One of the most pernicious narratives promoted by pro-Israel organizations like Hillel International, the World Jewish Congress, and the ADL is that (some) Jewish college students are being made to feel uncomfortable, or unwelcomed by the campus antiwar demonstrations and encampments, and that this is evidence of a “surge in campus antisemitism” and the justification for the use of abusive police measures to stifle the protestors’ rights to peacefully demonstrate.

Note that there has been not a single report of violence (against anyone) being perpetrated by these demonstrators, although the police called in to clear peaceful protestors have typically used aggressive and violent tactics against them.

Secondly, this particular narrative presumes a binary between “Jewish students” and the antiwar demonstrators, and ignores the significant – indeed, disproportionate – presence of Jewish students and faculty among the demonstrators. I spotted at least three yarmulkes at the Princeton encampment this weekend and it would be difficult to explain the large seders celebrated at the encampments this week without the presence of Jewish demonstrators.

Contrary to what Hillel, the WJC and the ADL claim, it is very clear that these Jewish students and faculty do not feel uncomfortable or unwelcomed by the campus antiwar demonstrations. Moreover, photos posted by organizations like Hillel of Zionist counter-protestors flying Israeli flags, and which might be the discomfited students to whom they refer, have shown very small groups of eight to twelve counter-protestors. It is not clear whether all of these demonstrators are students and, one can safely assume, the ones with graying and balding hair in the pictures almost certainly are not.

Finally, there are many reasons why a student might feel uncomfortable or unwelcomed on campus, or even threatened. But it behooves us to ask if it is because they are Jewish or because they are Zionists. I can understand and sympathize with a student with strong ties to the State of Israel who is upset by the criticism that it has received. I am sure that chants of “two-four-six-eight Israel is a terror state” are difficult to hear, and that they might feel personally attacked when someone boos the Israeli flag. Similarly, I am sure that white nationalists in the US are insulted when people point out that structural racism is real and that American society is based on white supremacy, or that some a Russian who wanders into a Ukrainian solidarity protest flying the Russian tricolor might feel threatened.

The reality is that a whole lot of people hate the State of Israel right now for legitimate reasons, or at the very least hate what it is doing in Gaza, and what it has done for decades to the Palestinian people. If that makes some Jewish students uncomfortable, they might want to ask themselves why so many people hate the State of Israel and what it is doing in Gaza. This is what we call a “teachable moment,” but it only has value if the student wishes to learn.

Significantly, however, this animus toward the State of Israel (which is a geopolitical entity) is not animus toward Jews, or the Jewish people, individually or collectively. Characterizing it as such is a cynical bait-and-switch by the State of Israel and its Zionist proxies to use as a fig leaf to cover the atrocities in Gaza and the decades-long, flagrant Israeli violations of international law and human rights, largely to the detriment of diaspora Jews.

Moreover, the narrative that Jewish students have faced aggression and victimization from demonstrators at the antiwar encampments deserves examination. For example, how did the imagined demonstrators know that the victimized students were Jewish? Were they wearing yarmulkes? I wear a yarmulke and I have not encountered any such aggression and, as I have said, yarmulkes have been conspicuous among participants in the demonstrations. Did they identify themselves as Jewish and pick a fight? Were they waving Israeli flags and chanting Zionist and anti-Palestinian slogans?

It is so difficult to imagine how these “antisemitic” encounters even came about that one can safely assume that they are a myth, and even a libel.

28 April 2024

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Antisemitism is pervasive in Euro-American culture. Some proponents of this pervasive antisemitism in Congress and public life are claiming, without evidence, that antisemitism is more pervasive on college campuses. A number of pro-Israel and Zionist organizations and leaders have been echoing and amplifying what these antisemites in public life are saying, all in the service of deflecting criticism of the State of Israel.

28 April 2024

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A note: I always say “the State of Israel,” rather than “Israel” to make a clear distinction between the former and the Jewish people who are “the People of Israel,” “the House of Israel,” or just “Israel,” as in the Sh’ma: “Hear, O Israel!” The State of Israel appropriated the name “Israel” at its founding in 1948, a matter that was extremely controversial at the time, but which we have subsequently forgotten after 76 years of Israeli colonization of Jewish life.

The thing to remember is that Medines Yisroel (the State of Israel) ≠ Am Yisroel (the People of Israel), and never did.

28 April 2024

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One of the most absurd conspiracy theories that I have heard this week – which really illustrates the absurdity of conspiracy theories – is this: The tents at the campus encampments were supplied by Hamas, from humanitarian aid shipments to Gaza. So, this theory holds that, while fighting a bitter war against the State of Israel, Hamas somehow managed to get thousands of tents across Israeli lines, out of Gaza, and then to Tel Aviv airport, where they were secretly loaded on planes bound for the US, where they were unloaded, passed quietly through US customs and import controls, and then distributed to campuses throughout the US.

There are people who find this easier to believe than the possibility that college students bought $20 tents on Amazon.

27 April 2024

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This is, I guess, something of a confession. I am a member of a cycling club, and I recently renewed my membership for this year. The club’s group rides, particularly one on Sundays that I almost never miss, are my happy place. The club has been the closest thing that I have to an actual social life, and I value the friendships that I have made with many of its members, as we have rolled at speed through the roads of rural New Jersey.

But I have been delaying my reappearance for the new season. A disproportionate number of my club mates are Jewish, and “of a certain age” (about my age, sometimes a bit older). I have been apprehensive about making an appearance, given the state of the world, and because of what I expect to be the opinions of fellow Jews “of a certain age.” I don’t actually have any less regard my cycling friends because of the opinions on the current War and crisis, and I am happy to entertain civil differences of opinion.

However, given the passions and the overheated rhetoric (relative strangers have called me a “kapo” and accused me of “sympathizing with terrorists” in social media), I have to wonder how tense and uncomfortable it would be to ride for two or three hours with people who might now hate me. The solution is to “just not talk about it,” but how does one “just not talk about it?” The idea of being forced to bail from a ride and pedal home alone for 35 miles seems both pointless and unappealing.

So, there you are. The war has seeped into my personal life in an unexpected way. I feel a bit uncomfortable suspecting friends of animus without direct experience, but my indirect experience has cautioned me to be wary.

26 April 2024

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Some Americans cannot live without their conspiracy theories; they simply find the universe incomprehensible without them. The latest version of this is a comment that I saw on a post about the student encampment movement. The commenter asked, parroting New York Mayor Eric Adams, “and who is paying for all of these tents, they all look alike, so where are they getting them?”

The implication is that there is some dark, occulted force behind the scenes orchestrating these demonstrations… Maybe George Soros? Maybe the Davos Clique? Maybe the Communists? Maybe the Jesuits? Maybe the Rothschilds? Maybe George Soros, the Rothschilds, and the Communists? This is pretty typical of conspiracy theories, especially those which seek to delegitimize ideas and movements by positing that they are neither spontaneous nor natural. (Remember the “crisis actors?”)

My guess is that most of the tents are coming from Amazon, where you can order one for $20, often with next day delivery. But hell, why would the simplest, most obvious answer be the right one when we can imagine vast, unnatural conspiracies?

25 April 2024

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Even if the State of Israel was some essential part of Jewish belief, practice, and life (and it is not), the example of the Prophets is that we have an obligation as Jews to speak against the State and against power when it transgresses. Far from being antisemitism, criticizing the State of Israel and doubting its legitimacy is, in fact, the most Jewish thing one can do.

24 April 2024

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With regard to the accusation that I am an antisemite (and I have been so accused), I should note that I do believe that it is, indeed, possible for a Jew to be an antisemite. Theodor Herzl and Vladimir Jabotinsky were both virulent antisemites. And, as it turns out, I have encountered a fair number of Zionists who have expressed antisemitic sentiments.

As for my own purported antisemitism, this is apparently because I do not blindly support the State of Israel and excuse its sins. I have been digging deep into the Torah, the Talmud, and Halakha to find the part where blind obedience to the State of Israel is a defining Jewish obligation, however, with no luck.

24 April 2024

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Just once I would like the journalists reporting on “campus antisemitism” to actually interview a Jewish member of a campus community. Just once.

24 April 2024

***

I ran into a former student just now on the way to my office. Molly and I had just been talking about her this morning, so it was a sort of fortuitous happenstance. The student was so delighted to see me, and said that this semester just wasn’t the same without my class. “You are my favorite professor,” she said, “of all time!” She virtually jumped up and down.

She was wearing her keffiyeh loosely over her headscarf, pulled snugly around her head and face in the Palestinian fashion. She told me about the summer internship that she had accepted at the last minute because her plans to go home to the town in the northern West Bank had been frustrated by the War on Gaza. It seems that the State of Israel is making it very difficult for Palestinians abroad to enter the Occupied Territories.

I asked her if her family in the West Bank and Gaza are safe, and she said that they are, “but things are very difficult, especially for my uncle in Gaza.” She then asked if I had any relatives the State of Israel and said that she prayed for their safety. I thanked her for her prayers, but told her no, I do not have any family there.

There was a brief pause. We looked at each other for a moment, and then my former student asked what I was teaching next year because she really wants to take a class with me. I told her about the upper-level course on the Vietnam War that I have in the fall, and the course on Zionism and the Israel-Palestine conflict that I am developing for spring. She got excited and said that she was definitely taking one of my classes again.

Before she took my leave and ran off in the direction of the Library she wished me a “very happy Passover,” and then said something in Arabic. I asked her what that meant, and she said that it was a “blessing for an honored friend.”

Redhat neo-totalitarians like Elise Stefanik and their toadies in organizations like Hillel International and the ADL are telling me that there is a surge in “campus antisemitism.”

24 April 2024

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Baroness Shafik called in the NYPD on peaceful protesters to show that she was tough on “campus antisemitism,” in order to deflect the redhat right’s criticism and hold onto her job as President of Columbia University. Yet, this craven (as Tom Sugrue so incisively phrased it) and cynical act has surely backfired. The academic community that she heads is not composed of docile sheep, as she doubtless believed, and the Baroness of Alexandria simply cannot rule (as I’m sure she imagines her role) without their consent. I suspect that she will be out of a job by the end of the week. Anyone want to wager?

23 April 2024

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For criticism of the State of Israel, demonstrations against its policies and wars, and even the denial of its legitimacy and right to exist, to be antisemitism the State of Israel would have to be an integral part of Jewish life and practice. Yet, we existed as a community and as a people for millennia before the State of Israel existed; there is no mention of it in the Tanakh, the Talmud, or Halakha; one can be a Jew without being an Israeli. If anything, the State of Israel is irrelevant to Jewish life, so criticism, demonstrations against its policies and wars, and even the denial of its legitimacy and right to exist can’t actually be antisemitic.

But you know what actually is an integral part of Jewish life? Tzedek (justice), chesed (love and compassion), and respecting the right of all of us to disagree, to have our own opinions, and to express them – even at the seder table when Uncle Baruch is in one of his snotty moods.

We need to repeat this again and again.

23 April 2024

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This is Minouche Shafik, the President of Columbia University who called in the New York City Police on the encampment on the university grounds. She is also Baroness Shafik, of Camden in the London Borough of Camden and of Alexandria. Not only does that make her an actual British aristocrat, but you will note that the Crown made her the Baroness of Alexandria, which is not actually in Great Britain, but in Egypt. That’s OK, I guess, because Egypt used to be a British colony and, in the colonial mindset, what belonged to the Empire, by right, always belongs to the Empire. The layers of privilege, colonialism, and power in Baroness Shafik’s betrayal of Columbia University and of her responsibility as its leader, run so deep that it boggles the mind.

23 April 2024

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We really have to disabuse ourselves of the notion that the redhat right’s concern for “campus antisemitism” has anything to do with antisemitism. It is about the right’s assault on the academy, education, and liberal learning; it is about establishing a reactionary, Christian nationalist hegemony over our institutions of higher education. In this, it is a fundamentally antisemitic project – indeed, the REAL “campus antisemitism.”

These Christian nationalist crusaders (and I mean “crusader” with the full weight of its historical meaning) have found allies in the Zionist hofjuden who lead the American Jewish community and the dull-eyed, bovine Zionists in suburban Jewish enclaves. They derive the legitimacy from the cynical Zionist resignification of “antisemitism” to mean “criticism of the State of Israel” – but not, it turns out, actual physical, cultural, or psychic violence against actual Jews.

University leaders like Baroness Shafik of Columbia are happy to go along and throw the academic communities they represent under the bus. As apparatchiks of the neoliberal, corporate university, they have no investment in knowledge, free enquiry, and academic freedom; they are committed to investments, the financial bottom line, prestige, and power. And power wants them to eviscerate the very institutions they are charged with nurturing and protecting. So, they get in line with their masters.

This has nothing to do with antisemitism.

23 April 2023

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One of my greatest fears about the MAGA right’s effort, with the complicity of its Zionist allies and the State of Israel, to eviscerate institutions of liberal education and to impose ideological conformity on the academy is that it will succeed.

And the Jews, collectively, will be blamed. As we always are.

22 April 2024

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Just saying that there is a “rise of campus antisemitism” does not mean that there is, in fact, a “rise in campus antisemitism.” As a very visible, yarmulke-wearing, bearded Jewish faculty member on the campus of a an R1 university where more than 25% of the students are Muslim or of Middle-Eastern descent, I have not personally witnessed any antisemitism on campus. So, you are going to have to explain both your categories and your methodology.

I am more worried about the right-wing antisemitism that leaders of my community seem to tolerate, and which has been persistent for the last several years. Let us not forget that congressional Republicans, like Elise Stefanik, who are now leading the charge against “campus antisemitism” are unrepentant promoters of the “Great Replacement” libel, advocates of making secular law conform to parochial Christian belief, and defenders of the former president, one of the most vocal antisemites in public office in decades.

These are the antisemites about whom I worry, and these are the same people with whom our community leaders – and this publication – have allied themselves in their quest to neuter higher education.

22 April 2024

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The leaders of the American Jewish Community have no greater ambition than to be Power’s bitch.

22 April 2024

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The MAGA right’s cynical use of the accusation of antisemitism in its campaign to neuter institutions of higher education and liberal (in the Enlightenment sense) learning, and the eagerness with which so many Diaspora Jews are offering up our people to be used, is a horrifying thing. If antisemitism was bad before, THIS is going to make it worse. The Jewish people – my people – are willingly being made the pets of racist, neo-totalitarian power. We know how this ends.

22 April 2024

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