Antisemitism is racism by another name

Antisemitism is racism by another name

Don’t ask me why but the murder of the two young Israelis outside the Jewish Museum in DC has left me as shaken as the killing of George Floyd. The killings are the latest manifestation of the antisemitism so prevalent in today’s leftwing radicalism. Why I never thought I would see this killing in this country speaks to my naivete. The irony of course is that the radical left are attacking Jews who are among the most loyal democrat voters. The far left which is fond of labelling virtually anything that moves as being racist are themselves practicing racism toward the Jews. 

Yet I have heard no high ranking Jewish politician express support for what the Trump administration is doing to confront antisemitism on our college campuses. Chuck Schumer’s silence is deafening as is that of every Jew in the Congress. Despite Harvard’s long history of antisemitism, over 100 Jewish students at Harvard signed a letter opposing the cutting of over $9 billion in Federal funding at Harvard. The letter said in part “We are compelled to speak out because these actions are being taken in the name of protecting us — Harvard Jewish students — from antisemitism. But this crackdown will not protect us. On the contrary, we know that funding cuts will harm the campus community we are part of and care about deeply.” The students acknowledge that antisemitism is real and a serious problem at Havard but that the cutting of funding hurts those Jews actively engaged in research and internships on campus. Some of the students said that the Trump administration’s charge of antisemitism is just a cover for its war on DEI and the corresponding “litany of absurd demands.”

Harvard’s president, who is Jewish has said that fighting antisemitism on campus “will not be achieved by assertions of power, unmoored from the law, to control teaching and learning at Harvard and to dictate how we operate. The work of addressing our shortcomings, fulfilling our commitments, and embodying our values is ours to define and undertake as a community.”

A coalition of Jewish groups has also chimed in by stating “In recent weeks, escalating federal actions have used the guise of fighting antisemitism to justify stripping students of due process rights when they face arrest and/or deportation, as well as to threaten billions in academic research and education funding.” They state further “Universities have an obligation to protect Jewish students, and the federal government has an important role to play in that effort; however, sweeping draconian funding cuts will weaken the free academic inquiry that strengthens democracy and society, rather than productively counter antisemitism on campus. These actions do not make Jews — or any community — safer. Rather, they only make us less safe.”

Harvard’s president and its students have a valid point. However, what was Harvard doing to confront antisemitism prior to Trump? What were the Jewish students doing? Harvard is an example of academic freedom run amuck. There are parts of the curricula and members of the faculty that are openly antisemitic. There is an intolerance on campus toward conservative speakers and anything that questions the orthodoxy of the left. Harvard as well as other universities have tacitly endorsed all this under the guise of academic freedom. Yet it has failed to fulfill the basic academic mission of demanding excellence and encouraging exchange of diverse ideas and viewpoints.

It may well be that the Trump people are using federal funding as the sword of Damocles to advance its own agenda of eradicating DEI and CRT at our universities. I, though troubled by the antisemitism on campus am equally troubled by the federal government dictating what is taught and who teaches it. If that is the price of federal funding, then perhaps we should emulate Hillsdale College and reject all federal funding. I have read nothing that would contend that Hillsdale is antisemitic. Quite to the contrary, in its student paper it condemned the campus protests, college administrators and faculty who supported it and coddled unruly students. Consider the following statement:

“The only proper response to this month’s attack on Israel was a condemnation of terrorism and antisemitism. But that was too much to ask of students and faculty at what used to be our finest academic institutions. That the West’s elite colleges and universities have become morally and intellectually corrupt is old news to Hillsdale folk. A lack of trust in our country’s esteemed universities is what drove many of us to this college. But some Americans have tried to carry on as if these institutions were not rotting but were instead still solid, still trustworthy. For years, they brushed off the rising focus on equity over merit, the sometimes violent student opposition to conservative speakers, and the administrative attempts to shut down non-progressive speech on campus.”

The fact that this statement did not come from the students at Harvard bespeaks of their tacitly acceptance of the antisemitism on campus and their not aggressively fighting it. I can’t imagine any other minority group putting up with such nonsense. Again, where were the Jewish voices opposing Harvard’s antisemitism before Trump and where are they now?