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| Columbia activist Mahmoud Khalil |
It has also become difficult to maintain my antipathy for a
president who I see doing so much good for my people. But I will make no
apologies for what I believe is the truth about the man. My antipathy is still
there but so too is my gratitude.
President Trump is a complicated man who has a mean streak
that he unleashes at the drop of a hat. He will not tolerate disloyalty in any
way, shape, or form. If you don’t agree with him, he is going to disparage you
publicly. If you crossed him in the past, you are going to pay a
price—sometimes a very heavy one.
On the other hand as I recently indated I believe that
many of his views – even the controversial ones
- come from a good place. I believe him when he says he wants to make
America great again. The only problem with that is what he means by ‘great again’.
Depending on who you ask (conservative or progressive) it
could for example mean either turning back the clock to a time when ‘men were
men and women were women’ - that changing one’s sex or same sex sexual relations
was seen as an aberration and/or a moral failure. Or to go forward to the
progressive idea that one’s sex at birth doesn’t matter and one can choose to
be whichever sex that suits them. Nor does it matter whether one sexual partner
is of the same sex or not. What matters is what sex one wants to be – or be with.
And that society has an obligation to respect those choices.
Another area of dispute dividing us along those lines is about
how far the concept of freedom of speech should go. Nowhere is this being
played out more than it is in our own Jewish circles. And no where has it been more
clearly demonstrated with respect to the Jewish people than it has in the
hallowed halls of academia. The issue is about freedom of speech that inspires antisemitism.
Oddly enough the vast majority of the Jewish people are liberal
and have chosen free speech over combating antisemitism.
It is well known by now that the Trump administration has tried
to rid the liberally oriented DEI policies from academia and replace them with merit
based policies. Universities have this far resisted doing that in the belief that
diversity adds value to the education their students.
In the case of the Israel and the Jewish people - versus Palestine and the
Palestinians, universities have brought greater representation of Palestinian
thought to their faculty and student body. Only a fool would not recognize the
result of this policy has been the vilification of Israel to the point of
calling for its eradication. When Hamas succeeded in its deadly October 7th
attack, it was cheered by said faculty along with the students they have
influenced. Some of them even Jewish!
When Israel retaliated in defense with the aim of eradicating
Hamas – recognized as a terrorist organization worldwide, Israel was condemned
for the ‘innocent’ civilians that were killed by bombing Hamas command and control
centers intentionally placed in hospitals and schools in Gaza. Protesters
called for the destruction of Israel - to be replaced by Palestine - from the
river to the sea.
Jewish students on campus were severely harassed by many of these
protesters, and yet they were defended by their schools’ administrators as exercising
their free speech rights. All while the ADL reported an over 80% increase in antisemitic
incidents on college campuses last year. Which didn’t seem to phase them.
Trump has put an end to that, He has detained and attempting
to deport the protest leaders and Hamas supporter here on student visas or
green cards that are abusing that privilege. And withholding billions of dollars
in federal grants to these schools until they comply with his crackdown on antisemitism.
One might have thought that Jewish Americans would all be on
the same page here and appreciate the effort by the government to rid the
scourge of antisemitism from college campuses.
But that is not at all what happened. The Jewish establishment
as represented by heterodox leaders says otherwise. They side with the schools and
accuse the Trump administration of stifling free speech. Accusing them of the ‘nefarious’
underlying motive of undoing all the good generated by DEI polices these schools
have adopted.
I wish I could say I’m surprised at heterodox leadership for
being so blinded by progressive values that they have forgotten the people they
claim to minister to. But I am not surprised Paying lip service to fighting antisemitism
doesn’t help a Jewish student get to class past an angry mob shouting antisemitic
epithets at them.
And yet 90% of American Jewry are either secular and care little
about issues that specifically affect the Jewish people. Or they are adherents
of one of the heterodox movements and tend to agree with their religious
leaders’ progressive perspectives. Neither of which helps the Jewish student
being harassed on campuses all over the US.
All three major non-Orthodox denominations (Reform, Conservative,
and Reconstructionist) have supported a letter condemning Trump’s crackdown on campus
antisemitism, saying they rejected ‘any polices or actions that foment or take advantage of antisemitism
and pit communities against one another’. They say it undermines democracies
norms, due process, and First Amendment rights.
I am not a member of CJV and do not always agree with them. Unsurprisingly,
heterodoxy has chosen left wing politics over the safety and dignity of Jewish
students.
But they are not alone, as noted by JTA:
Eric Fingerhut, the CEO of the Jewish Fedrations of North
America released his own letter. Writing privately to leaders of local Jewish
fedrations, he said the anti-Trump letter did not adequately’referecne the
diverse views we hold’ in the Jewish community. Citing the ADL, OU, and conference
of Presidents who did not sign the anti Trump letter. Mr. Fingerhut also correctly
criticized these heterodox organizations for coming out their open letter
during Pesach when Orthodox Jews take the entire week off from work.
I’m glad to see that the opinions of other Jews - outside of
the liberal Jewish establishment matters to some of its more prominent members.
If there is a lesson to be learned from all this it is that heterodox
leaders can stop pretending that their values are anything more that the values
of progressivism. And that, sadly, they are willing to throw Jewish students
under the bus in service to those values.
