We Get Letters!
A reader writes in and raises an age-old question: Am I The A**hole? for calling Columbia protesters anti-Semites.
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“Very Fine People”
I received an email from a reader last week that was, how shall we say, pungent.
My daughter goes to Columbia, participated in the protests, and is NOT an anti-Semite, so fuck you. One less fucking email to go through every day. I enjoyed the music, though, so thanks for that.
This reader was responding to a particular sentence in my last post about anti-Semitism and the ongoing university protests over the war in Gaza.
Peaceful protest and the ability to freely express one’s political beliefs are fundamental to our democracy, even if I think that in this situation, the people protesting are vile anti-Semites and ultimately (albeit indirectly) putting Jewish lives at risk (and I believe that characterization applies to most of the protesters on Columbia’s campus).
While I generally don’t like it when readers tell me to go f**k myself, I think it’s fair to ask whether he had a point. Was I being unfair to the pro-Palestinian protesters by painting with too broad a brush? Quite simply, am I being the asshole here?
To answer this question, I need to start by saying that painting with a broad brush was my intention. The demonstrations at Columbia have been unambiguously anti-Semitic and have put the safety of Jewish students at risk.
As I noted recently, the animus directed at Jewish students — because of these protests — is real and terrifying. From the Columbia Spectator:
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.
… In another video from Saturday night, individuals at the Sundial shouted at the pro-Israel protesters, “Go back to Europe” and “All you do is colonize.”
… 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.
… 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 … 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.”
There’s also the fact that one of the leaders of the protests was recorded telling Columbia administrators that “Zionists don’t deserve to live.”
But does that mean that every person who participated in these protests — some of whom are Jewish — is anti-Semitic? Not necessarily, and here, my angry former subscriber has a point. Some of what we’re seeing here is the complicated process of groupthink, FOMO, ritualistic activism — and young people wanting to fit in.
Since October 7, the cause of the Palestinian people — and revulsion over the war in Gaza — has become a cause celebre on the left, and nowhere more so than on college campuses. It’s hardly surprising that politically engaged and activist young people would glom on to the movement. It’s what many of the cool kids are doing.
This is how you get videos like this one, which shows an NYU protester asked why she is protesting, and literally having no clue.
As Ian Leslie put in his excellent substack, “The Ruffian”:
They are at the protest because they want to be in a group of their peers; to show that they care; to be part of a big and exciting communal event. They’re not gathering in order to protest; they’re protesting in order to gather.
It’s a natural instinct. Compared to our closest primate relations, humans have a strong propensity to copy the behaviour of others, even when we don’t know why we’re doing so. Anthropologists call this “over-imitation”, and regard it as the basis of human culture and learning. Over-imitation seems to have two main benefits. The first is that it’s an efficient way to pick up the skills we need to survive and thrive. The second is that it’s a form of group bonding. The anthropologist Harvey Whitehouse refers to different brain states associated with each: the “instrumental stance” and the “ritual stance”. In the instrumental stance, we’re focused on getting something done with others. In the ritual stance, we’re focused on affiliation.
Protests appeal to the ritual brain more than to the instrumental one. They might not get much done, but they provide the kind of social succour that’s been in short supply … Protests, like other rituals, reinforce a sense of community by promoting synchrony. People chant, sing, and march together. As they do so, they stimulate feelings of affiliation: a large body of research finds that performing activities in synchrony tends to increase people’s perceived connection to others. It’s a good feeling; an endorphin rush. At a time when young people seem to be feeling isolated and anxious, and when social media has raised the risk of ostracism, losing oneself in a group of fellow protesters must seem like a blessed relief.
From this perspective, calling everyone who participated in these protests an anti-Semite is unfair. Some are along for the ride and may truly not understand why chants like “globalize the intifada” and “from the river to the sea” or labeling every Jew a “Zionist” is upsetting to Jewish students and even threatening to them.
I’m of the view that a lot of public anti-Semitism comes from people who don’t understand why they things they are saying are offensive. Here’s a good example from last August.
Jamie Foxx has issued an apology for an Instagram post he shared on Friday. The post, which Foxx later clarified was in reference to a personal issue, had been perceived as being antisemitic by some followers.
The now-deleted post from Foxx read: “They killed this dude name Jesus … What do you think they’ll do to you???! #fakefriends #fakelove.”
In response to the accusations, Foxx took to Instagram on Saturday, writing “I want to apologize to the Jewish community and everyone who was offended by my post. I now know my choice of words have caused offense and I’m sorry. That was never my intent.”
“To clarify, I was betrayed by a fake friend and that’s what I meant with ‘they’ not anything more. I only have love in my heart for everyone. I love and support the Jewish community. My deepest apologies to anyone who was offended.”
Maybe in his heart of hearts, Foxx hates Jews. I have no idea. But I am more than willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Not everyone understands or appreciates that certain tropes and language can be anti-Semitic. Personally I’m more interested in educating on this issue than vilifying and to Foxx’s credit when it was pointed out to him that what he wrote could be interpreted as anti-Semitic he offered a fulsome apology.
But here’s the rub: this defense only takes you so far. College students often say dumb, inappropriate things, and I understand the impulse to give them a pass. However, they are also adults and are part of a university community that includes Jewish students. If they are participating in protests that utilize anti-Semitic rhetoric and are threatening to Jewish students — and they are told by Jewish students that these demonstrations are offensive and threatening to them — then they have a responsibility to educate themselves. Moreover, they have an obligation police these demonstrations to ensure that they make their argument while not veering into rank anti-Semitism. That doesn’t seem to be happening.
To put this in perhaps simpler terms. When neo-Nazis marched in Charlottesville in 2017, and President Trump said there were “very fine people” on both sides, he was pilloried — and rightly so. Most progressives were not interested in parsing a neo-Nazi rally and giving a pass to those who perhaps weren’t entirely on board with all the anti-Jewish hatred. So I’m not sure why we should give a pass to those those who participate in protests today that include anti-Semitic rhetoric.
Many of those defending these protesters simply wave away the feelings of Jewish students — or don’t engage with it at all, as if somehow it’s all made up, or it’s excused by the fact that a few token Jews are participating in these protests. It's as if the concerns raised by Jewish students aren't valid and don't need to be addressed. It's a form of Jewish erasure and feeds the notion among so many American Jews that, for many progressives, anti-Semitism and our vulnerability simply doesn’t register. It really isn’t that hard to protest the war in Gaza, while also acknowledging that Israel has a right to exist and that blood libels like “genocide” are inappropriate. That this isn’t happening is both an example of how extremists have overtaken the protests, but also that those who should speak up and moderate the language at these demonstrations are failing to do so.
I’ll grant my former subscriber that it was unfair of me to label the majority of those protesting at Columbia — including his daughter — as anti-Semites. But that doesn’t me she gets a pass either. Or to put I another way: I might be the asshole .. but I’m not necessarily wrong.
Noem Update
Let’s check in and see how Kristi Noem’s clean-up is going.
Oof
Musical Interlude
Amen. We need more of such cool-headed analysis. And we need the chaos to stop before these folks give the election to Trump.
Crazy column today, Mike!
The issue at hand with your letter writer wasn't whether you were being an asshole for calling anti-Palestinian slaughter protestors vile antisemites. The issue is whether you really believe that or were being too hyperbolic. Your last paragraph in that section is unclear. In one sentence you write that you were unfair but then you end with - I'm not wrong.
And to support your contention you turn to an actual European colonist. That's wild to me! Ian Leslie was born in the Dutch East Indie Colony. His father even returned there after WW2 seemingly to pick up where his colonist ass left off. And what was Mr. Leslie's message? Anti-Palestinian slaughter protestors are like monkeys. Yikes!
Is Bernie Sanders a "token" and a vile antisemite?
You didn't want to talk about UCLA but any thoughts on Jonathon Yudelman?
Any thoughts on Shimon Boker, Vice Mayor of Beersheba and Likud International Director, who said today about Rafah where the IDF has herded over a million refugees from northern Gaza - "There are no uninvolved civilians there. You have to go in and kill and kill and kill."
Any thoughts on Blinken and Romney stating pretty clearly that we must ban Tik-Tok to help Israel control the narrative? Is that playing into the antisemitic trope that Jewish people have outsized influence in traditional media?
Are the thousands of Israelis protesting in Tel Aviv for a ceasefire vile anti-semites?
Any thoughts on old man Cholera? He cannot wait to make an appearance. Uncountable numbers of people stuck in close quarters with no sanitation, no healthcare and very poor nutrition make a fertile environment.