During the night of May 10, 1933, tens of thousands of Germans in twenty-two cities gathered books written by Jews and tossed them into huge bonfires. It was part of an emerging effort to remove the supposed “depraved” culture of Germany instigated by Jews and replace it with something more pure.
In Munich, the Ludwig Maximilian University and the Technical University granted state recognition to students’ unions as legal entities in the university constitution, with a stipulation that Jewish students be excluded from these bodies. An estimated 8,000 Germans celebrated the action at a rally and then proceeded to burn books by Jews. An estimated 70,000 onlookers watched the spectacle.
Roughly one hundred book burnings took place from early March and ran through October of 1933. Universities were the main originators of the effort to identify and ban books, which led to libraries and other institutions following suit.
Five and one-half years later, the Nazi machinery had gained momentum. On November 9 and 10, 1938, Nazis throughout Germany and Austria burned Jewish stores and synagogues in what became knows as Kristallnacht. Citizens – mostly neighbors – ransacked and looted about 7,500 Jewish businesses, killed at least 91 Jews, and vandalized Jewish hospitals, homes, schools, and cemeteries. Some 30,000 Jewish males aged 16 to 60 were arrested.
Jews were forced to pay for and clean up the carnage from which they suffered. They scrubbed streets on their knees before Nazis and their neighbors, as they had been forced to do for months in public humiliation.
Jews in Vienna, Austria forced to scrub streets with their hands in March 1938
Eighty-five years later, a new generation of antisemites labeled a different Jewish idea as a depravity to terminate and Jews to annihilate: Zionism.
On March 30, 2018, thirty thousand Gazans marched on the fence with Israel in what they billed the “Great March of Return.” They continued to rail against the fence demanding the “right to return” into the land of Israel, where grandparents lived until 1948. Backed by Hamas, the Gazans burned fires and sent burning kites into Israel to torch their fields, as they tried to take down the border fence.
Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious.
Hamas Charter
Five and one half years later, on October 7, 2023, over 1,000 members of Hamas and many Gazans effectively stormed and destroyed the border separation and stormed into Israeli towns where they butchered and slaughtered 1,200 people. They made clear that they did not just want to return to Israel but to end the existence of Jews and the Jewish State.
Kibbutz Be’eri after Hamas October 7 Massacre
Both Nazis and Hamas targeted Jews at their inceptions well before 1933 and 2018, respectively. The Nazis gained legitimacy over time through democratic elections and penetrated the mindset of universities. Hamas similarly won Palestinian elections and dominate Palestinian views in a manner that James Zogby of the Arab American Institute called a “deformity in Palestinian political culture.”
Israel, Judaism and Jews challenge Islam and the Moslem people.
Hamas Charter
The scary dynamic is that the Palestinian narrative about the evil idea of Zionism is no longer constrained to Arab and Muslim schools but global academia.
Ivy League schools push the idea to “Decolonize Palestine” and paint Jews as foreign invaders with no history in their homeland. They support a global putsch to take down the Jewish State and professors agreed “to recontextualize the events of October 7, 2023, pointing out that military operations and state violence did not begin that day, but rather it represented a military response by a people who had endured crushing and unrelenting state violence from an occupying power over many years. One could regard the events of October 7th as just one salvo in an ongoing war between an occupying state and the people it occupies, or as an occupied people exercising a right to resist violent and illegal occupation,” even though Israel left Gaza in 2005.
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.
Hamas Charter
What is Zionism that so angers Palestinians and university “scholars”? A simple set of beliefs that millions of Jews and non-Jews believe:
Jews are a people, not simply members of a religion
Jews have history and deep ties to their particular homeland in the land of Israel
Jews have a right to self-determination, manifest in establishing sovereignty with the State of Israel
The State of Israel is a safe haven for Jews around the world, all welcome to return
That Jewish State will fight global antisemitism
Nazi Germany moved from burning Jewish ideas to burning Jews in just a few years. Palestinian Arabs and their supporters have similarly targeted Zionism, Jews and the Jewish State. The question is whether the civilized world will turn back the evil.
There are several matters fomenting antisemitism at universities. One of them surrounds the topic of “decolonialization” and its impact on Jews on campus.
It is a plain fact that many European countries planted colonies in far away lands. The United Kingdom planted flags in the Americas, South Africa, India and Australia. Portugal took over Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Macau and others. Belgium took the Congo. France had controlled Morocco, Algiers, Tunisia, Senegal, Cameroon and Madagascar. Spain took much of Central and South America while Italy took Libya. It seemed that any European country with a fleet sailed the world from the 15th to 19th century and seized lands and goods.
In the aftermath of the Second World War, European countries left their colonies and those emerging countries had varying degrees of success establishing new functioning governments. Universities established departments devoted to this topic, which analyze how the past 75 years shape events today, such as Brown University connecting the 2011 Arab Spring to “Decolonization, Development and State Building in North Africa.”
Many of the departments and conferences consider how post-colonial state-building left countries vulnerable to autocratic regimes. The issues are typically handled by region, such as Columbia University discussing decolonialization in the Americas in the Latin American Studies department and those in Africa in the Middle East Studies departments. Other schools do much the same.
Things devolve when it comes to Israel.
Many professors in Middle East Studies departments are deeply anti-Israel. They consider the Jewish State to be a colony thrust upon the local Arab population by the United Kingdom and other countries after World War I. They ignore the fact that the UK did not send any Jewish citizens to Palestine nor did the British seize local resources for British use.
Most glaringly, the anti-Israel professors ignore the fact that Jews are indigenous to the land of Israel. The history of Jews and the core of Judaism is in the Jewish holy land.
Those basic truths are not only ignored on university campuses, but a counter-narrative is proffered. For example, Columbia University’s Joseph Massad called the Jews in the Bible “Palestine Hebrews,” ignoring the reality that Arabs did not come to the land en masse until the 7th and 8th centuries.
It’s grossly antisemitic, and ignored by the school administration.
Beyond the cultural appropriation and historical theft, the anti-Israel movement manufactured a lie that Zionism isn’t even Jewish. At a BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) vote at the University of Wisconsin in 2017, a student said “Israel in its inception is not a Jewish idea but a European one,” a principle at the heart of the decolonialization project.
That insane idea is gaining backers. The Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism (ICSZ) is hosting conferences to advance this proposition in universities around the country. According to its “Points of Unity” which people must sign-on to, the number one affirmation is “Zionism is a settler colonial racial project. Like the US, Israel is a settler colonial state. The Institute opposes Zionism and colonialism, and abides by the international, Palestinian-led call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions.”
Its webite goes on that it “aims to support the delinking of the study of Zionism from Jewish Studies, and to reclaim academia and public discourse for the study of Zionism as a political, ideological, and racial and gendered knowledge project, intersecting with Palestine and decolonial studies, critical terrorism studies, settler colonial studies, and related scholarship and activism.”
This group is trying to sever Jews from the Jewish State and Zionism, and place Zionism in the camp of “decolonial studies” and “critical terrorism studies.”
Not surprisingly, this group masks its Jew-hatred under the guise of “academia.” It said that Jews had the October 7 savagery coming to them as part of decolonialization, and was outraged at Jews demanding justice. ICSZ wrote an “open letter to universities and other institutions, demanding they retract their statements endorsing Israeli genocide against Palestinians.” By “genocide”, they meant Israel trying to rescue 200 hostages seized by Hamas, pursue maximum justice for the Satans of Gaza who butchered 1,400 Israelis, and try to return the region to coexistence on either side of the border. Equally upsetting to these evil people at ICSZ, they were “horrified by the ubiquity of messaging from our university administrations that has expressed empathy for Israeli life,” because beheading children and raping women doesn’t deserve “empathy” if the “victims” are Jewish “colonizers.”
This is the state of American academia.
Universities are miseducating students that Jews have no history in the land of Israel and that the Jewish State’s founding was a racist European colonial project. They believe that Israel’s continued existence is an “ongoing Nakba” and Israel must be dismantled “by any means necessary,” which includes the October 7 massacre.
When Joseph Massad of Columbia University wrote about the “start of the Palestinian War of Liberation,” he did not see Arab terrorists hacking children to death and killing the elderly; he saw freedom fighters throwing off the yolk of oppression of Jewish invaders as a moment of “jubilation and awe.”
America’s universities are indoctrinating students in the antisemitic screed of the Hamas Charter, retouched with leftist jingoism to support the slaughter of Jews. And they are pushing the movement to go global. Jews on campuses everywhere have every reason to be terrified.
ACTION ITEM
Demand antisemitic professors and clubs like Students for Justice in Palestine be kicked off campus.
A number of high-level individuals have recently taken aim at their alma maters for the toxic environment that exists for Jewish and Zionist students on campus.
They are very late to the party.
Jewish Philanthropists Donating To Humanities
For many years, billionaires like Ron Perelman, Bill Ackman and Marc Rowan donated tens of millions of dollars for health care facilities, art centers, humanities and economic studies at Harvard, University of Pennsylvania, Brown University and others. Yet they seldom put any money into Israel or Jewish Studies programs at these institutions, assuming all was fine and the schools they attended decades earlier remained much the same.
Now, as noxious antisemitism has reached a boiling point as campuses host “Resistance” rallies in support of Palestinians slaughtering Jewish civilians, these philanthropists have suddenly recalled the Jewish and Zionist part of their humanity programs.
Marc Rowan called on alumni to stop donating to the University of Pennsylvania after the school hosted an anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic “literary festival.” He said that the heads of the university should step down for failing to stop the tidal wave of hatred at his beloved school.
These billionaires, who made fortunes in the business world by investing intelligently and properly predicting the future, utterly failed to understand universities today.
Billions from Muslim Countries For Muslim Studies
The Saudi Arabian government, corporations and particular individuals gave $600 million to several universities between 2011 and 2017 according to The Project On Government Oversight. MIT alone took in $78 million. George Washington University, Columbia University, Tufts University, and the University of Southern California each took $1 million or more.
According to POGO, “the largest foreign funder by far is Qatar, the only country to give over $1 billion in the seven years covered by the Higher Education Act data.” Qatar is a principal funder of the political-terrorist group Hamas which committed the heinous massacre of over 1,000 people in Israel this week, which finally made the Jewish billionaires pay attention to the campus problem.
POGO added that “Harvard University received by far the most foreign money in the period, reporting just over $1 billion from over 60 countries. In addition to Harvard, MIT, Johns Hopkins University, Georgetown University, and Northwestern University are among the schools that reported receiving the most foreign gifts, each totaling over $300 million.”
Harvard students after Hamas’s jihadi massacreHarvard editorial of 2022 supporting boycott of Israel
The foreign donations take several forms, each of which embeds foreign culture into the universities’ campuses, and ultimately into the country.
Some international money was used to establish university branches in foreign countries. These centers enable U.S. students to study abroad and become more familiar with autocratic regimes in a friendly college environment.
Arab states funded Islamic Studies and Middle Eastern studies departments on U.S. campuses like the president of the United Arab Emirates, Sheik Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, who donated $2.5 million to the Harvard Divinity School to endow the Sheik Zayed Al Nahyan Professorship in Islamic Religious Studies. Within a short period of time, the Zayed Center became a noxious fountain of anti-Semitic screed complete with Holocaust denials and blood libels.
Significantly, millions of dollars from Arab countries have funded student scholarships for thousands of Muslim students to come to the U.S. to study. During the Obama Administration, tens of thousands of students from Arab countries were present at universities, a number which began to decline significantly under the Trump Administration.
The presence of thousands of foreign students and Muslim teachers taking over Middle Eastern Studies Departments created a toxic brew. Students were able to petition universities to open chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) with a faculty adviser, which were conveniently now present and paid for. The AMCHA Initiative showed that schools with five or more academic advisers favoring boycotting Israel “were 7.24 times more likely” to issue anti-Israel statements than schools with fewer than five advisors. Further, AMCHA Reports “analyzing antisemitic incidents in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 indicate a significant increase in actions which directly harm or threaten Jewish students, including physical and verbal assaults, destruction of property, harassment discrimination and suppression of speech, at schools with an SJP or similar anti-Zionist chapter.”
In short, Gulf states spent billions of dollars over decades at American universities building an anti-Zionist and antisemitic infrastructure, while Jewish philanthropists had ribbon cutting ceremonies on general intellectual matters. The Jewish billionaires are waking up too late to their poor investments, when the anti-Zionist and antisemitic culture on campuses is deeply ingrained and universities are highly addicted to the stable flow of Islamic money.
While Rowan and Ackman may make a lot of noise about getting alumni to stop donating to these schools, they should put at least as much effort to get universities to stop taking money from autocratic, anti-democratic regimes which are poisoning the minds of America’s future and making schools inhospitable for Jews.
Very few countries in the world have a position in the government for descendants of the country’s original inhabitants who live abroad. Only one also has non-governmental organizations to combat the hatred of those persecuted members in the diaspora.
Israel.
The Jewish State of Israel was founded on three central beliefs of Modern Zionism: that Jews are a people who originate in the land of Israel; they have a right to self-determination and sovereignty in their homeland; and that their country will not only be a safe haven against Jew-hatred, but will combat noxious anti-Semitism around the world.
Today, Israel’s Minister of Diaspora Affairs is Amichai Chikli. Born in Jerusalem, he is the son of a Tunisian Conservative rabbi. His governmental position is to strengthen the bonds between Israel and Jews of the diaspora.
Israeli MK Amichai Chikli (Photo by Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Outside of the government, the World Zionist Organization promotes Zionism, and is a vehicle for world Jewry to interface with Israel. Nerya Meir assumed the head of the Diaspora Department and Raheli Baratz-Rix heads the WZO’s Department for Combatting Antisemitism. Last year, Prime Minister Yair Lapid appointed the actress Noa Tishby to a new position of Special Envoy for Combating Antisemitism and Delegitimization.
This letter is for each of them.
To Israel’s leaders to Diaspora Jewry,
We know that Israel is very busy with countless issues, and the roles each of you play to ensure a strong bond between the Jewish State and Diaspora Jewry is always appreciated.
We are keenly aware of how the nature of our relationship has changed since the re-establishment of the Jewish State in 1948: from a nascent struggling country fighting for survival seeking bodies and funds from diaspora, to a thriving democracy in the heart of an illiberal Middle East with the greatest concentration of Jews anywhere for the first time in almost two thousand years. The modern state welcomes Jewish immigrants, visitors and investment, while it no longer feels they are critical to its survival.
There are a few things to keep in mind as we enter this stage of our relationship.
The United States
Since 1948, the Diaspora has changed remarkably. In 1948, at the country’s founding, there were 34 countries with over 25,000 Jews. Today there are only 17, half that number. To put that in context, the 15 non-U.S. diaspora countries with over 25,000 Jews stands in contrast to 27 U.S. cities with more than 25,000 Jews.
Two countries – Israel and the United States – account for roughly 85% of world Jewry, with the U.S. accounting for 73% of the Jewish diaspora. While the U.S. does not define the diaspora, it is the most significant country by a very wide margin.
There are eight other diaspora countries which have over one percent of diaspora Jews living there, but only two of them – France and the United Kingdom – are also significant trading partners with Israel and members of the United Nations Security Council. Some of the other countries – like Argentina and Russia – have declining Jewish populations and should be viewed as countries for Israel to target for aliyah, rather than as significant long-term outposts of global Jewry.
Diaspora Anti-Semitism and Terrorism
Historically (the 1970s through 2010s), anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist attacks occurred in world capitals such as Athens, Rome, Istanbul, Paris, Brussels, Buenos Aires, Mumbai and London. Fanatics burst into synagogues, Jewish community centers and kosher restaurants and killed as many people as possible.
While the scourge has not left major international cities, the current trend in violence is more prevalent in American cities such as Pittsburgh, PA, Colleyville, TX, Jersey City, NJ and Poway, CA. It shouldn’t be a surprise: there are three times as many Jews in Pittsburgh (42,000) than in all of Turkey (14,300).
The same is true for Jews living in the Israeli territories east of the 1949 Armistice Lines (E49AL). While there are 25 countries in the world with over 10,000 Jews (including the U.S. and Israel), there are nine cities (and growing) in E49AL with such totals. Almost all have experienced attacks.
The facts above have been true for many years but have not penetrated the minds of most people. Part of the reason is attacks on Jews in European cities and E49AL is almost always tied to anti-Zionism, easily triggered in societies with centuries of ingrained anti-Semitism. This is in contrast to attacks in the United States which arise from anti-Semitism in a country established on the basis of religious freedom.
This is changing.
While the Israel-Gaza war in 2014 saw a sharp rise in anti-Semitic attacks in Europe, there were virtually none in the United States. Not so for the eleven day skirmish in May 2021, when gangs assaulted Jews all over the country. Jonathan Greenblatt of the ADL said during that time that “the brazenness, the audacity of these assaults in broad daylight. We have seen people basically say, if you are wearing a Jewish star, you must be a Zionist and you should be killed…. we have unhinged, fictionalized conspiracies about Israel, that somehow the Jewish State is systematically slaughtering children or committing genocide. And then that leads to real-world attacks on Jewish people in the streets of America, on our campuses, in our communities.”
It is in the streets of dozens of American cities that the danger of anti-Semitism is now the most pressing, and the scourge is increasingly tied to anti-Zionism.
America’s Jewish Cities and Universities
The 27 cities in the United States with over 25,000 Jews are not only in the biggest states which are solidly Democratic as popularly believed. While many are found in New York, New Jersey, California, Massachusetts and Illinois, a growing number are in Florida, Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
As shown in the table above, fifteen of the top 27 U.S. cities are located in solidly Democratic states per the 2020 presidential election. Seven cities were found in Republican states and five were in swing states.
Beyond these major Jewish population centers, are cities with universities with significant Jewish populations, many of which are suffering from anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist violence and rhetoric.
Anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism have also spread to universities with significant Jewish populations in cities with relatively few Jews. Those include Brown University in Providence, RI (14,200 Jews) and Duke University in Durham, NC (12,000).
As an example, in February 2022, Duke passed a resolution which condemned anti-Semitism which included using the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism which covered anti-Zionism. This was likely in response to vile anti-Semitic and anti-Israel speakers at the campus in 2019 as covered by a Ami Horowitz video. However, by March 2022, the Duke Student Government was sponsoring Student for Justice in Palestine events featuring noted anti-Zionist and anti-Semite Mohammed El-Kurd. The AMCHA Initiative has long tracked how universities with an SJP chapter are much more likely to have anti-Semitic incidents on campus.
College campuses have become fertile ground for extreme fundamentalist governments including Qatar and Saudi Arabia to pour over $1 billion to influence the next generation of students. Leading schools which have taken their money include Columbia University, Tufts University, the University of Southern California, George Washington University, NYU, MIT, Harvard, Georgetown and Carnegie Mellon. The Arab states have used their oil wealth to export the demonization of the Jewish State and Jews around the world.
And the impetus for exporting their hatred onto American shores is their hatred for Israel. Killing the Jewish State’s strongest supporter is a key aim of anti-Zionists.
Israel’s Fight Against Anti-Semitism in America
It is noble and appreciated that Israel is taking up the fight against global anti-Semitism.
Minister Chikli, you talked about the diaspora community and suggested that small communities might be best served by making aliyah to Israel, and plan on investing a good portion of your 500 million NIS budget in the education of the larger communities. This is wise. While it will be difficult for Israel to match the dollars of the Muslim Gulf states going into America’s leading universities, it can invest in the middle and high schools of the United States’ largest Jewish cities.
America’s Jews and communities are mostly well-off and well-organized. We have numerous Jewish schools, synagogues, community centers and Israel advocacy groups, especially compared to the other countries in the diaspora. But there are things that must come from Israel to the various cities listed above to help fight the rising anti-Semitism. Here is the start of a list:
Israelis and Israeli products in the schools and markets
Collaboration between American universities and companies and those in Israel
Eloquent and well versed Israelis on news channels
Establish pro-Jewish narratives
Bi-partisanship, connecting with all streams of Judaism
Open and clear communication between Israel and U.S. Jewish leaders
Israelis and Israeli products in the schools and markets
Getting young Israelis into cities across the United States with programs like shinshinim should be expanded. The Israelis get a better appreciation for America, and Americans get a first-hand account of what is happening in Israel, not from the news or textbooks, but from young Israelis living in the Jewish State.
The BDS (boycott, divest and sanction) movement against Israel should not only be fought legally but on the ground. Getting lots of Israeli products and brands into stores should be a priority of the Israeli government, not just the Israeli companies.
Collaboration between American universities and companies and those in Israel
Israeli universities and companies are in a good position to continue to leverage their leading research and technological prowess to collaborate with American institutions. An active bi-lateral flow of human and financial capital can cement positive long-term relationships.
Eloquent and well versed Israelis on American media
Israel must develop a comprehensive team of fluent English speakers who are adept at public relations on a range of topics. The most glaring problems are when Israeli spokespersons cannot handle basic questions on television when Israel is in a conflict. The government must have a team of people in constant dialogue with the full range of American media on political, economic, cultural, religious, historical and scientific matters.
Establish pro-Jewish narratives
It is very important to establish and correct information that is being propagated in the media and on campuses, but the Israeli government must do more to craft the narratives. For example, not only should the statistics about the Arab population in Jerusalem and Israel be laid out to dismiss the ridiculous charges of genocide and ethnic cleansing, but stories of real people should be featured. The world loves a good story, and Israel is more than capable of humanizing the liberal country it has built in the heart of the illiberal Middle East.
Bi-partisanship, connecting with all streams of Judaism
As described above, there are Democratic and Republican Jews and they live in a range of cities. It is imperative for Israel to maintain good relations with both parties, ESPECIALLY as the divide in the country grows.
Similarly, it is important for Israel to connect with all the streams of Judaism which are much more common in the United States than in Israel and the rest of the diaspora. The Reform, Reconstructionist and Conservative branches of Judaism are much larger than the Modern and Ultra Orthodox streams. Those liberals tend to be much more critical of religious and nationalistic actions by Israel, while the more Orthodox tend to be more likely to make aliyah. Israel needs to keep a good relationship with each community.
Open and clear communication between Israel and U.S. Jewish leaders
The last item on this short list is for good lines of direct communication. If the government of Israel is directly communicating with American Jewish leaders, hopefully it will prevent Jewish leaders from lobbying the U.S. government to take actions against Israel, as J Street did aggressively, in pushing the Obama Administration to allow UN Security Council Resolution 2334 to pass.
Israel is at a very sensitive moment in history with Iran on the verge of obtaining nuclear weapons capability, and the largest percentage of West Bank Arabs itching for violence against Jewish civilians in twenty years. At the same time, American Jewry is more divided as it faces growing anti-Semitism, a break from historic norms when Jews normally come together when faced with Jew hatred.
The global fight against anti-Semitism can be won with Israeli and American forces acting together with common purpose. We look forward to working together with you at this important time in history.
On March 15, 2022, Rabbi Dr. Ari Berman, the President of Yeshiva University, sent a letter to the university’s community called “Let’s Build a Better World Together.” In the email, he wrote about the “decision to cancel a student-scheduled guest speaker at Cardozo Law School, Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi. Dr. Abdulhadi is a professor who has supported violence by inviting students to meet with terrorists and even praised those who hijacked planes and held innocent civilians as hostages.“
Letter from Rabbi Dr. Ari Berman, President of Yeshiva University on blocking a terrorist supporter from speaking on campus, March 15, 2022.
The decision to bar a promoter of violence should be both easy and popular. Unfortunately, that is not the case.
Abdulhadi is a professor of Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diaspora Studies at San Francisco State University. In that role, she invited a member of a terrorist group to speak to her class and reportedly spoke in favor of the violent actions the speaker advocates.
That guest speaker was Leila Khaled, a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a US State Department designated foreign terrorist organization (FTO). Khaled was the first female hijacker of a plane in 1969, and then again in 1970. She continues to argue for violence not only against Israel, but “Americans, and in general, the West, which supports Israel.”
Abdulhadi is not alone. Universities around the United States are happy to have terrorists and their supporters inculcate young minds, at least when it comes to attacking Zionists.
Promoting violence is never protected by free speech, no matter what The New York Times informs its readership. It is a sad state of affairs, that one has to admire and congratulate Yeshiva University’s stand against the advocates for terrorism, in a world unmoored from basic principles of civil society.
College campuses have become extremely hostile places for Jews. The spike in anti-Semitic actions and anti-Israel vitriol spewed by both teachers and students are forcing many Jewish students and their parents to seek a course that is both safe and rewarding.
Those concerns and desire to find a blueprint forward brought fifty people to a Westchester synagogue to hear from two notable speakers.
On December 13, 2021, Tikvah’s Jewish Parents Forum presented a panel on “Raising Courageous Jews: A Guide Through the Cultural Minefield” at the Young Israel of Scarsdale. The group dedicated to “Preserving Jewish, Zionist, and American Values for the Rising Generation,” featured Jonathan Silver, Editor of Mosaic, and Liel Leibovitz, a Senior Writer for Tablet.
After Silver’s opening remarks, Leibovitz took the podium and essentially offered the audience his “Get Out” advice which he summarized in four points:
Jewish institutions won’t save you; the forces of culture are too great
Know who your friends are; it is now the moment to choose sides
‘Do’ Jewish. Membership cards are meaningless; one needs deep engagement in Jewish life
Stop going to the expensive universities which despise your values
The approach made many in the audience uneasy. Several were the products of Columbia University (like Leibovitz) and other well-regarded institutions and hoped that they would hear methods for giving their children courage to stand for their Jewish values and the Jewish State. Instead, Leibovitz asked for the parents to have the courage to buck their instincts and send their kids elsewhere – or nowhere.
Silver seemed a bit uncomfortable with the suggestion as well, but for a different reason. Tikvah is dedicated to “bringing Jewish thinking and leaders into conversation with Western political, moral, and economic thought,” not to flee from the conversation.
So let me offer some of my own thoughts here which will be expounded upon in future articles in the FirstOneThrough blog and elsewhere where the articles are openly shared.
I start with a quote from a hero of Roger Hertog, the president of Tikvah, Winston Churchill:
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
Success and failure come-and-go, rise-and-fall like a spinning wheel, but courage is the engine that keeps propelling people forward through the various ups-and-downs. If we want to raise courageous Jews who will not break with Jewish values and the Jewish State, we need to give them life skills that will allow them to flourish in the good times, sustain them in the difficult times and a desire to stay on the path.
Parental Modeling
Asking a child to be a proud Jew and supportive of the Jewish State begins with instilling those values from a young age. Starting the conversation in the senior year of high school or once they’ve entered university is oftentimes too late.
Children are sponges and learn behavior from watching. When they are brought up appreciating Israel and Judaism and see that their family actively engages in the great aspects of the religion and peoplehood and stands up to fight and defend Jews, Judaism and Israel, their instincts are already trained.
Belong to a synagogue and attend classes
Donate to Jewish causes
Write to government officials and the media when anti-Semitic and anti-Israel articles are posted
Talk about Israel and Judaism at the dinner table
Attend seminars both on education and political matters
Vote in elections
Visit Israel
Bring your children to protests
Be involved in Jewish activities at your children’s school
Education and Conviction
It is much easier to have courage when one has conviction about the cause.
Sending children to Jewish schools and camps is a critical way to make them appreciate their history, culture, religion and the remarkable nature of the Jewish State. Being in Israel with peers is a wonderful way to connect with Jewish history, such as made available from Birthright Israel.
Young adults on a Birthright trip to Israel
College campuses tend to be much more liberal than society at large. Liberals’ focus on empathy drives them to support those perceived as weaker and more vulnerable. Pro-Palestinian supporters have leaned into this theme to draw progressives to their cause. Young adults need to understand that Israel is the most liberal country for over 1,000 miles in any direction, as it lays the foundation for deeper engagement.
Our educational system needs a different approach for discussing Zionism, doing so via teaching critical thinking, critical listening and engaging narratives. That is a longer discussion for another article.
Recognize Audience / Be a Critical Listener
Today’s mainstream media is growing ever more hostile about Israel. The media has normalized an anti-Zionist lexicon that is also increasingly anti-Jewish. Understanding language and the forum is critical for knowing how and when to show courage.
There was a time when society at large resembled a bell curve. Most people sat in the middle on particular issues and there were fewer people on the extremes of right and left. Social media and the death of news in favor of editorials have now magnified those margins. In the beginning, it just appeared that the fringe was large as they were loud. Unfortunately, society continues to move towards a barbell shape with people and politicians in the middle lurching to more openly radical positions.
On campuses in particular, students are being asked to take sides on issues which they may or may not have any vested interest or real concern. Leaders, followers and participants now show up at rallies in calls for “allyship,” the comfort of belonging, or simply classic peer pressure. While they may look like a menacing horde, they are still individuals.
Courage requires intelligence. It does not mean taking on every situation in the same way, responding to every action or to every person in the same manner. It is important to help our young adults listen critically to their classmates and distinguish between those groups and individuals that should be engaged in conversation and those that should be confronted aggressively, both directly and indirectly.
Tacticsand Support
The anti-Semites and anti-Zionists have playbooks which are being shared in universities around the world. They include: “die-ins” and “apartheid weeks”; boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) resolutions; keeping Jews and Jewish organizations out of school clubs and student government; taking over Middle East Studies departments with anti-Zionist lecturers; anti-Israel and anti-Semitic speakers on campus; etc. These are the manifestations that make campuses feel unwelcoming to Jews which showcase the animus towards the “Chosen People” and God’s “Promised Land.”
It can be very overwhelming to young adults who are simply looking for a quality education and a nice time on campus to deal with such organized hate. Fortunately, there are groups who can help students understand that they are not alone in confronting the mob. It is easier to be courageous with company.
College groups like Students Supporting Israel are springing up on various campuses. StandWithUs gives students materials and information to stand up to misinformation and malicious activities. Fuel for Truth focuses on pro-Israel education for young adults. Club Z is helping train teens to be articulate proactive Zionist leaders. Hillel provides students a Jewish experience on campus. The Louis Brandies Center helps students understand their legal rights when confronting abuse. Students should visit these institutions on a regular basis and not be reactive to negative events on campus.
Each organization uses a variety of approaches in combatting the anti-Jewish and anti-Israel venom. An example may be handing out notices in front of the “apartheid wall” exhibit, about Neta Sorek, an Israeli teacher and feminist who was a strong supporter of making peace with Palestinian Arabs. She was slaughtered while walking in a monastery garden by two Palestinian men who slipped through that “apartheid wall.”
Of course, there’s always the excellent choice of attending Yeshiva University, a proudly Jewish and Zionist university, among the top ranked universities, where the demand to be courageous for Jewish values and the Jewish State is commonplace.
It is a sad state of affairs that one has to talk about the courage required to be Jewish and a proud Zionist on college campuses today. We must prepare our children appropriately, and support those organizations which stand with them in these critical and volatile years.
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