Academia is being corrupted by anti-Israel student mobs and colleges aren't doing enough - opinion

UC Berkeley, the birthplace of the “Free Speech” movement in the 1960s, should be called the new birthplace of the “Free Hate” movement. Recently, an evening event coordinated by a Jewish student group on campus was shut down by pro-Hamas thugs. The reason? An IDF reservist was the featured speaker. 

A group calling itself the “Bears for Palestine” shattered glass doors – California Kristallnacht – spat on a student, and assaulted another. The school shut down the event and the citizen soldier never got a chance to speak. As the police led out the students who wanted to attend the event – mostly Jews – the anti-Israel protesters cried out “Jews! Jews!”

Questions that must be asked

That is UC Berkeley. It has been the origin point of hatred of Jews throughout the US. That is UC Berkeley or almost any higher institution of learning in America.

Did the Berkeley administration admonish the 150 to 200 protesters? Were the “Bears for Palestine” expelled for their violence and hatred – if indeed they were students – or barred from campus? Free speech means peaceful protest. It is not the shattering of windows and threatening students. 

Where is the administration? They are Marxists and socialists who prostrate at the idol of radical Islam. They should be ashamed of themselves. No Jew or person of conscience should give a dime to UC Berkeley – home of the “Free Hate” movement.

SHEEPSKIN OR foreskin? That is the question that American Jews are dealing with in the post-October 7, 2023 epoch. But this hatred of Jews has been festering on campuses for a long time, promoted or ignored by professors and administrators.

I am an Ivy League graduate. And life for a Jewish student at Columbia University was good in the mid-1980s. I even took a course in “Zionism and Arab Nationalism.” The professors representing the Arabs and Palestinians did not call for the genocide of Jews. I co-edited the Jewish student publication Perspectives. We had a range of opinions.

There was no censorship. That is totalitarian. Student articles critical of Israel or Judaism were included. But that would not be the case today. Our publication would be demonized as “white supremacist” and “colonialist.” This is not the Columbia of a generation ago.

Many American Jews are addicted to prestige. What college did you go to? What law firm were you the partner of?

Did you attend Harvard Medical School? Do you live in an upscale condo community? Do your books win awards?

Everything is the “sheepskin,” the material of the diploma in medieval European universities. You are nothing among most American Jews if your sheepskin is not from Harvard, Yale, Columbia or Princeton. 

I say: To hell with that. Your worth as a human being is not embedded in an elite institution. Your worth is in your decency, what you do for your community, and expressions of creativity and destiny. You can’t get that from universities.

So, American Jews, what is important to you? Your sheepskin displayed prominently on your apartment wall or the foreskin removed on the eighth day as a people’s covenant? Get your priorities straight. As a Jew, as wealthy as you are and as much as you want to see your name adorn a building, are you really going to support campuses that condone the destruction of Israel and genocide of the Jews? Go ahead – prostitute yourself to mammon and prestige. Those are your priorities. You choose your ego over your ancestors.

My Ivy League days are long over. As I approach 60, I don’t march about town brandishing my diploma. It just isn’t important to me. I am an advocate for my people and an explorer of 3,500 years of an incredible history. I graduated in 1987. That is ancient history. The brit of the people is far more important than the schools I attended. 

I am grateful for what I learned and experienced in college. Those are memories. Massacre, genocide, hatred of Jews, and war are the reality. American Jews, wake up! Your addiction to prestige is a sickness.

The writer is a rabbi, essayist, and lecturer in West Palm Beach, Florida.