The 500 Jews at Columbia University – Tablet Magazine
Posted By admin on May 30, 2024
In the furor over Americas campuses, it was easy to miss the letter that 500 of Columbia Universitys Jews penned and signed to present their position in their own voice. Yet it was this letter, quietly distributed and far less aggressive than some of the other events that overshadowed it, that may prove to be the turning point in the struggle for American Jewrys future. This is why.
Twenty years ago, just after the second intifada, I went on a tour of American and Canadian campuses. Shaken by what I saw and heard, I told (then) Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that the major battle for the future of American Jewry will be fought on campuses. So disturbed was I by this visit, that I titled the article I wrote about it in the Hebrew press a journey into occupied territory.
The occupiers in my metaphor were the centers for Middle East studies that had sprouted like mushrooms in American universities to spread anti-Zionist propaganda. Their influence was palpable, not only in events they organized, but also in their effect on the Jewish students I met. While many expressed deep solidarity with Israel and support for its struggle against terror, a few young men and women told me that for them, as liberal Jews, it would be better if Israel didnt exist. Then, they told me, I wont be perceived as responsible for such awful crimes.
Such statements, which foreshadowed attempts by groups like Jewish Voice for Peace to dissociate themselves from Israel, didnt concern me as much as yet another, and far more alarming, set of statements. People who wish to fully sever their association with Israel neither reflect nor sway the sentiments and opinions of the overwhelming majority of American Jews. No, the statements that concerned me and led me to speak of occupation and battlefields were the many variations I heard on one young womans quietly spoken and regretful admission that she would very much like to speak against divestment and other anti-Israel measures, but she couldnt. Her professors wont like it, she told me. It would harm her future career.
The ideological regime of antisemitism that has entrenched itself in Americas universities will only collapse when enough Jews stop being afraid and stop unwillingly aiding it by hiding and self-censoring.
Dear Lord, I thought, when I first heard these words. We are not in the Moscow of my youth, where ones career depended on pretending to buy the Soviet credo hook, line and sinker! Yet the more students I met, the more I heard of similar, stifling concerns. Having grown up in the Soviet Union, I knew very well how catching and pervasive self-censorship can become. No one will need to occupy the campuses physically if the Jewish students will carry out their own occupation themselves by growing too afraid to speak their own truths.
Totalitarian societies survive by relying on a core of true believers to frighten even those who dont buy the ideological party line into becoming doublethinkerspeople who adhere to the party line in public regardless of their private thoughtsrather than outright dissidents. In the normal course of events, the percentage of doublethinkers is always on the rise, as more and more people grow disillusioned with the false promises of the regime yet continue to pledge allegiance to it out of fear instead of faith. The regime controls them not through their own convictions but through the power its institutions hold over their lives, livelihoods, and safety. In other words, it controls them by frightening them into censoring themselves on the regimes behalf.
Of course America is a free country and not a totalitarian regime. However, it was impossible to miss the resemblance between the culture I encountered in the American academy 20 years ago and the Soviet worldview of my youth. Like the Communist party (following Marx), more and more people started dividing the world into oppressors (read: always bad, always in the wrong) and oppressed (read: always in the right), and claiming that whoever belonged to the first camp wasnt worthy of the same rights, freedoms, and protections as the latter. Since Israel and successful white Jews elsewhere were a priori classified as oppressors, hating and indeed abusing them became less and less taboo.
In the past 20 years, the ideologues of this new antisemitism continued to pour their fervor into demonizing Israel, and to use every tool at their disposal to press the majority of American Jews who dont believe their lies into becoming doublethinkers. They made it more and more difficult to get a public position in a student body for students who supported Israel or even visited it on a Birthright trip. They gaslighted Jewish students who spoke about their personal experiences of antisemitism by telling them that what they experienced was really only and legitimate anti-Zionism, putting them on the defensive for their so called alarmism and rejection of legitimate criticism. More and more Jewish students found that standing up for their beliefs marked them for discrimination and harassment. Jewish students found themselves unwilling doublethinkers in the very places that are supposed to be the bedrock and bastion of free society.
After Oct. 7, the campaign to vilify Israel and scare its potential supporters on campuses has exploded into the open. Explicit antisemitism became legitimate and accepted on many American campuses, as so-called anti-Zionism revealed itself to be a flimsy cover for unadorned antisemitism. At Drexel University, anti-Zionist protesters demanded that the university sever its association with Hillel and Chabad, eliminating Jewish life on campus. At the University of Toronto and other campuses, protesters proudly recite classic antisemitic canards about Jewish control of the banks and the press while calling for genocide and praising Hitler. At UCLA, the university administration reached an agreement with protesters allowing them to bar students with the wrong opinionsi.e., Jewsfrom campus. At Columbia, a leader of the student protests expressed his personal desire to kill Jews.
None of these are isolated incidents; they are in fact true expressions of what anti-Zionism means to its proponents, namely, to drive Jewish students and professors off campus or at the very least to force them to live in disguise. Jews are now routinely warned not to speak Hebrew or wear a kippa on campuses for their own protection, while their would-be harassers are lauded as heroes and are at best given slaps on the wrist which are revoked weeks or days later, when presumably fewer people are watching (imagine the outrage if female students were warned not to dress immodestly on campus for their own protection, while their would-be harassers were lauded as heroes!). A flat denial of Israels right to exist became an axiom that goes without saying. Surrounded by classmates and professors who celebrate the worst violations of human rights in recent historyHamas horrific massacre on Oct. 7as a legitimate step toward liberation, the Jewish students are left to fend for themselves, abandoned by the progressive allies that Jewish institutions and individuals supported unquestioningly in their own hours of need.
The occupation of the campuses, which 20 years ago was but a metaphor, has become a real movement with funding, leadership, and physical presence. Young Jews no longer face ostensible threats against their professional futures; they face daily threats against their physical safety and the core of their identities as Jews and as human beings.
It was into this foul atmosphere that Columbias Jewish students wrote their letter. Five hundred of Columbias Jewish students declared that they wont be cowed by the haters, that they reject the attacks against their Jewish identity, and that Zionism is a part of Jewish identity. They called out their haters for the antisemites they are, and the administration of the university for downplaying and mishandling the attacks that target Jews. They flatly rejected attempts to victim-blame the Jews for the hatred that targets them. Most remarkably, they all signed the letter with their full names, proudly and openly, shedding the self-censorship and silence of the doublethinker for the proud stance of the dissident. In the days since then, more and more Jews added their names to this list.
When I was a dissident in the USSR, my friends and I knew well that a revolution can only start when a critical mass of doublethinkers stops being afraid and crosses the line into open dissent. Only when the masses lose their fear and drop the mask of pretense, can they lead their society into a different future. It was true in the USSR, and it is true today: The ideological regime of antisemitism that has entrenched itself in Americas universities for decades will only collapse when enough Jews stop being afraid. It will only collapse if they stop unwillingly aiding it by hiding and self-censoring, and instead speak their truths openly and loudly.
When we were fighting the USSR from within, we estimated that once approximately a fifth of the population will transform from doublethinkers into dissidents, the authorities will no longer be able to contain the spread of free thought. Heartwarmingly, more than a fifth of the Jews of Columbia University have already signed the letter that marks them as dissidents to the reigning ideological regime. I hope that our estimations decades ago about the tipping point from oppression to revolution will prove right in the case of this revolution as well.
The next year will likely be as tough for Jews on campus as this one. Of course, in democratic America there are many tools that can be used to fight antisemitism: going to court, encouraging hearings in Congress, using the press to unmask the dangerous actors who finance the new antisemitic waves, and so forth. But in order to defend your rights, you have to first define and claim them. Until Americas Jewish students publicly claim their right to their Jewish and Zionist identity, they will continue to fight at a disadvantage.
However, if the Jewish students of Cornell, Stanford, Harvard, and the other campuses will join Columbias Jews in their public statement, they stand a chance to do more than stand up for their own truthsthey stand a real chance to revolutionize the campuses, defeat the antisemitic forces that have occupied them, and win the battle for American Jewrys future.
Dear Jewish students of America, today, you are on the front line. The future of American Jewry, and maybe even America itself, is in your hands. Be brave.
Follow this link:
The 500 Jews at Columbia University - Tablet Magazine
- Jews assaulted during a pro-Israel protest in Toronto - The Jerusalem Post [Last Updated On: May 20th, 2021] [Originally Added On: May 20th, 2021]
- 'A very different tone this time': Canadian Jewish leaders warn of spike in anti-Semitic violence - National Post [Last Updated On: May 20th, 2021] [Originally Added On: May 20th, 2021]
- Ohio supporter of ISIS pleads guilty in attempted attack on Jewish synagogue - cleveland.com [Last Updated On: May 20th, 2021] [Originally Added On: May 20th, 2021]
- Operation Solomon: Thirty years since the rescue of the Jews of Ethiopia - The Jerusalem Post [Last Updated On: May 20th, 2021] [Originally Added On: May 20th, 2021]
- Can Arab-Jewish peace survive the ongoing violence in Israel? - The Jerusalem Post [Last Updated On: May 20th, 2021] [Originally Added On: May 20th, 2021]
- Ultra-Orthodox Jewish women are bucking the patriarchal, authoritarian stereotype of their community - The Conversation US [Last Updated On: May 20th, 2021] [Originally Added On: May 20th, 2021]
- The making of the Jewish extremist Meir Kahane - TRT World [Last Updated On: May 20th, 2021] [Originally Added On: May 20th, 2021]
- The total collapse of Jewish and Israeli PR - opinion - The Jerusalem Post [Last Updated On: May 20th, 2021] [Originally Added On: May 20th, 2021]
- Most US kids of intermarriage raised Jewish; parents want institutions to notice - The Times of Israel [Last Updated On: May 20th, 2021] [Originally Added On: May 20th, 2021]
- Are the Jews being attacked in Israels mixed cities victims of pogroms - The Jerusalem Post [Last Updated On: May 20th, 2021] [Originally Added On: May 20th, 2021]
- Rise in antisemitic incidents in Florida prompts Jewish groups to spend thousands on security - WTXL ABC 27 [Last Updated On: May 20th, 2021] [Originally Added On: May 20th, 2021]
- There are more American Jews and they're staying Jewish - thejewishchronicle.net [Last Updated On: May 20th, 2021] [Originally Added On: May 20th, 2021]
- Members of Jewish synagogue come together after act of vandalism - KVOA Tucson News [Last Updated On: May 20th, 2021] [Originally Added On: May 20th, 2021]
- Fact Check-Video of people tearing clothes in Jerusalem shows a Jewish custom and is not linked to the 2021 Hamas-Israel conflict - Reuters [Last Updated On: May 20th, 2021] [Originally Added On: May 20th, 2021]
- Charles Grodin and the Jewish question - Religion News Service [Last Updated On: May 20th, 2021] [Originally Added On: May 20th, 2021]
- Rise in antisemitic incidents in South Florida prompts Jewish groups to spend thousands on security - WPTV.com [Last Updated On: May 20th, 2021] [Originally Added On: May 20th, 2021]
- No, 'Minions' weren't inspired by Jewish children who endured the Holocaust - PolitiFact [Last Updated On: May 20th, 2021] [Originally Added On: May 20th, 2021]
- Lod counts its losses: Torched synagogues and coexistence in this Jewish-Arab city - Haaretz [Last Updated On: May 20th, 2021] [Originally Added On: May 20th, 2021]
- The Wawa Foundation Selects Jewish Family Service to Receive $15000 Grant - InsiderNJ [Last Updated On: May 20th, 2021] [Originally Added On: May 20th, 2021]
- Non-Jewish man assaulted in Munich and called a 'Jewish pig' - Cleveland Jewish News [Last Updated On: May 20th, 2021] [Originally Added On: May 20th, 2021]
- The moral imperative behind the Big Bold Jewish Climate Fest - Yale Climate Connections [Last Updated On: May 20th, 2021] [Originally Added On: May 20th, 2021]
- Can America Be America When Jews Are Beaten in the Streets? - The Dispatch [Last Updated On: May 25th, 2021] [Originally Added On: May 25th, 2021]
- Essay: The Four Absurd Criticisms of Israel's War Conduct Detroit Jewish News - The Jewish News [Last Updated On: May 25th, 2021] [Originally Added On: May 25th, 2021]
- Joseph Borgen, Brutally Beaten By Group Of Suspects In Manhattans Diamond District, Speaks Out: My Whole Face Felt Like It Was On Fire For Hours - CBS... [Last Updated On: May 25th, 2021] [Originally Added On: May 25th, 2021]
- The American Jewry demographic is only growing and becoming more diverse - The Jerusalem Post [Last Updated On: May 25th, 2021] [Originally Added On: May 25th, 2021]
- As trust between Israeli Jews and Arabs reaches new lows, Netanyahu rises again - The Conversation US [Last Updated On: May 25th, 2021] [Originally Added On: May 25th, 2021]
- The Tensions Inside a Mixed Jewish-Arab City in Israel - The New Yorker [Last Updated On: May 25th, 2021] [Originally Added On: May 25th, 2021]
- Organs of Arab teen allegedly shot by police save Arab and Jewish lives - The Times of Israel [Last Updated On: May 25th, 2021] [Originally Added On: May 25th, 2021]
- Heartwarming WWII Film 'Shepherd: The Story of a Jewish Dog' Screens at the Virtual KCET Cinema Series on May 26th - KCET [Last Updated On: May 25th, 2021] [Originally Added On: May 25th, 2021]
- Young American Jews Have Reached a Tipping Point With Israel - Rolling Stone [Last Updated On: May 25th, 2021] [Originally Added On: May 25th, 2021]
- Jews and Muslims find common ground in German city - DW (English) [Last Updated On: May 25th, 2021] [Originally Added On: May 25th, 2021]
- Jews Who Leave the Faith Are Still Treated as Jewish - The Wall Street Journal [Last Updated On: May 25th, 2021] [Originally Added On: May 25th, 2021]
- Police investigating attacks on Jewish business, synagogue in N. Ireland - The Jerusalem Post [Last Updated On: May 25th, 2021] [Originally Added On: May 25th, 2021]
- Marjorie Taylor Greene Insists Any Rational Jewish Person Thinks Mask Mandates Are as Bad as the Holocaust - Vanity Fair [Last Updated On: May 25th, 2021] [Originally Added On: May 25th, 2021]
- A second person was arrested in the gang assault of a Jewish man in New York during protests - CNN [Last Updated On: May 25th, 2021] [Originally Added On: May 25th, 2021]
- Officials Say Hate Crimes Against Jews Are Growing In The Aftermath Of Gaza Violence - NPR [Last Updated On: May 25th, 2021] [Originally Added On: May 25th, 2021]
- Police Investigate Possible Jewish Hate Crime Attack At Beverly Grove Restaurant - CBS Los Angeles [Last Updated On: May 25th, 2021] [Originally Added On: May 25th, 2021]
- Jew | History, Beliefs, & Facts | Britannica [Last Updated On: May 25th, 2021] [Originally Added On: May 25th, 2021]
- Judaism: Founder, Beliefs & Facts - HISTORY [Last Updated On: May 25th, 2021] [Originally Added On: May 25th, 2021]
- Bubbys Jewish Soul Food will bring traditional family recipes to North Central San Antonio this fall - San Antonio Current [Last Updated On: June 3rd, 2021] [Originally Added On: June 3rd, 2021]
- Elazar Stern is the most likely Herzog successor at the Jewish Agency - The Jerusalem Post [Last Updated On: June 3rd, 2021] [Originally Added On: June 3rd, 2021]
- Opinion | The Jewish History of Israel Is Over 3,000 Years Old. Thats Why Its Complicated. - The New York Times [Last Updated On: June 3rd, 2021] [Originally Added On: June 3rd, 2021]
- When the Mob Came for the Jews of Baghdad - The Wall Street Journal [Last Updated On: June 3rd, 2021] [Originally Added On: June 3rd, 2021]
- Jewish, Arab actors work together to rebuild theatre burnt in Acre riots - The Jerusalem Post [Last Updated On: June 3rd, 2021] [Originally Added On: June 3rd, 2021]
- Portland Bagel Shop and Jewish Deli Coming to the College Area - Eater San Diego [Last Updated On: June 3rd, 2021] [Originally Added On: June 3rd, 2021]
- Jewish-Asian college student grieves lost senior year, and so much more J. - The Jewish News of Northern California [Last Updated On: June 3rd, 2021] [Originally Added On: June 3rd, 2021]
- Belgium to return Nazi-looted painting to German Jewish family - The Times of Israel [Last Updated On: June 3rd, 2021] [Originally Added On: June 3rd, 2021]
- The Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh holds rally to bring awareness to increase in 'antisemitic attacks' - WPXI Pittsburgh [Last Updated On: June 3rd, 2021] [Originally Added On: June 3rd, 2021]
- These Nice Jewish Boys answered John Oliver. YouTube called it hate speech - Haaretz [Last Updated On: June 3rd, 2021] [Originally Added On: June 3rd, 2021]
- Cops release new images of men sought in alleged attack on Jewish man; Islander previously arrested - SILive.com [Last Updated On: June 3rd, 2021] [Originally Added On: June 3rd, 2021]
- Jewish heiress abandons claims over priceless painting stolen by Nazis - The Jerusalem Post [Last Updated On: June 3rd, 2021] [Originally Added On: June 3rd, 2021]
- Biden science adviser takes oath on 500-year-old Jewish text - The Times of Israel [Last Updated On: June 3rd, 2021] [Originally Added On: June 3rd, 2021]
- Is it safe to become Jewish? What I tell conversion students - opinion - The Jerusalem Post [Last Updated On: June 3rd, 2021] [Originally Added On: June 3rd, 2021]
- For Jewish immigrants, Boyle Heights was a place for community building and a slice of the American dream - KCRW [Last Updated On: June 3rd, 2021] [Originally Added On: June 3rd, 2021]
- Jewish writers with Soviet roots have deep stories to tell J. - The Jewish News of Northern California [Last Updated On: June 16th, 2021] [Originally Added On: June 16th, 2021]
- Stanford therapists allege 'hostile climate' for Jews in the workplace J. - The Jewish News of Northern California [Last Updated On: June 16th, 2021] [Originally Added On: June 16th, 2021]
- Omar seeks to clarify comments after Jewish House Democrats accuse her of comparing US and Israel with Hamas and Taliban - CNN [Last Updated On: June 16th, 2021] [Originally Added On: June 16th, 2021]
- Jewish student group 'SLO Hillel' opens new Pavilion The new gathering space is located at the - KSBY San Luis Obispo News [Last Updated On: June 16th, 2021] [Originally Added On: June 16th, 2021]
- Original source of pound cake recipe in new Athens Jewish cook book remains a mystery - Online Athens [Last Updated On: June 16th, 2021] [Originally Added On: June 16th, 2021]
- Readers Write: Far-right extremists not representative of L.I's Jewish community - Readers Write - The Island Now [Last Updated On: June 16th, 2021] [Originally Added On: June 16th, 2021]
- Our Jewish Israeli writer in Ramallah is ready to reveal who she is - Haaretz [Last Updated On: June 16th, 2021] [Originally Added On: June 16th, 2021]
- Jewish groups in the US and South Africa among recipients of MacKenzie Scott's latest $2.74B in grants - Cleveland Jewish News [Last Updated On: June 16th, 2021] [Originally Added On: June 16th, 2021]
- 'George Soros was an easy target: hes Jewish, wealthy and secretive' - Haaretz [Last Updated On: June 16th, 2021] [Originally Added On: June 16th, 2021]
- John Rathbun of East Longmeadow convicted of attempting to burn Jewish elder care campus after 2nd trial - MassLive.com [Last Updated On: June 16th, 2021] [Originally Added On: June 16th, 2021]
- Here are the top candidates to one of the most prestigious jobs in the Jewish world - Haaretz [Last Updated On: June 16th, 2021] [Originally Added On: June 16th, 2021]
- Jewish Federation Expands Outreach and Education to Counter Increased Antisemitism Detroit Jewish News - The Jewish News [Last Updated On: June 16th, 2021] [Originally Added On: June 16th, 2021]
- JCF awards more than $140000 in scholarships for Jewish campers - Jewish News of Greater Phoenix [Last Updated On: June 21st, 2021] [Originally Added On: June 21st, 2021]
- What is an egg cream and why is it so Jewish? - The Jerusalem Post [Last Updated On: June 21st, 2021] [Originally Added On: June 21st, 2021]
- YC4KF Thanks Jewish Community Foundation for $8,000 Grant - Signals AZ [Last Updated On: June 21st, 2021] [Originally Added On: June 21st, 2021]
- Google criticized by Jewish organization for 'allowing' antisemitism - The Jerusalem Post [Last Updated On: June 21st, 2021] [Originally Added On: June 21st, 2021]
- Mission: Volunteer 52 Times in 52 Weeks - Jewish Exponent [Last Updated On: June 21st, 2021] [Originally Added On: June 21st, 2021]
- First German Army rabbi in 100 years takes office - Haaretz [Last Updated On: June 21st, 2021] [Originally Added On: June 21st, 2021]
- Synagogues and camps are getting help to better support LGBTQ youth - JTA News - Jewish Telegraphic Agency [Last Updated On: June 21st, 2021] [Originally Added On: June 21st, 2021]
- 'Schitt's Creek': Where 'Jews of no religion,' facing exile, find redemption - The Conversation CA [Last Updated On: June 21st, 2021] [Originally Added On: June 21st, 2021]
- Man arrested after attacking 12-year-old Jewish boy in Los Angeles - The Jerusalem Post [Last Updated On: June 21st, 2021] [Originally Added On: June 21st, 2021]
- Jewish congregations gather at Davenport location - New Haven Register [Last Updated On: June 21st, 2021] [Originally Added On: June 21st, 2021]
- Jews are the only minority that tolerates the intolerable - The Jerusalem Post [Last Updated On: June 21st, 2021] [Originally Added On: June 21st, 2021]
- The Jewish mensch who helped fight racial injustice in the Deep South - Haaretz [Last Updated On: June 21st, 2021] [Originally Added On: June 21st, 2021]
- Holocaust Center presents Jews' escape to India and Iran after 1933 - The Oakland Press [Last Updated On: June 21st, 2021] [Originally Added On: June 21st, 2021]
- Diplomat Turned Educator will Head Local University Detroit Jewish News - The Jewish News [Last Updated On: June 21st, 2021] [Originally Added On: June 21st, 2021]
Comments