old in a “bris.” A small percentage of Jewish boys are not circumcised because the parents do not like the custom. But a “bris” is definitely Jewish, a commandment laid out in the Bible.
Many Jewish homes have a menorah as do many synagogues. They are lit on the holiday of Chanukah per rabbinic tradition. Some Jews do not own or light a menorah, but it is definitely a Jewish religious article.
Religious married Jewish women go to a ritual bath, a “mikvah,” once a month. Most Jewish women are not Orthodox or do not have regular menstrual cycles and do not visit the mikvah. But a mikvah is definitely a Jewish bath and has been for thousands of years.
Roughly 45% of world Jewry lives in the land of Israel, while the majority do not live there. But the land of Israel is central to Judaism, the “promised land” to the Jewish forefathers of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and their descendants. It is central to the Jewish Bible and for Jews for 3,700 years.
Jews visiting the Jewish Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem
Whether a person keeps kosher, had a bris, visits a mikvah, lights a menorah, or lives in the land of Israel, has nothing to do with those items being integral parts of Judaism. Similarly, a person may never read the Talmud, but such action is irrelevant to the tractates inherently being a fabric of Jewish tradition.
So when a Jewish person says Jews shouldn’t live in Israel, it doesn’t negate that the land of Israel is central to Judaism; it just means that that particular person doesn’t believe it.
The next time you see members of Neturei Karta yelling that Zionism is terrible and the Jewish State should be destroyed, whisper in their ears that you are working to ban kosher meat and circumcision in America, as a gentle reminder that just because they may not appreciate how some people express their Judaism, they shouldn’t fight to ban it for others.
Members of ultra-Orthodox Neturei Karta protesting a march combating antisemitism, January 2020 (photo: First One Through)
The land of Israel, the city of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount are deeply Jewish locations and have been for thousands of years. It makes absolutely no difference what any Jew or non-Jew says, and whether they are one side or the other of the Israeli-Hamas war. Parading “AsAJews” who fight against Zionism before cameras does nothing to negate the reality that Israel is an essential component of Judaism, much like keeping kosher and a bris.
The magnification of fringe anti-Jewish views held by Jews is a noxious tool used by Jew-haters to splinter the beleaguered minority-minority to become easier fodder for extinction. Shame on the media for making a deliberate point of doing so in these days of toxic antisemitism.
As reported in the press, “Columbia University has announced that classes at its main campus will be held remotely for the final weeks of the semester — as critics blasted the “weak” administration for allowing anti-Israel student protesters to shut down the college “in essence” and called on parents to seek tuition refunds.”
This comes as Jewish students at the New York City school have faced unrelenting harassment and intimidation from students and professors. An Orthodox rabbi at Columbia/Barnard told his community that Columbia clearly “cannot guarantee Jewish students’ safety in the face of extreme antisemitism and anarchy,” and Columbia provost Angela Olinto seemed to agree, as demonstrated with the announced shift to an off-campus schedule.
Jews have long been the most persecuted group in terms of the number of hate crimes in the United States, exceeding the rates for Blacks, LGBT, Muslims and any other minorities, well before the current spike in Jew hatred.
Leading institutions and the U.S. government seem to think that the best solution is for Jews to stay home and hide.
Consider that on May 21, 2021, the Biden Administrations’ Jewish engagement director, Aaron Keyak, tweeted “It pains me to say this, but if you fear for your life or physical safety take off your kippah and hide your magen david (Star of David).“
We are seeing the ramifications of electing antisemitic politicians who refuse to protect Jews, as open warfare against Jews permeates college campuses. During this election season, it is critical to oust the elected officials in Democratic primaries who have fostered this environment that Jews are fair game for assault.
ACTION ITEM
In NY-16, extremist Rep. Jamaal Bowman is being challenged by Westchester County Executive George Latimer. Donate to Latimer here.
In MO-1, extremist Rep. Cori Bush is being challenged by public defender Wesley Bell. Donate to Bell here.
In MN-05, extremist Rep. Ilhan Omar is being challenged by Minneapolis City Council member Don Samuels. Donate to Samuels here.
Write to the White House and your local politicians to provide protection for Jewish institutions and students.
