From a Professor @ Cornell:
There is the Israeli student who was physically attacked at my workplace, Columbia University, while hanging posters of the kidnapped babies in Gaza, the Jewish students here who have been spat on, cursed at and received death threats. There are the online threats to rape Jewish women and throw them off a cliff and slit the throats of Jewish men on Cornell University’s campus, my alma mater. (A suspect has been arrested and is being held in jail, with the university president saying the school would respond “rapidly and forcefully” to threats.) There are the student organizations who, in their support of Hamas’ actions, pounded on the doors of a library while frightened Jewish students locked the door and sheltered inside at Cooper Union in Manhattan. There are the Jews supporting Israel who were punched and whacked at Tulane in New Orleans. There is the UC Davis professor who threatened to attack Jewish journalists and their children, ending her social media post with emojis of a knife, a hatchet and three drops of blood. The list goes on and on.
These days, taking the subway to campus or strolling with my family through Central Park, I experience an acute and very specific anxiety: Who among my colleagues, friends and neighbors sees my children as legitimate targets? Who among my community sees the lives of my Jewish and Israeli students as expendable? How can I ever feel safe myself at a campus whose leadership fails to condemn the rape of young women and other horrors perpetrated by Hamas on October 7.
The horrific rise of antisemitism on US campuses is a wakeup call for action. Contact every politician in your city and state. Join your PTA. Write an op-ed. Call your alma mater. File a lawsuit. We must hold accountable the leaders of institutions who, in their silence, embolden those who wish to exterminate an entire people. We must tell the heads of our universities that vacuous public relations stunts creating antisemitism task forces are meaningless when they refuse to condemn support for terror within the campus community. We must send the world a clear message: Our lives are just as valuable as anyone else’s.
At the same time, we Jews and Israelis can – and must – stand in unity with the Palestinian people and work toward peaceful coexistence. Even in our darkest times, we must foster empathy for every person currently striving for safety and dignity. One can support a free Palestine without being antisemitic or anti-Israeli. One can fight for a sovereign Palestinian state and feel deep pain at the anguish of innocent Palestinian children while also publicly expressing a loathing of Hamas. I know, because I do. I know, because many students and faculty at Columbia have told me that they want to support the Palestinian people yet refuse to march in hate-filled protests that celebrate Hamas’ crimes.
What we cannot do is accept the existence of internationally recognized terror organizations that explicitly call for our demise. We cannot accept pro-terror student groups in the US that celebrate the atrocities committed by these organizations. We can never accept torture and murder of civilians as a legitimate act of resistance.
This fear that has engulfed me is not new, of course. Every Jewish person carries it within them, regardless of whether they are Orthodox, Reform or a humanist atheist like myself. This fear is as old as the existence of the Jewish people, as old as our persecution. It is a fear that lurks in the dark basements of every Jewish mind, a basement whose door we usually don’t allow ourselves to prop open. It is a fear that Jewish children inherit from their parents and Jewish parents try to shield their child from.
Last week, crying in front of complete strangers on Columbia’s campus, it was that exact fear that howled through my throat. It was the fear of history repeating itself, the fear of the world’s apathy in the face of the largest Jewish death toll on a single day since the Holocaust. I was encompassed by the darkness of that hidden basement, crying for the world to listen: Never again is now.
The Staff: From the history we were taught in school many years ago it seems Nazi's (Jew Haters) are back and widespread. Millions of Jews were gased because the German people stood by and allowed this to happen. Is this what is coming to America? I fear it is unless "We the People" get off our collective ass and put a stop to it.
Jesus was a Jew, REMEMBER.
No comments:
Post a Comment