As Jew-hatred has surged, some still cling to the liberal allies and institutions that have betrayed them, preferring instead to oppose a pr
by Jonathan S. Tobin
It was long apparent that elite universities were a lost cause for those who opposed these toxic ideas, but their post-Oct. 7 conduct removed all doubt from the question. They didn’t merely tolerate antisemitism; many of them encouraged it, tacitly or openly. At this point, it would be foolish to believe that they can or will change. As even the leaders of Columbia University, a place where the treatment of Jews after Oct. 7 was particularly egregious and the first major institution to be targeted by the Trump administration for defunding, have made clear, they have no intention of abiding by the terms offered by the government in exchange for holding off on threats of losing billions of dollars.
Still, the liberal leadership of the organized Jewish world at places like ADL and AJC, as well as thought leaders like Lipstadt and Summers, feel that siding with Trump against antisemites is a bridge too far for them.
They cite bogus concerns about free speech or due process as reasons to oppose Trump’s efforts to deport foreign students who advocate for Jewish genocide. Those assertions fall flat when you realize that the deportations are for illegal conduct, not speech. Just as important, they view the survival of these elite institutions threatened with defunding for their egregious conduct as far more important than anything else, including rolling back the tide of left-wing Jew-hatred.
Partisanship over their children’s safety
Still, they have the nerve to declare that opposition to antisemitism, even the unprecedented post-Oct. 7 left-wing variety, and the push to rid these schools of doctrines that enable it is bad for the Jews. In their view, siding with Trump, even on matters of Jewish safety, is bad because … well, the “bad orange man” is always wrong, even when, quite obviously, he’s right.
This is nothing less than an effort to convince American Jewry that their partisan liberal sensibilities always take precedence, even if it means their children’s lives have to be made miserable. They are asking Jews to side with campus antisemites and institutions that have written them off as unworthy of the protections given to any other minority community. As even many of them have conceded, it would be inconceivable for any of these schools that are threatened with being stripped of federal funds to tolerate, let alone tacitly encourage, those who advocate for violence against minorities like blacks or Hispanics. Yet Jews are supposed to tolerate this because the alternative is to approve of a president liberals feel obligated to oppose, even when he is doing something they’d approve of if it were directed toward ensuring the safety of others.
This is disgraceful in and of itself. It is also a repudiation of some basic principles implicit in the observance of Passover.
The story of a people that went from bondage and oppression to freedom is one that has inspired humanity for millennia. Like the Bible and the entire history of ancient Israel, the Exodus from Egypt has been adopted by many other peoples who quite naturally identified with the Jews because of their own suffering or because they, too, saw themselves as having a Divinely inspired mission.
But for Jews of all sorts, religious and non-religious, the Passover seder—the most commonly practiced Jewish ritual—is an annual opportunity to reconnect with their faith and their history. And it is particularly meaningful during those periods when they are under attack, as, sadly, has been a commonplace occurrence over the last two millennia.
