Volume 67, Issue 3

Students Respond to Anti-Semitic Campus Activity
By Shmuel Honig

During the past two months, both the intensification of anti-Israel violence on college campuses and the emergence of a national academic movement encouraging divestment from Israel have ignited a simmering passion among Yeshiva students, converting dormant anxiety about campus anti-Semitism into flurries of activity. As an expression of this new activist spirit, on October 12-13 close to 100 Yeshiva and Stern students bused to the University of Michigan to protest the Second National Student Conference on the Palestine Solidarity Movement, a gathering that asserted that “racism is inherent in Zionism” and that aimed to encourage divestment from Israel by corporations and universities.

“Going to a rally like this and coming from New York, I feel it is a Kiddush Hashem,” commented Yeshiva College senior Seth Jacobson, who helped organize Yeshiva’s contribution to the rally. “Even though there were [fewer] than 100 people from New York at the rally, the fact that we came from so far away makes a statement that this is an important issue, and that the American Jewish community will not tolerate incitement against Jews or against Israel.” The underlying concern regarding the divestment campaign, beyond any obvious economic ramifications, is the purported comparison between the Israeli government and South African apartheid of the twentieth century.  A similar campaign was launched in the 1980s in an attempt to isolate the corrupt regime of the latter, and the current movement against Israel is of the same basic nature. 

Although this was the first anti-divestment protest that Yeshiva students were involved in, it certainly was not unique in and of itself.  To the contrary, the issue of initiatives for divestment from Israeli companies has created a tremendous scandal in the academic realm.  Most notable are the happenings at Harvard University, where faculty, staff, students and alumni joined their counterparts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to draft an online petition to divest from Israel.  This development spurred a second petition in opposition to the first, in which other members of the Harvard and MIT communities expressed their own perception of the original appeal as “one-sided” and “distorted.” 

In response to these recent petitions, Lawrence H. Summers, President of Harvard, delivered a controversial speech on the first day of classes condemning what he saw as a growing trend of anti-Semitism both at Harvard and other universities. "Serious and thoughtful people are advocating and taking actions that are anti-Semitic in their effect if not their intent," claimed Summers. Inevitably, his remarks triggered a verbal boxing match between advocates of both parties. "His remarks were very important," proclaimed Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, because "what's frightening is that we've been seeing the rise in anti-Semitism again, and there are so few people willing to stand up and say anything." 

The rise in initiatives on Yeshiva’s campus is becoming more important as well.

Among new activities that YU students are participating in is a project coordinated and run by the Zionist Organization of America.  The Campus Activist Network, spearheaded by the ZOA at the start of the current academic year, is a “forum [that] provides an opportunity for Israel Club leaders from various colleges to collaborate ideas and share information about strengthening Israel awareness and fostering the necessary enthusiasm for supporting our brothers and sisters in Israel,” said Tuvia Lazar, a member of the Yeshiva Israel Club who has so far attended two CAN meetings.  Other universities involved include Columbia University, Brooklyn College and Queens College. 

Finally, work has already begun to create a new national magazine devoted primarily to political issues both here and in Israel.  America and the Middle East, though also under the auspices of the ZOA, will be run exclusively by and for college students in America.  The editor-in-chief, Sy Syms senior Nephtuli Taubenfeld, is enthusiastic about the journal’s potential.  “The primary goal of the magazine is to rebut the anti-Israel propaganda that’s been circulating around college campuses by educating Jewish students about political issues that they may not be aware of, thus giving them the necessary tools to launch their own campaign about what’s really going on in the Middle East,” he commented.  If the scope of the journal can reach non-Jewish circles and perform the latter task as well, even better. 

The journal is meant to be an intercampus publication, incorporating articles written by students from all over the country.  Taubenfeld is looking for students who will “write about topics that need to be explained.  The focus of the magazine will be Israel, but will include articles about American political issues indirectly affecting Israel as well.”  No date has been set for the first publication; word of the project is only now beginning to spread around colleges nationwide. 

It is perhaps surprising that, despite the constant presence of anti-Israel propaganda on college campuses throughout last year, Yeshiva students have only recently assumed the responsibility to combat it. Yeshiva University Israel Club President Mordechai Raskas points to a violent protest at Concordia University in Montreal on September 9, at which pro-Palestinian rioters prevented a speech by Binyamin Netanyahu, as a possible turning point for student opinion. “Certainly there were events previous to the incidents at Concordia that deserved our response, or at least our recognition of their gravity,” observed Raskas, “but nevertheless, the events at Concordia did serve as a wake-up call to an unfortunate trend that seems to be pervading the academic world. We must remember that Montreal has traditionally been a hot spot for anti-Israel sentiment due to the large Palestinian and pro-Arab population that exists there.  Perhaps what occurred at Concordia was a magnification of the trend as opposed to an accurate indicator of it,” he added. 

However one perceives the lack of initiative of last year, there can be little doubt that this year the story has been different.  As conflict in Israel shows no apparent sign of cooling down, and tensions in academic America continue to mount, more and more students in Yeshiva are beginning to feel a sense of urgency to act.  “I don’t think [incidents such as those at Concordia] will happen again at other universities,” Raskas speculated cautiously.  “But perhaps it could come to that.  Trends like these are always unpredictable.”  Society may not be able to predict the future, but it does have the ability to shape it.     

What do you think? Click here to send a letter to the editors.
All content is copyright © Yeshiva University Commentator.