"The past is never dead. It's not even past." Racism, anti-Semitism, and the anti-Israel protests

"The past is never dead. It's not even past." William Faulkner's famous quote reminds us that our daily lives are shaped by events and experiences of long ago.

John L. Rosove, an Israeli rabbi and humanitarian, wrote an essay in 2022 reflecting on Faulkner's trenchant observation. In it, Rosove recalled the tragic events that had befallen Israel in its short history, including the 1973 war—the nation's fourth war since its founding in 1948. He also called to mind the Russian Jewish refugees who fled to Israel to escape the Cossack pogroms of the nineteenth century.

"Memory defines us," Rosove wrote," and even if we do not personally experience an event, we can make it our own." Thus, "when we learn history and listen to the stories of our parents and grandparents, we take in their memories and make them ours as essential elements of our family story."

America is home to the largest Jewish population in the world outside Israel, and many of our Jewish citizens are the descendants of  Holocaust survivors. Whether we are Jewish or not, the Holocaust forms part of the American story.

I am ashamed of the Americans who participated in the recent anti-Israel protests on college campuses. At their base, these demonstrations are anti-Semitic; they are racist. At their root, they feed from the same putrid pool of racial hatred that fueled the Nazi movement in the 1930s. 

Years from now, and maybe sooner, the college leaders who  tolerate these vile protests and coddle the racist mobs will also be ashamed. Fortunately for them, most campus administrators will retire with generous pensions and can spend their golden years playing golf while they contemplate their sins.

Anti-Israel protests at Northwestern University: Did President Michael Schill Cave in to Extortion?

This week, it settled with anti-Israel protesters by promising to hire four Palestinians as visiting professors and to award full scholarships to five Palestinian students. In return, the protesters agreed to take down the tents at NWU’s Deering Meadow but not to stop their protesting activities.

Extortion can take many forms, but one definition fits the recent settlement at Northwestern. According to Black’s Law Dictionary, extortion includes:

bring[ing] about or continu[ing] a strike, boycott or other collective unofficial action, if the property is not demanded or received for the benefit of the group in whose interest the actor purports to act.

Northwestern president Michael Schill, who approved the settlement, holds a law degree from Yale University, so he surely knows the definition of extortion. Why did he and other NWU administrators submit to a shameful shakedown?

Northwestern caved into student protesters because the university is a Wizard of Oz outfit—no heart, no courage, and no brains. Schill and his administrative sidekicks don’t have the courage to call the cops on disruptive protesters or discipline students who promote antisemitism. They aren’t smart enough to realize that their appeasement will encourage future students to disrupt campus life if the university fails to abide by students’ ever-changing political demands. Nor are they smart enough to realize that their cowardice will demoralize Jewish students and alienate the university’s donors.

Finally, President Schill and his co-appeasers have no heart. They apparently don’t care that they’ve diminished the university’s academic freedom by allowing disgruntled students to dictate the hiring of faculty members based on ethnicity.

Northwestern hasn’t seen the last of the anti-Israel protesters. They’ll be back. Next time these antisemitic morons may demand that the university fire all its Jewish faculty members. What would President Schill, who is Jewish, say to that?

Gee, I'm scared!

Antisemitism at Harvard. Should I Burn hy Harvard Diploma?

 I wish I were a billionaire who had given a pot of money to Harvard University. I would write Harvard a stern public letter rebuking its anemic response to anti-Jewish bigotry by Harvard students. I would vow not to give the university one more dime. A few billionaires have taken that action.

Indeed, there is strong evidence that antisemitism lurks in the shadows on Harvard's musty campus. Adrian Ahkenazy, a Harvard alum, and a  Harvard Jewish Alumni Association co-founder, wrote an op-ed essay in the New York Post a few days ago, noting that there are fewer Jewish students and faculty at Harvard than in years past. "Among many saddening discoveries," he wrote, "we see that Jews have been purged across campus--from the administration and the Board of Supervisors to the faculty and the student body." Jewish students comprise only 5 percent of the Harvard student body, down from more than 20 percent at the turn of the twentieth century.

In an open letter to the Harvard community, Harvard's president implicitly admitted that antisemitism is a problem at the university. President Claudine Gay wrote that Harvard is "seeking to identify external partnerships that will allow Harvard to learn from and work with others on our strategy [to combat antisemitism]." To me, it sounds like Harvard plans to hire some consultants to study anti-Jewish bigotry until people forget about it.

I am not a billionaire and have never given Harvard any money (besides my tuition). How can I effectively express my contempt for Harvard's closet antisemitism?

I have a Harvard doctoral degree, which I could publicly burn as a protest of Harvard's cowardice and closet bigotry. I also purchased a crimson academic gown for my Harvard graduation ceremony in 1993. I could burn that, too.

However, I will not set my diploma or academic regalia ablaze. I don't believe in setting things on fire to express my political convictions. In any event, I don't think anything I might say or do would get Harvard’s attention. After all, I live in Flyover Country.

How do ordinary people censor an elite university trafficking in prestige while marinating in bigotry and moral cowardice? We can begin by deconstructing Harvard's image as the epitome of intellectual and moral superiority.

Many Americans believe that Harvard people are more intelligent and more morally sensitive than the rest of us. Having spent some time at Harvard, I can tell you that legend is untrue. There are some smart people at Harvard, but most Harvardians are no more intelligent than your favorite handyman or plumber.

Perhaps William F. Buckley said it best: “I'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.”

 

American colleges are producing racists and it's a damned expensive process

American colleges are spending millions of dollars a year to fight racism. Virtually every school has a vice president of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and DEI officers don’t come cheap. Ohio State University, for example, spends $20 million a year to promote diversity and employs 189 people to get the job done.

Curiously, the more the colleges obsess about race, the more racist their students become. After Hamas massacred more than a thousand Jews last month, college students all over the United States staged mass protests in support of the butchers. Some protesters have even called for the liquidation of the Jewish state. In other words, they have come out in favor of genocide.

A college education is expensive. It can cost a quarter of a million dollars to get an undergraduate degree from an elite university. Supposedly, college students are learning how to reason. Seemingly, they are gaining a deeper appreciation of diverse cultures, races, and ethnicities. Purportedly, they are acquiring the skills and dispositions they need to participate in a democratic society.

And now we are discovering that a college education is about none of that. Instead, American universities are teaching students to celebrate murder, rape, and infanticide and to hate Israelis.

The pro-Hamas college students think they have heightened moral scruples. In fact, they have the moral sensibilities of Nazis, and they are so stupid that they don’t even realize it. 

Graduation day at Columbia University