Time to Engage

When people asked me how bad the protests were at my daughter’s graduation from the University of Michigan two weeks ago, truth be told, at first I didn’t engage with the question. It was her graduation. She is thrilled, and as her father I am so very proud of her. If you want to ask me about my daughter, if you want to hear what it felt like to have her graduate from my alma mater, if you know someone who will hire a kid with a double major in music and cognitive science – in those conversations, I would readily engage. But to talk about those masked people who barged into her music school graduation calling for intifada and accusing Israel of genocide, to talk to you about those who chanted throughout the mainstage graduation – in those conversations I would not indulge. Covid stole many of these kids’ high school graduations and their freshman year in college. October 7 diminished their entire senior year. These kids are my heroes and I’ll be darned if I will grant the haters of Israel the post-factum satisfaction of detracting from my daughter’s joy or my nachas. I parried, I deflected, I redirected. I am proud of my graduate; I am proud of all our graduates. They deserve every mazel tov we can give them.

I also, to be sure, didn’t engage because I was not sure how to respond. The blessing and curse of being a rabbi is that I am trained to see every side of an issue. Upset as I was that the protesters weren’t arrested or even disciplined, if they had been, I am pretty sure violence would have erupted and commencement would have been shut down entirely. We have all seen the violence on campus after campus, in the encampments and in the graduation ceremonies. I understand, tactically speaking, why a policy of non-confrontation and de-escalation may have been believed to be the best of the imperfect options.

Besides, as many of you know, I am not a “sky is falling,” “this is 1938” kind of guy. I am a big believer in freedom of expression (at least outside of my synagogue). I think we send our kids to college to sharpen their minds and toughen them up – which means engaging with ideas that sometimes make them uncomfortable. I may not like what the protestors are saying, but I believe they have the right to say it. The open exchange of ideas is an American value and a Jewish value. I am also not one who believes that every critic of Israel or even non-Zionist is an antisemite.  Some of the most formidable intellects of our time, Jewish intellects, have given voice to non-Zionist formulations of Jewish identity. As I have said on many occasions, I think that some parents get overly worked up regarding campus politics so as to avoid taking responsibility for the threat to Jewish identity for which they are actually responsible. If the energy parents are investing in their present fears about Jewish life on campus had been spent on Jewish life at home – on the production of proud, literate, and loving Jews – everyone, one could argue, would be better off.

And . . . I get it. Tens of thousands of Gazans have been killed and millions displaced. The battle lines for Rafah are being drawn in real time. The horrors of October 7 are never to be forgotten and the plight of the hostages remains at the forefront of my concern. I believe Israel has every right to root out Hamas – a self-proclaimed genocidal group whose stated purpose –before October 7, on October 7, and after October 7 – is to destroy Israel and kill Jews. I pray for and am deeply proud of the soldiers in the IDF – my own family included – and I am horrified, just horrified, at the loss of innocent human life. To feel otherwise would be inhuman. And while I am not a politician or military strategist, the moral dimensions of Israel’s campaign to free the hostages and root out Hamas is complicated by the government’s inability to present a viable “day after” plan. There is much to protest about how Israel is prosecuting this war, and it is being said not only in the International Court of Justice and the courts of campus and world opinion, but on the streets of Israel itself and, if you followed the news this week, by Israel’s own defense minister.  

Israel is not perfect – far from it. I don’t think every critic of Israel is a closet antisemite. I believe in the free exchange of ideas. I get that there are tactical considerations in responding to protesters, and I mourn the loss every single innocent Palestinian life. For these reasons, among others, I have held my tongue when people have asked me what I think about the eruption of anti-Israel protests on campus, online, and around the country and how to respond to them.

That ends today. For the sake of Zion, I will not be silent, for the sake of Jerusalem and Jewish people, I will not be still.

The present protest movement laying the blame for Israel’s war against Hamas at Israel’s feet, accusing Israel of genocide, and calling for the liberation of Palestine exists beyond the bounds of civil discourse, beyond reasoned and passionate criticism of the Israeli government. It should be understood and named as the present-day incarnation of the world’s most ancient hatred – antisemitism. Whatever their initial intent may have been, no matter who is participating in, funding, or enabling the protests, their effect has become an incontrovertible and irredeemable expression of Jew-hatred that poses a threat to Jewish lives, Jewish institutions and ultimately, to the very promise of America itself.

At the risk of stating the obvious, Judaism is more than a faith. It is connection to a history, a heritage, and a land. No different than the sabbath or keeping kosher, whether or not it is part of your daily Jewish practice, being connected to Israel is a foundational building block of what it means to be a member of the Jewish people. To argue that there is no Jewish claim to the land, to argue that the Jewish people have no right to sovereignty and self-determination, to call for the land from the river to the sea to be free of Jews, all that is historically inaccurate, blind to thousands of years of history, and a frontal attack on a central pillar of Jewish identity and thus on Jews themselves. In their hostility to Zionism, in denying Jews the right to self-defense, in the very use of the word “intifada”– a movement in which terrorists would commit indiscriminate acts of violence against Israelis – these protestors show themselves for who they are, crossing beyond the boundaries of civil debate and revealing that it is hatred of Jews, not the defense of Palestinians, that is their primary motivation.

In the months since October 7, time and again I have pointed out the obscenity of October 7 denialism, the hypocrisy of those who would turn Israel from victim to aggressor, the bankrupt morality of those who would call for a ceasefire but not for the release of hostages, and the threat of a world that would somehow find common cause with Hamas, a terrorist movement funded by the very people who would see Jews killed and Israel and America destroyed. The offenses run the range. The invocation of antisemitic tropes demanding “Zionist donors and financiers out of Jewish campus life,” as was done at Hunter College. The calls at multiple campuses to block any program or person with any Israel or Zionist affiliation – from Fulbright funding to semesters in Israel, Birthright trips and Israeli academics. And now, as is the case at numerous universities, the call to ban any campus organization, including Hillel or Chabad, that has Israel engagement as part of their programmatic mission. Jew-hatred is not monolithic. It is a spectrum from the genteel to the most vulgar, and the movement from one form to the next happens easily, quickly, and imperceptibly until, of course, it’s too late.

It would all be unbelievable if it weren’t true – a state of affairs which would never be tolerated against any other people. Can you imagine masked individuals calling for Black people to return to Africa as there have been those calling for Jews to return to Europe? Would Chinese Americans or their culture ever be banned due to offenses of the Chinese government – of which, incidentally, there are actually many? Of course not. But against Jews it is somehow OK. How is it that Zionists and, by extension, Jews are somehow the object of reproach and not any other group? It is a double standard that betrays a much deeper rot. In our world so quick to police microaggressions of the smallest kind, how is it possible that verbal or physical attacks against Jews must always be understood in some broader context? Story after story of Jewish students being harassed or bullied, online and in person, and made to hide and suppress their views if not their identity. Acts of aggression and intimidation against any student whose sympathies put them in common cause with Jewish self-determination and self-defense.

And lest someone think that I am unfair in painting too broad a brushstroke, that there are Jews in the protests so they can’t be antisemitic, or that the desperation of the hour justifies desperate measures of protest, to you I say, “Grow up.” Take agency for yourself. If you believe in a ceasefire and you want the release of the hostages, then say so. If you believe in a Jewish homeland but believe that some of Israel’s policies are misguided, then say so. Say so, because if you don’t say so, then I am left to lump you in with those calling for an end to Israel, who believe that Jews have no right to national self-determination. And if you are a Jew participating in the protests, I would ask you how to square your protest chants not just with the facts of October 7 but with the facts of the last two thousand years of Jewish history. Some of my best friends are Jewish too, but that doesn’t make them adroit defenders of the Jewish people. Why would you let guilt by association align you with some lowest common denominator “river to the sea” slogan that may mean a two-state solution to you but for others means the genocide of Jews? Think for yourself, think critically, speak with nuance. Not everything can or should be distilled into a cardboard placard or Instagram post. It is easy and dangerous to live in line with the world’s opinion and follow the crowd. What takes courage, what shows character, what our world needs are individuals willing to move past slogans, embrace complexity, build dialogue, and recognize that no person or people is in possession of absolute truth. To take a stand even when it is unpopular is what it means to be a Jew – literally, a “Hebrew.” The Hebrew word ivri denotes  a person willing, like Abraham, to stand on one side while the rest of the world stands on the other.

I am, as you may sense, a little fired up. But ultimately it is not the disruptors and encampments who are the objects of my ire, but the administrators who are entrusted to maintain safety and establish campus culture. Because whether it is a public or private university, there is a point when peaceful protest mutates into aggression and intimidation, and when the right to free expression interferes with another’s right to education. Rules not enforced cease to be rules. Understandable as a policy of de-escalation may be, to fecklessly turn a blind eye to masked marauders, to negotiate with those who stand in breach of the very values you purport to defend, to cave to their nonsensical demands, as has happened on numerous campuses, to cancel graduations – all that is a form of mob appeasement that has and will only yield the worst possible outcomes, outcomes that come at the expense of Jews. There is a reason that this week’s Torah reading of Emor concludes with a sharp punishment that ostensibly exceeds the transgression at hand. It sends a message. As famed basketball coach Red Auerbach once counseled Celtics center Bill Russell, university administrators will keep getting roughed up until they learn how to throw an elbow. It is time for our institutions of higher learning to reclaim their primary purpose – education, the open exchange of ideas – an ideal presently being trampled on by the illiberal orthodoxies of campus culture.

And it is not just university administrators; it is us, too – Jews – who need to take a stand. You know the old joke. Two Jews, Goldstein and Cohen, are standing in front of the firing squad. The commandant asks if they have a last request. Goldstein replies, “Can I have a blindfold?” Cohen turns to him and says, “Goldstein, stop making trouble.”

Friends, it is time to make trouble. It is time to let the world know that we will no longer let the freedoms of others come at our expense. We need to throw flags on the field. We need the world to know that there is a cost to antisemitism. In our schools, in our workplaces, in our alma maters, in our social circles, now is the time to activate our networks; now is the time to get politically, legally and philanthropically involved. Campus leaders need to know that in the face of aggression against our people, they do not have our support. It won’t happen by way of the kindness of others. As is said of Democrats, Jews need to stop bringing proverbial pillows to what is really a knife fight. Every business, university, school, or association presently responsive to the well-being of Jews is that way because a Jewish person has stood up and said something. Now is the time to make our voices heard. When the Second Gentleman comes here on Tuesday night to speak about antisemitism, I want this sanctuary full, with you, your children, and grandchildren. I want him and the world to know that we are listening and watching and that we are responding, supporting those who support us and not supporting those who don’t. Jews have fought long and hard to arrive at this station and it may be for just such a time as this that we are here. Not tomorrow, today. Now is the time to engage.

The most well-known tradition of every commencement ceremony is the moving of the tassel from one side of the mortarboard to the other. There are innumerable explanations of this custom: the crossing of a threshold, the transition from one stage to the next, the distinction between current students and graduates. The best explanation I heard from a graduation speaker the other week is that it signals the gap between the world as it is and as it ought to be, what we see today and the vision we hold for tomorrow. In shifting the tassel, the empowered graduate sets off to close the gap between our broken world and its unrealized potential.

The chasm between our world as it is and as it ought to be is daunting, but it is not insurmountable. I am so very proud of my daughter – as a young woman, as a Jew, and of course, as a Wolverine. She stands empowered and ready to help this world reach its unrealized potential. The question we face is whether we, her parents’ generation, are willing to do the same.  For the sake of Zion, for the sake of the Jewish people, do not stay silent. Find your lane, get involved, and fight, fight, fight to make this world safe for our people.

ADL Blog, “What Do Anti-Israel Student Organizers Really Want?” May 15, 2024