What It's Like Being Jewish at Harvard - WSJ Editorial

[question everything]

Antisemitism has emerged on America’s college campuses recently in a way that might seem sudden, but it has been growing for years. The Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance last week published a report that compiles testimony, much of it anonymous, from 50 current and former Jewish students and faculty. Here are a few of the disturbing things they said:

• “Harvard signals that Jews are only acceptable so long as they don’t fully embrace Judaism.” The only way to cope is “not to dress ‘too Jewish,’ request the university accommodate Jewish holidays, speak Hebrew, or, God forbid, actually support Israel’s right to exist.”
• “It’s so much harder for the students who are visibly Jewish. I have a friend who wears a kippah who was physically cornered by a group of students demanding he denounce the so-called genocide.”
• “Because of my Jewish and Zionist identity, people think I am a monster. I have heard people say, ‘Zionists should be slain.’ I have heard people say, ‘You can’t possibly believe an Israeli, they are all settlers.’”

The report says bullying of Jewish students took place well before Oct. 7, when Hamas massacred Israelis civilians and precipitated the current war in Gaza. But since then, the problem has become “louder, prouder, and more visible.” While fellow students have been responsible for much of the problem, the Jewish alumni also document how it’s fueled by the Harvard professoriate and the school itself.

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Progressives claim to draw a line between anti-Zionism and antisemitism, but the two are impossible to disentangle in these student encampments, amid the chants about freeing Palestine “from the river to the sea.” As one student put it: “Zionist is a code word for Jew.” Harassment is the same no matter the language.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-its-like-being-jewish-at-harvard-israel-students-406242e4?st=4cupa9if9r3spa9&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

[LiberalFighter]

1. Harvard needs to be cleansed of the Jew haters.

There probably needs to be a campaign to out the Jew haters at Harvard.

I have to wonder what their problems is?

Jesus wasn't s Christian. He was a Jew.

Jews are a small percentage of the population.

[DFW]

2. I wonder what the hell has gotten into our so-called academia

My grandfather was one of (if not the) first in my family to go to college. He somehow got into Harvard without a cent, worked his way through as a janitor. His son, my dad, went to Harvard, too. So did my brother and sister. Of all the campus adventures the all told, there was never a peep about anything like this.

The school I went to in Philadelphia had a large Jewish presence. There were activities everywhere, and Jewish kids in my class, in my main activity (the Balalaika Orchestra), pretty much everywhere. I didn't think anything of it any more than I thought of the large number of Catholics where I spent part of my high school (Spain). It's just what they were. My two roomies, friends from my senior year on high school, were black Baptists. Again, big deal. So what? No skin off my back. Why belonging to one of these groups is grounds for intimidation and harassment is obvious: low hanging fruit. If you can't spit in Netanyahu's face, and least you can spit in theirs. Sure, and that makes you a hero. (no, it doesn't)

I feel sorry for the kids that got so caught up in the hate that they were drawn into it so deeply that their academic careers were temporarily (or permanently) ruined. But I feel just as badly for the Jewish kids who get cursed out, spit on, or roughed up without their assailants knowing anything about their sentiments in the matter. I somehow doubt that, if asked, any of the Jewish students would advocate the violent deaths of Palestinian non-combatants. From the celebrations of the Hamas actions of October 7th, I can't make such a sweeping assumption about the Palestinian "patriots" with the sudden generously financed "protests." I realize that Billy Joel's lyrics were spot on: "The King and the Queen went back to the Green, but you can never go back there again." 1968 was chaotic, home-grown and organic. This is none of the above.

Whatever way the news is leaning on any given day, crap like what is suddenly happening all over the place--this is not spontaneous. I just don't buy it. Like Roger Ailes said at the inception of Fox "News:" we have an agenda. I think the same can be said about much of the "protest" movement. Some will believe what the shadowy organizers and financiers are saying. Some actually believe Trump knew what he was doing as president, too. I believe neither.