Antisemitism stops US Jewish students from changing the world - opinion

Flying home from the United States following a brief tour of East Coast universities, I return with an overriding impression: Jewish students could change the world, but they are being blocked by antisemites.

Evil targets good. We know this. That’s why Jews are always targeted. That’s why 3,000 Hamas terrorists attempted to destroy some of the few operative kibbutzim in Israel – the social innovation that transformed Israel in its critical formative years. The totally democratic and open-minded philosophy of the kibbutz movement stands diametrically opposed to Hamas’s fascist jihadism.

Evil fighting good is why the Nazis targeted the Jews – the one people who would stand up morally against a totalitarian regime that tried to dominate the world. That’s why antisemites all over the world target Jews. Evil targets good.

The campaign of anti-truth targeting Jewish students

Today, the evil that targets Jews has created a unique method: the anti-truth. Not lies, but the opposite of the truth – a 180-degree inversion of reality. “Israel is apartheid!” they proclaim, neglecting to mention that there are no synagogues in Ramallah or Gaza, but there are dozens of mosques in Jerusalem and in many Israeli Arab towns. “Israel perpetrates genocide against Palestinians!” they cry, omitting to mention that the population of every Palestinian town has increased dramatically in the 75 years of Israel’s existence. Of course, the only genocide in Israel took place on October 7, 2023, when innocent Jews were brutally massacred just because of their religion.

This anti-truth technique has often been used against Jews, supported by the world’s media, which cannot resist a blood libel (remember that hospital attack that killed 500 Palestinians?).

The Palestinians always accuse us of the evil that they have done themselves. In fact, accusing Israel of crimes that Palestinians actually perpetrated against us has become such a successful technique that a whole government department was created just to defend Israel – the Ministry of Public Diplomacy (Hasbara), which was closed in October. They accuse us, so we explain why they are wrong. Weeks of petty squabbling take place and, on the odd occasion that anyone cares about the truth, an almost invisible retraction is published.

Today, this technique is being used on campuses around the world against our children. Accuse Jews of every crime against humanity, shout “Death to the Jews!” and the antisemites have two ways to benefit. Firstly, a small number of Jewish “Kapos” will enlist with the enemy and march down the streets wearing a kippah, black hat, or Magen David pendant, holding a banner demanding “Free Palestine.” These “trophy Jews” can then be presented in the global media as proof that demanding the ethnic cleansing of Jews is not antisemitic: “See, even Jews agree!”

But there is a more subtle and sinister way that antisemites benefit – and that is by diverting our youth to engage in efforts to counter them. Every article, march, and argument used against antisemites is a diversion from a more productive activity that Jews could be engaged in. All the time wasted arguing with them about “the facts” is a direct win for the antisemites.

It is time for us to put the spotlight on the evil that they are perpetrating. The antisemites have identified our students as being the most powerful potential force for good, and they are successfully silencing them by using these distraction techniques.

So, what should be the role of Jewish students on campus? They should be standing up for the positive values in Western culture that are being rapidly eroded by today’s “woke fascism.” As Jews, we can look in the Torah and see that God gave the world all the most positive concepts, such as personal freedom, freedom of religion, freedom of expression, and the equality of all people before God. The Torah enabled the Jews to spread the ideas of human rights around the globe, millennia before anyone else came up with the idea.

It is no coincidence that our enemies come almost exclusively from countries whose leaders care nothing for human rights. In fact, only two million Muslims in the Middle East enjoy human rights – Israeli Arabs.

I believe that Jewish students should be campaigning for universal human rights, just as we marched 50 years ago to free Soviet Jewry. The antisemites recognize that we have the power and potential to create a better world. That’s why the antisemites are rising up in their hundreds of thousands to block us. That’s why we must ignore them and carry on with our global task as the nation that brings light to the world. It is our job to transform the world, not to waste time defending our right to exist.

This is the message I shared with Jewish students at Princeton, Yale, Penn, Columbia, YU, Stern, and NYU. Jews should never be victims. Jews are custodians of the greatest moral code on this planet. Our role is to shine a light on evil, to light up the darkness, and to never succumb to intimidation.

This Hanukkah, may we shine our light throughout the world. ■

Rabbi Leo Dee is an educator and lives in Efrat. His book Transforming the World: The Jewish Impact on Modernity has been republished in English and Hebrew in memory of his wife Lucy and daughters Maia and Rina, who were murdered by terrorists in April 2023.