I’m Michael A. Cohen, and this is Truth and Consequences: A no-holds-barred look at the absurdities, hypocrisies, and surreality. If you were sent this email or are a free subscriber and would like to become a paid subscriber, you can sign up here.
If money is tight or you’re already up to eyeballs in subscriptions, here’s another idea — share this article. Email it to a friend (or even an enemy). Post it on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. Text or email it to your wife, husband, mother, father, brother, sister, or even your creepy second cousin who lives in Morningside Heights. Word of mouth is often the best way to build support for a creative endeavor, so if everyone here sends it to just one person … it would be much appreciated!
What About The Jews?
Let’s be honest: for a post titled “This week in anti-Semitism,” we are currently living in a target-rich environment.
Anti-Semitic incidents are on the rise across America, and in the latest campus clash, pro-Palestinian protesters who are directly targeting Jewish students with hateful anti-Semitic rhetoric have overtaken Columbia University’s campus. Not surprisingly, a coterie of liberals/leftists are siding with the protesters — and remain disturbingly indifferent to what is happening to American Jews on college campuses.
That brings me to a column last week by Will Bunch, an op-ed columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Bunch is a liberal writer and often quite good. He is agitated, however, about the silencing of campus demonstrations and the political climate on college campuses.
Welcome to a new kind of tension that has gripped American colleges and universities in the most divisive year on campus since the dawn of the 1970s. The wave of protests that began with the first shots of the Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 7 has morphed into an age of paranoia. It’s been marked by increasingly tougher penalties or confusing new rules for students still wanting to speak out against Israel’s invasion of Gaza, with some schools banning indoor protests or preventing students from posting political messages on their dormitory doors.
Do you know what’s missing from this cri de cœur?
Jews.
Bunch seems utterly indifferent to how these demonstrations are affecting American Jews and their families, which he could have discovered via a quick Google search.
An overwhelming majority of Jewish parents of high school juniors and seniors say the October 7 onslaught on Israel and its aftermath have affected which college their children plan to attend, according to a new survey commissioned by the Jewish campus group Hillel International.
Many families have ruled out schools over antisemitism concerns, the survey found, and a relatively small but significant proportion — 19 percent — said they are considering eschewing higher education for their children altogether.
The findings dovetail with a different survey, conducted by the BBYO Jewish youth movement and released in February, showing that two-thirds of Jewish teens said antisemitism on college campuses had become an important factor in their college choices. Some teens said they had changed their aspirations or plans for next year because of incidents on specific campuses since October 7.
… Hillel says its survey, which was sourced from parents on its own email list as well as a previous study conducted by the Jewish Federations of North America, is the first to measure changing attitudes of Jewish parents about campuses since October 7. Nearly all respondents — 96% — said they are “concerned about the increase in antisemitic incidents on college campuses since October 7.”
When one in five members of a vulnerable minority group are questioning whether they should send their kids to college, that should be a reason for concern, especially on the left.
But not for Bunch, who, as far I can tell, doesn’t quote any Jewish students in this column. In fact, he openly questions whether some of the complaints about anti-Semitism are real. Even worse, he assigns malign motives to those raising them.
Critics of the new campus speech restrictions are struggling to be heard over the louder narrative around increased allegations of antisemitism — some real, some disputed — since the Oct. 7 start of the war, as well as a right-wing political movement that sees an opening to wage a wider war against higher education.
… The students and professors I spoke to for this column universally condemned antisemitic attacks against Jewish people or their religion, yet they also voiced deep frustration that legitimate criticisms of the Israeli government and attacks on civilians, or even anodyne statements like “Let Gaza live,” are also being branded as antisemitism.
He also darkly suggests that the claims of anti-Semitism are part of a larger political agenda.
American University … justified its indoor protest ban by stating that “recent events and incidents on campus have made Jewish students feel unsafe and unwelcome” … The language enshrined in today’s DEI regime has, unexpectedly, become the tool for college presidents who are under intense pressure from major donors and GOP lawmakers to respond to the antisemitism pressures and who want to avoid becoming the next Magill or Gay.
Let’s put aside the toxic, anti-Semitic implications of suggesting that “major donors” are applying pressure on university presidents (it’s a coded way of saying “Jewish donors” without making it so direct). But the notion that anti-Semitism is a tool used by Jews is a long-standing anti-Semitic trope. It’s similar to the charge wielded by generations of anti-Semites to argue that Jews have used the Holocaust to evoke sympathy — echoes of which are evident in the response to October 7.
If Bunch had bothered to speak to Jewish students, he might have discovered that concerns about anti-Semitism and Jewish safety on campus are real (a November 2023 poll showed that 3/4 of Jewish college students had witnessed or experienced anti-Semitism on campus)
But I want you to imagine, during the George Floyd protests, a liberal columnist suggesting that some accusations of racism are dubious or that they are part of a hidden political agenda used by Black civil rights groups.
I obviously can’t prove it, but I strongly suspect it would never happen. Indeed, the kind of person most likely to make this argument is a right-wing political columnist.
However, for Jews, a different set of rules applies. Context must be provided for accusations of anti-Semitism. When we suggest that certain speech is anti-Semitic, no one bats an eye at those who push back by suggesting it is part of a pro-Israel political agenda.
It’s troubling to see Bunch, who is generally an excellent columnist, utilize these tropes (unconsciously, one hopes).
I hate to pick on Bunch, but his column is emblematic of a larger and disquieting trend on the American left since October 7 — the utter indifference to how the response to Hamas’s terrorist attack has catalyzed anti-Semitism in the United States.
It doesn’t seem to register with those defending the protesters at Columbia and other campuses that American Jews are feeling very afraid right now. There is little talk about balancing the free speech rights of protesters with the need to safeguard Jewish students from anti-Semitic rhetoric and violence. As in Bunch’s piece, sympathy only lies with their protesters. And in their sympathetic view of pro-Palestinian protesters, few seem to be asking if these demonstrations have enabled this climate of rising anti-Semitism. There is no introspection about whether pro-Palestinian activists have, in their zeal, crossed the line into words and behavior that makes Jews feel unsafe.
Instead, pro-Palestinian activists are presented as free-speech warriors oppressed by college administrators.
Meanwhile, this is what is happening on Columbia’s campus.
Pro-Israel counterprotesters stood on the Sundial on Saturday evening waving Israeli and U.S. flags and playing Israeli and Jewish music and the U.S. national anthem from a loudspeaker. In front of the Sundial, an individual held a sign reading “Al-Qasam’s Next Targets” with an arrow pointing at the protesters. Al-Qassam is the military wing of Hamas.
Other individuals at the Sundial referred to the Israeli flags as “Nazi flags,” according to another video.
And this …
According to a video taken Saturday reviewed by Spectator, a pro-Palestinian protester on campus near the 116th Street and Amsterdam Avenue gates tried to burn an Israeli flag, and another individual appeared to throw an object at the head of Jonathan Lederer, CC ’26, who was part of a group of counterprotesters.
“You have blood on your hands,” one person shouted. “You’re a genocidal maniac,” another said.
And this …
As the students were exiting campus from the 116th Street and Amsterdam Avenue gates on Saturday night, there were calls from individuals outside of campus of “Yehudim [Jews], yehudi [Jew], fuck you,” “Stop killing children,” and “Go back to Poland, go back to Belarus,” according to a video reviewed by Spectator.
David Lederer, SEAS ’26, told Spectator he felt “unsafe.”
“For the last six months, they’ve been chanting, ‘We don’t want no Zionists here.’ Now they’re openly saying, ‘Go back to the gas chambers,’” Lederer said.
And this …
Parker De Dekér, CC ’27, told Spectator that on Wednesday night, when he was walking by Lerner Hall wearing a yarmulke, someone sitting at the tables outside of Lerner shouted, “You keep on testifying, you fucking Jew.” When he exited campus, he removed his yarmulke.
“That was an emotional thing because I never would consider having to take off my religious symbolism as a means of safety,” De Dekér said.
De Dekér continued that as he was helping a friend move his luggage through Lerner Hall on Thursday evening while wearing a yarmulke, one individual said, “We are so happy that you Zionists are finally leaving campus,” and another said, “You wouldn’t have to leave if you weren’t a supporter of genocide.”
These are not isolated events. For the past six months, there have been repeated reports of incidents like these across college campuses.
In a political world in which anti-Semitism mattered to the American left (particularly anti-Semitism that emanates from the left), this would be a major reason for concern.
But as we all know, Jews don’t count.
Happy Passover to those who celebrate!
Here’s a Jewish student at Columbia who paints a different picture of life on campus. I don’t share to suggest there is no anti-semitism on campus or that all Jewish students feel safe. Of course there is and of course they all don't. It’s impossible for me to know what’s going on from afar especially when A says one thing and B says the opposite.
https://zeteo.com/p/i-am-a-jewish-student-at-columbia
I wonder what the response would be if people stood outside mosques and screamed at random Muslims, "You're responsible for slaughtering, raping and kidnapping 1,500 Israelis on October 7." Because this is what these people are doing when they scream at random Jewish people and then expect people to act like they're being righteous.