THE SILENT EPIDEMIC OF CAMPUS ANTI SEMITISM

The dramatic increase in anti semitism from both the left and right has not escaped University campuses where it has ironically been unaffected by the creation of “safe spaces”, “deplatforming”, “microagressions” and the like. The latter in spite of appearing more likely to suppress free speech than promote it has somehow allowed an environment of hate to exponentially grow. All these phenomena are at odds with a University’s role in the pursuit of truth, open debate, tolerance of all opinions and abhorrence of discrimination. There is a growing consensus that there is a silent epidemic of anti semitism on many American university campuses. 

ANTI SEMITISM ON THE CAMPUSES

Very little is written about the subject of campus anti semitism which is considered rampant in certain hotspots. The reasons for this neglect are multiple resulting in very little coverage by the legitimate media. On social media the campus vitriol is multiplied with vey little response by the victims. The reason being that the Jewish students feel uncomfortable launching attacks on those whose views they otherwise agree with. By and large they are highly empathetic with the Palestinians plight, Black Lives Matter and the “Me Too” movement for example. Jay H. Ell  also feels uncomfortable about making a big deal about it when the country’s democracy is teetering, blacks are still being shot by police in circumstances difficult to comprehend, the world is facing a pandemic that just won’t go away and the Chinese are murdering the Muslim Yyngars. However  this blatant growing discrimination has to be exposed, investigated and countered as who knows where it will end. 

Ironically Jewish students as a group are far more liberal than their counterparts. For whatever reasons they are in the mix for the march for a more just world. Jay H. Ell remembers vividly how the apartheid government responded to the disproportionate number of jews elected to the Students Representative Council at his University, warning, “that it hadn’t passed unnoticed”. What persuasion were the Chicago Seven? Yet they, as a minority, are far more likely than other minorities to be targeted in the recent decade. Studies executed by Harvard and Tuft University  investigators have shown that Jews are disproportionately discriminated against.

In a Brandeis University study conducted  amongst Jewish students of American and Canadian Universities in 2015 three quarters of respondents claimed they had been exposed to anti semitic incidents. All these taking place in a societal environment where anti semitic incidents, hate crimes including incidents of mass shootings at Jewish places of worshiping where Neo fascists in Charlottesville and on January 6 are spewing, “The Jews will not replace us” and wearing Auschwitz tee shirts. Then in the House of Representatives Majorie Taylor Greene is mouthing nazi allusions while Ms’ Omar and Tiab keep making more than micro aggressive remarks about Jews. None of whom are being severely censured. 

The central issue on the campuses is that if a student is a Jew he/she is responsible for the alleged Neo fascist, genocidal, apartheid, Neo colonial behavior of the Israeli administration regardless of whether they support the Israeli governmental policy or not. The Holocaust is often denied even while the Palestinians are designated the real victims and the Israelis the modern day Nazis. In addition there is the theory that Israel should simply not exist. 

THE STATE OF ISRAEL AS A LEGAL ENTITY

Even leaving aside the fact that the Jews ever since their expulsion by the Romans have prayed, “Next year in Jerusalem”, the inescapable fact is that Israel is a legal entity having been sanctified by the League of Nations and the United Nations. The proposition that they should handover to the Palestinians where Hamas is the only real force in that group has, at its kindest, not been thought through. Hamas have as a key constitutional proposition to wipe the Israelis off the face of the earth. Supposing the argument was bought by the Israelis or Hamas won the war and then had mercy and just expelled the Israelis where would they go? Will the campus nay sayers agitate that they all be let into America? Will they accept the eight million political refugees? America and the world’s record isn’t too hot on the subject. In 1938  Franklin Roosevelt convened a Conference in Evian in the wake of Hitler’s genocidal intent with a view to establishing which of the  thirty - eight democratic States would welcome Jewish refugees. The outcome was not one would accept an additional Jew.

ANTI - SEMITISM’S LONG HISTORY

Anti semitism has been around for over two millennia ever since the Jews were expelled from the Holy Land by the Romans at the beginning of the Common Era. Jews who have always been a tiny minority who have been the scapegoat by those who are looking for a group to blame for their woes. Today they represent 0.2% of the world’s population - merely fifteen million of the seven billion people. One theory as to why they stand out is their compulsive desire to excel and give something back to the country that is harboring them.  

The late Rabbi Sacks explained that the rationale for Jewish victimization has changed according to the political situation. In the middle ages it was their religion, in the mid twentieth century it was their race and today it is because the State of Israel exists. Also in the twentieth Century the rationale for genocide was because they were not committed Communists while world wide they were smeared for being both capitalists or Communists. In Germany they were the accused of adulterating the Aryan race.

Today in living memory of the holocaust they are being scapegoated by the extreme left and right and now most savagely in Universities who ostensibly go to absurd lengths not to offend while allowing the grossest form of discrimination to take place. 

WHAT GOT JAY H ELL GOING

An anonymous anecdotal report published in “The Tufts Daily” in May of this year entitled, “The Hidden Anti Semitism Plaguing College Campuses” detailed the experiences of a young student. The latter stated that she was against the Netanyahu Israeli government to the extent that she thought some of their actions were barbaric, but she/he was nevertheless relentlessly targeted because she supported the right of Israel to exist. She remarked that holding Jews accountable for Israeli government actions is unacceptable. This piece perked up concern but after all it was a single anonymous perception where sweeping generalizations were being made. Next there was a report on the CNN web page by a Julia Jassey whose experience at a College in Chicago was simply summed up by the fact that she was harassed and ostracized by fellow progressive students simply because she supported Israel’s right to exist. This pressure made her scared to wear her Star of David necklace. 

Jassy started a support group on social media “Jewish on Campus” which served as a forum for countless others in a similar situation. As a result she received, on line, threats of death as did her family as well as warnings that she would be sexual assaulted, Blake Payton a twenty year old from George Washington University reflected that anti semitism was now emanating from the left as well as the right. Payton, besides being called a baby killer among other outrageous libels confides that he is the recipient of more death threats than his parents would care to know about. Both Jassey and Payton are progressives. Payton says the positivity of social media such as the galvanizing of the Black Lives Matter movement has its negative side as it has been weaponized to put Jewish lives at risk. He reflects that if Hitler would have had Instagram the Holocaust would have happened earlier. 

 In a masterpiece of understatement they both observe that there is no room for nuance. They are shunned because they are Jews who believe that the state of Israel should exist. 

THE FACTS

The landmark 2015 Brandeis study drew on the perceptions of Zionist inclined students from Universities in America and Canada. Approximately three thousand  students who were randomly selected responded. A quarter stated that that hostility towards Israel was a “problem” on their campuses and fifteen percent registered that there was outright hostility towards Jews per se. A quarter were “blamed” for Israel’s actions in the past year while a third claimed they were verbally harassed because they were Jewish. However this sample of Jewish students were distinguished by the fact that were Zionistic. 

According to the Mathew Berger of the national and international Hillel Jewish campus organization in the last two months he has dealt with anti semitism issues on fifty campuses across the two coasts and across, public, private, Ivy League and liberal arts campuses. All reports say that, in the main, a predictor is whether there is an association of “Justice for Palestinians” or a movement to support, BDS - Ban, Disinvest and Sanction Israel on the campus. The other predictor of a rise in anti semitism seems to be correlated with outbreaks of reprisals of Israel against Hamas terrorist attacks. 

It is fair to say that this discrimination is not universal to every campus in America, The Brandeis group did an in depth study in 2017 of four prestigious University campuses where at least ten percent of the undergraduate students were Jewish - Brandeis, Harvard, Michigan State and Penn State. While the narrative referenced several studies where anti semitism had been found at Colleges none of those under purview illustrated any of the negative findings which have appeared so prevalent in both anecdotal and research reports. The overwhelming perception in the 2017 Brandies study was that the climate was far from hostile to Jewish students at those four institutions. 

ANTI SEMITISM ON CAMPUS - A LACK OF EDUCATION?

Notwithstanding the 2017 study the online Journal Inside Education ran a story, in February 2021 entitled “It Is Time We Taught Anti - Semitism”. The author Seth Kogen maintained that anti semitism was a full blown problem on many campuses, where many students can’t even recognize it when it is staring them in the face. Kogen quotes a study from the American Jewish Committee where they found that more than half American students or graduates between the ages of eighteen to twenty nine literally didn’t know the meaning of the word anti semitism. He juxtaposes that study with one of his own where over forty percent of Jewish Americans in the same age cohort had been subject to an anti semitic remark or attack. Over eighty percent also maintained the obvious that anti semitism had increased in America over the past five.years. Their non Jewish peers supported overwhelmingly agreed on statements which are regarded as anti semitic such as “The US only supports Israel because of Jewish Money”.

As a result of these studies Kogen believes the answer to the full blown problem of anti semitism on American campuses is education. He outlines a three phase process supported by the American Jewish Committee. Much like students are orientated on various issues such as sexual consent and identity and other unacceptable discriminatory behaviors they need education in the area of anti semitism. Kogen maintains the current approach to increase funding for Jewish Hillel Houses on campuses to provide a safe haven for the students is not the right solution.

He proposes a three fold orientation in the first year to the facts on the holocaust, what constitutes anti semitism especially as defined by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance and as accepted by the US Department of Education. Students need to respect what their Jewish students perceive to be anti semitic and not define this concept themselves. The article ends with an exhortation for all College campuses to add this to their orientation curriculum.

AT THE END OF THE DAY

For whatever reason anti semitism has risen to be “a full blown problem” in a large number of American College campuses. For whatever reason, not the least of which is resistance by Jews themselves not to make an issue of this, little attention has been focussed on the discrimination.

There is little doubt that the attacks are coming both from the left and right. On the one hand Jews are once again the scapegoats for all that is ill on the other there is deep resentment at the creation of the nation state of Israel.

While anti semitism to a certain extent is an educational problem it flourishes in eras where extremism reigns. The current American environment where there is an attack on democracy itself is fertile soil for this age old racial bias to thrive. Maybe that too is one of the reasons why Jews disproportionately involve themselves in affairs of the nations they live in.

There is a need for tolerance and understanding by all parties thereby thwarting the sprouting of xenophobias including those against the Muslims and more recently the Asian Americans.

One fact is for certain American Colleges, in general, have ignored the growth of anti semitism on their campuses. In fact they could be held to account legally for this breech of conduct under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act for allowing discrimination and be deprived of any Federal funding. In heavens name what are they doing producing lists of examples of "microaggressions” while macro aggressions stare them in their face?