The definite article 9
happy reading
I was not intending to post on antisemitism this week, as I did so last week. Yet there were pieces publish in the past week that really should not go by the board. I want to introduce this week’s collection of article with a quote from Dr. Eliezer Berkovits, zt”l:
We were unprepared. Not because of cowardliness, but because we did not see clearly the moral implication of self-defence; we never understood how wrong it was to tolerate evil when it was directed towards ourselves. We were insufficiently prepared to reconcile the Jewish teachings of anti-militarism and respect for all life with the resistance to evil demanded by the circumstances….[A] strategy is needed; not a political strategy, but a moral one, based on the principle that to tolerate evil against oneself, in however mild a form, makes one an accomplice to the act. It is a man’s moral obligation to refuse to obey the commands of injustice…
As Jews, I think we have a tendency, because of our incipient liberalism and dedication to pacifism and empathy, to overlook injustices done to us personally as Jews and to the Jewish people. Some Jews, as I heard a rather unfunny comedienne, claim this week, will do anything to help other Jews. Some, on the other hand, will to anything to help others if they are not Jews.
The latter group takes this position as an expression of a moral stance, that we should reject the tribal affinity that has characterized Jews through the ages. They see it as an aberration, a behavior necessary perhaps in the days of the ghetto, but embarrassingly inappropriate in a world that is open and universalistic. Or alternatively, they wish to curry favor with the non-Jews, to show them that Jews too can be virtuous. Through our actions, we can win the appreciation, respect, and even affection of those whom we suspect, deep down, of hating us.
As Michael Oren says, it’s not that antisemitism is back; it has never really left. And as Jews, we really have two choices. We can fight, occupy the Dean’s off ice and pound on table until we get not what we want, but what we deserve as citizens. It means being brutally honest and sometime brutally violent against those who attack us. It mean, as Dr. Berkovits wrote, that we have to see injustice against us as cosmic injustice, as serious as any other injustice that we choose to protest against. It is just as grave a sin to permit injustice against ourselves as it is to permit injustice to others.
The other option is to move to Israel.
These thoughts we prompted both by the very powerful article by Michael Oren and no less powerful piece by Maya Sulking in The Free Press, which I have pasted below.
→ Antisemitism in the group chat: Ever since October 8, when thousands of university students and professors sided with Hamas instead of innocent Israeli civilians, we at The Free Press have pointed out the double standard applied on elite campuses across America. Institutions supposedly committed to “safety first,” that call misgendering a form of “abuse” that “perpetuates violence,” have allowed its students to openly call for the death of Jews in their quads.
The people running the campuses don’t think much differently than their students do—especially at my alma mater, Columbia University. We already knew about some of this. During a panel on Jewish life on May 31, Susan Chang-Kim, vice dean and chief administrative officer, texted colleagues that the concerns about antisemitism were “difficult to listen to” and sent vomit emojis in reaction to an op-ed on campus antisemitism by the school’s rabbi.
The more we learn, the worse it gets.
Yesterday, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce released new messages from Chang-Kim and other high-level Columbia administrators.
First reported by The Washington Free Beacon, they are even more damning than the first batch.
As Orly Mishan—daughter of a Holocaust survivor—described her own daughter, a Columbia sophomore, “hiding in plain sight” on campus, Chang-Kim wrote “I’m going to throw up.” “Amazing what can do,” Cristen Kromm, the dean of undergraduate student life, wrote in response.
As Brian Cohen, the head of Columbia Hillel, said that Jewish students felt safer at Hillel than in their dorms, Matthew Patashnick, associate dean for student and family support, wrote to his fellow admins, “They will have their own dorm soon.” Minutes later, Chang-Kim wrote, “Comes from such a place of privilege.” Mind you, this is the same Hillel that Jewish students could not leave because of the violent protests outside its doors.
Cohen spoke in hopes of providing more support services to Jewish students, to which Kromm texted, “If only every identity community had these resources and support.” And of course, Patashnick accused Cohen of taking “full advantage of this moment” for its “huge fundraising potential.”
So I repeat what I said in a Free Press video in December: Safety first, except for Jews.
Many people are shocked by these texts. I am not. Many are thrilled to hear that the administrators have been placed on leave. I am not. I saw this rot as a student there until I graduated early last year to work at The Free Press. I was told that I was crazy for sounding the alarm on smaller instances of antisemitism (nothing too crazy, just some swastikas on dorm room doors).
We sometimes fail to remember that people comprise institutions. Columbia is not a bastion of truth-seeking and free thought overseen by benign, mysterious forces. Nope, power gets exerted by a grubby group chat whose members think that concerns about antisemitism come from a place of privilege.
And these are just the ones who were dumb enough to get caught. Their texts are a small window into a much deeper, much uglier rot. —Maya Sulkin
Melanie Phillps blows a hole in the theory that one can be anti-Zioinist and not antisemitic.
A strongly worded piece by Michael Oren recalling the antisemitism in1950s America that was laid bare by the movie A Gentleman’s Agreement, and compares those days to these.
Nobel prize winning author Herta Muller places the context of recent antisemitism as a phenomenon documented in the book Ordinary Men, where completely normal Germans were fine doing absolutely horrendous violence to Jews.
https://truthofthemiddleeast.com/herta-muller/
Mijal Bitton, PhD, the spiritual leader of the Downtown Minyan in New York City, describes how the antisemitism stirred up by the October 7 attacks has made the case for the necessity of a Jewish state
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/06/23/opinions/israel-gaza-protests-jews-bitton/index.html
In other news, Bassem Eid, a Palestinian human right worker, details the cruelty Hamas in Gaza
https://www.newsweek.com/bombs-wont-break-through-hamas-popularity-heres-what-might-opinion-1910737
The third of a three part series bhy Michael Oren on the whether Iron Dome is more of a protective shield or a potential cause of more violent warfare.
The hilarious, irreverent, irrepressible Kinky Friedman passed away last week. Kinky will be missed. As he said: You can pick your friends and you can pick your nose, but you can't wipe your friends off on a saddle. This is an article vaguely reminiscent of Lenny Bruce’s Jewish/Goyish routine.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/not-jewish-hunting
What was the context of Rabbi Berkovits' quote? The Yom Kippur War?