Recently, on May 26, 2021,the Chancellor and Provost of the New Brunswick campus of Rutgers University (my alma mater) issued a statement condemning antisemitism. "We are saddened by and greatly concerned about the sharp rise in hostile sentiments and anti-Semitic violence in the United States. Recent incidents of hate directed toward Jewish members of our community again remind us of what history has to teach us." The statement went on to mention George Floyd, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, as well as Hindus and Muslims. Reference was also made to the latest war between Israel and Hamas, with sympathy being expressed for the loss of lives on both sides, and the displacement of Arabs in Gaza.
The statement went to "denounce acts of hate and prejudice against members of the Jewish community and any other targeted and oppressed groups on our campus and in our community." I get it; it can never just be about the Jews. And, in fairness, Asian Americans have also been recent targets of hate and violence.
The very next day, May 27, 2021, a new statement issued, and was titled "An Apology." Why an apology? "In hindsight, it is clear to us that the message failed to communicate support for our Palestinian community members. We sincerely apologize for the hurt that this message has caused." What? Much of the recent surge in attacks on Jews across the country was done by Palestinians and/or their supporters. And Rutgers is apologizing to them?!
I was incensed. After hearing of the apology, and not yet knowing that the group demanding it was the campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP, an anti-Israel hate group), I fired off an email to the Chancellor and Provost. "I just read that you apologized for sending an email condemning anti-Semitism. Jews are not only the biggest targets of religious hate crimes in our country, but the anti-Semitism and hatred toward Jews has grown to alarming numbers. And you apologize for condemning that? You know very well that if I dared to say 'all lives matter' I would be deemed a racist. Because it's about black lives. But it can't just be about Jews because, as history has taught, Jewish lives do not matter very much."
I continued: There is NO equivalency - FBI statistics regularly show that over 50% of the religious hate crimes target Jews. And with a dangerous rise in antisemitism you can't condemn that without having to make a false equivalency and apologizing? I am now ashamed to tell anyone that I am a Rutgers grad. And I'm disgusted by your cowering to the woke mob." Again, at the time I sent that I was unaware that it was the campus chapter of SJP that demanded the apology.
On June 9, 2021, I received a reply from the office of the President of Rutgers University. I was advised that the President issued a statement which replaced the prior statements of the Chancellor and Provost. It read as follows: "Rutgers deplores hatred and bigotry in all forms. We have not, nor would we ever, apologize for standing against antisemitism." The rest of the brief statement went on to condemn "anti-Hinduism, Islamophobia, and all forms of racism, intolerance, and xenophobia."
That was not the end of the matter. The SJP was outraged and did not accept the original apology. They demanded a new apology, acknowledging the recent "violence (in Gaza) as white supremacist efforts and a Zionist political agenda." They called for cutting off all ties to "the apartheid state of Israel." It's all lies. If it were true, Israel is the only "apartheid" state to have Arabs in all the professions and serving as judges and in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. White supremacist? The Jews in Israel are of many different backgrounds. Many come from Arab countries, some are blacks from Ethiopia. But that is the current left-wing/Marxist talking point. Whoever has greater power is an oppressor and must be identified as white.
This antisemitism in academia is hardly isolated to Rutgers. It is widespread. At the University of Chicago, the Undergraduate Student Government (USG) issued a statement jointly with that campus chapter of SJP, on May 21, 2021. In it, they said that they "stand against the ideology of Zionism that has been used as a justification for the murder displacement and traumatization of the Palestinian people." They went on to state the usual phrase seeking the end of Israel: "From the river to the sea USG supports a Palestine that is free." More lies. More ignoring history. More ignoring that there never was a country of Palestine - ever. And obviously being completely uncaring of the one Jewish state in the world, as Israel sits on much of the land between the (Jordan) river and the (Mediterranean) sea.
The UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs invited none other than Patrisse Cullors, co-founder of Black Lives Matter, to give the commencement address. Why is that a problem? In 2015, Ms. Cullors spoke at Harvard Law School, and she said this: "Palestine is our generation's South Africa. If we don't step up boldly and courageously to end the imperialist project that's called Israel, we're doomed." She calls for the end of Israel, and she gets invited to speak at Harvard and UCLA.
The teachers' union in Los Angeles (UTLA) as well as the teachers' union in San Francisco (United Educators of SF) issued similar, if not identical statements, expressing "solidarity with the Palestinian people and call for Israel to end bombardment of Gaza and stop displacement of Sheikh Jarrah." (See the May 16, 2021 post "Israel at War - Again," for a further discussion of that issue.) The statements by the teachers' unions went on to assert that US tax dollars to Israel "fund apartheid and war crimes."
I am trying to explain that antisemitism exists throughout academia. Worse, the Palestinian propaganda is accepted at the finest academic institutions in the country. Have any of you ever wondered what happened in Germany in the 1930's? Did the Jews not see what was going on? Did they speak up? Or did they think that nothing bad could happen to them - they were citizens of a modern industrialized country, a leader in the arts and sciences.
Here is the son of Elie Wiesel, Elisha Wiesel: "And now, once again, too many of us have shamefully become the Jews of Silence. We have spoken up for every cause but our own." I am proposing that NOW is the time for all good Americans to speak out against antisemitism. It is especially incumbent on all Jews to speak out against the rising tide of antisemitism. Write to your school districts and to your universities. Send letters to the editor of your local papers. Make your voices heard. As a dear friend wrote: "we all have to speak up or Never Again will happen again."
No comments:
Post a Comment