Uncategorized
A Florida bill attacking ‘critical theory’ in higher education has the state’s Jewish academics worried
(JTA) — The University of Florida has more Jewish students than any other public college in the United States — and last week, one of them reached out to a professor, fearing that it would no longer be possible to study Jewish topics there.
Citing a graphic that had been making the rounds on social media, the student asked if it was true that a new bill working its way through the state legislature would remove all “Jewish Studies courses, majors and minors” in the state. The graphic was shared by several people with large online followings, including comedian D.L. Hughley, who has more than 750,000 followers on Twitter.
“I love my major and I can’t imagine switching to anything else,” the student wrote, according to Norman Goda, director of the university’s Center for Jewish Studies.
Goda wasn’t able to console the student. Like other Jewish academics in Florida who spoke to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, he doesn’t know whether H.B. 999 would affect Jewish studies on the state’s college campuses. Though the bill’s author — a Republican state representative — says that won’t be the case, the bill’s language is much less clear.
That’s because the bill’s current wording would forbid the state’s public higher education institutions from teaching or offering any major or minor based in “methodology associated with Critical Theory.” That prohibition, say academics and other critics of the bill, would make teaching courses in Jewish studies impossible — and would also outlaw many other fields in higher education.
Exactly what the bill means by “critical theory” is unclear. To academics, the term refers to a tool for analyzing society and culture, created in the 1930s by German Jewish academics, that encourages people to view the world through power structures, and to consider why they fall short. To political conservatives, it’s a relative of “critical race theory,” a watchword for those who want to inhibit classroom instruction about racism. An earlier version of H.B. 999 mentioned only critical race theory, not the umbrella theory.
“These people don’t know what they’re talking about,” said a Jewish faculty member at a Florida university, who requested anonymity due to fear of retaliation from the state government, regarding the lawmakers behind H.B. 999. “You’re putting people who don’t know what critical theory is, but have heard the words — and now you’re putting them in charge of universities.”
A university that completely purged such ideas from its classrooms, the anonymous faculty member said, “would be non-existent.”
The bill in question is the latest example of conservative-led state efforts to snuff out culture-war modes of thought like critical race theory and gender studies, often referred to euphemistically by lawmakers as “divisive concepts” in education. Such efforts have occasionally ensnared efforts to teach Jewish history and the Holocaust.
Attempts to legislate the classroom are particularly potent in Florida, where Republican governor Ron DeSantis, a likely presidential candidate, has frequently stated his desire to ban “woke” concepts from being taught in the state. (DeSantis has stated he will wait to see H.B. 999’s final form before he decides whether to sign it, but in a discussion with college administrators last week he continued to rail against what he called the “ideological agenda” of campus diversity, equity and inclusion programs.)
The state recently rejected the curriculum for a new Advanced Placement African-American Studies course in high schools, forcing the College Board to rework the class. Florida is also home to several active conservative “parents’ rights” groups that have lobbied to remove objectionable books and clubs from public schools.
While most legislation in this realm to date has targeted what’s taught in K-12 public schools, this bill and other efforts in Florida have gone a step further by seeking to regulate the world of state-funded higher education — creating what critics say are new and dangerous threats to academic freedom, with broad and vague wording that leaves efforts to research and teach a variety of disciplines in doubt.
“This bill would cripple the long-standing freedom universities have to design and teach a curriculum based on the development of academic disciplines,” Cary Nelson, an emeritus professor at the University of Illinois and past president of the American Association of University Professors ,who has taught multiple courses on Jewish issues, told JTA.
In a recent subcommittee hearing on the bill, Republican state Rep. Alex Andrade, who co-authored the legislation, said, “I believe that state universities should be focused on teaching students how to think, not what to think.” He said the bill’s banning of “radical” ideologies referred to “a system meant to direct and promote certain activism to achieve a specific viewpoint.”
Efforts to limit the material taught to children and college students are underway in several states. But Florida has an especially large population of Jewish students. The University of Florida stands atop Hillel International’s ranking of public colleges with the highest proportion of Jewish students, and the University of Central Florida has the third-largest. Florida State University, Florida International University, Florida Atlantic University and the University of South Florida also rank in the top 60.
H.B. 999 would affect education at those schools in other ways, too. The bill, which recently advanced to committee, would overhaul the state’s post-tenure review process, so that instead of checking on a faculty member’s research productivity every five years, as is currently the case in the state, tenured professors could face reviews “at any time for cause” including “violation of any applicable law or rule.”
The result, one academic in the state said, would be “open season on faculty,” who could be out of a job if their university’s board — which, in public schools, is beholden to the governor — disagrees with their syllabus.
Andrade rejected the idea that H.B. 999 would undercut Jewish studies in Florida.
“Outsiders are wrong. Ethnic studies are not affected by the bill either by the bill’s intent or the bill’s language,” Andrade wrote in an email to JTA, accusing the bill’s critics of “lying and claiming that Florida’s leaders have tried to ban teaching black history in schools.”
The state’s only Jewish Republican legislator, state Rep. Randy Fine, did not return a JTA request for comment on whether he supports the bill. Fine has promoted similar culture-war legislation in the past, including a bill he co-authored in February that would prohibit all K-12 schools in the state from referring to either students or employees by pronouns that do not correspond to the sex they were assigned at birth.
With a Republican-dominated House and Senate, some form of H.B. 999 seems likely to reach DeSantis’ desk. (A parallel bill in the state Senate does not contain wording on critical theory.) But there is strong opposition from the academic community. Groups including the American Historical Association, the American Association of University Professors and Florida’s statewide faculty union have harshly condemned the bill and urged lawmakers to oppose it.
The American Historical Association’s statement on the bill this month calls it a “blatant and frontal attack on principles of academic freedom and shared governance central to higher education in the United States.” More than 70 academic, historical and activist organizations co-signed the statement.
The executive committee of the Association for Jewish Studies signed a different statement authored by the American Council of Learned Societies, decrying the bill as an “effort to undermine academic freedom in Florida.”
“If it passes, it ends academic freedom in the state’s public colleges and universities, with dire consequences for their teaching, research, and financial well-being,” the statement said of the bill. “Academic freedom means freedom of thought, not the state-mandated production of histories edited to suit one party’s agenda in the current culture wars.”
Asked for comment on the bill, Warren Hoffman, the executive director of the Association for Jewish Studies, pointed to the statement.
Rachel Harris, director and endowed chair at Florida Atlantic University’s Jewish Studies program, is in her first semester at the university, having just arrived from the University of Illinois. “I’m now wondering if that was a terrible mistake,” she joked. (Harris is spending this term in Israel, researching on a Fulbright fellowship.)
Still, Harris said she was “confident” that legislators would “continue to support educational commitments in the state,” noting that Florida has a Holocaust education mandate for K-12 public schools. Her Boca Raton university is currently building an expanded center for Jewish and Holocaust studies, funded by private donors. H.B. 999 in its current form would prohibit universities from teaching critical theory concepts even when such programs are privately funded.
Despite what he described as a few students at the Jewish Studies center who are concerned about the new bill, Goda said he did not think the legislation would change the experience of Jewish students on his campus.
“Jewish kids these days are really choosing universities based on whether or not Jewish kids feel comfortable there,” he said. “And I would argue that [the University of Florida] is a very welcoming campus for Jewish kids overall. There are strong Jewish institutions associated with the campus.”
Instead, he feels the bill’s real effects would be felt in the state’s ability to recruit faculty and staff while its legislators jeopardize academic freedom, tenure and other lodestars of the humanities. He said, “The real question to me is how and in what way it’s going to be enforced.”
—
The post A Florida bill attacking ‘critical theory’ in higher education has the state’s Jewish academics worried appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
The stepchildren in the upcoming Israeli elections
דעם 27סטן אָקטאָבער וועלן פֿאָרקומען די וואַלן אין ישׂראל. 38 פּאָליטישע פּאַרטייען האָבן זיך פֿאַרשריבן צו פּרובירן געווינען וואָס מער פֿון די 120 מעגלעכע ערטער אין דער כּנסת. אין די פֿריערדיקע וואַלן, האָבן קאַנדידירט 40 פּאַרטייען. לויט דעם געזעץ, מוז מען געווינען גענוג וואַלן אויף כאָטש פֿיר (4) דעפּוטאַטן — דאָס הייסט 3.25% פֿון דעם סך־הכּל פֿון אַלע מענטשן וואָס האָבן אָנגעגעבן „כּשרע“ שטימעס.
אין די פֿריערדיקע וואַלן האָבן 70.83% פֿון אַלע בירגער אין לאַנד מיט שטימרעכט (4,764,742 פֿון 6,788,804) דערמעגלעכט 10 פֿון 40 פּאַרטייען אַרײַנצוטרעטן אין דער כּנסת. דעמאָלט האָט מען געדאַרפֿט האָבן בערך 153,000 שטימען כּדי אַ פּאַרטיי זאָל קענען אַרײַנפֿירן זייערע ערשטע פֿיר דעפּוטאַטן אין דער כּנסת. הײַנט, מיט 4 יאָר שפּעטער, וועט מען מסתּמא דאַרפֿן באַקומען נעענטער צו 200,000 שטימען.
ווי עס זאָל ניט זײַן, קעמפֿן די גרויסע פּאַרטייען פֿאַר יעדער שטימע, און באַמיען זיך פּטור צו ווערן און דערשטיקן די מעגלעכקייטן פֿון יענע קלענערע פּאַרטייען וואָס וועלן אפֿשר ניט דערגיין צו דעם מינימום פֿון 3.75% — און דערבײַ ׳אַוועקפּטרן׳ שטימען פֿון זייערע טראַדיציאָנעלע, סעקטאָריאַלע שטיצערס (למשל פֿרומע-פֿרײַע, רעכטע-לינקע, ייִדן-ניט-ייִדן).
הײַ-יאָר איז בכלל אַ גרויסער מיש-מאַש פֿון פּאַרטייען. פֿאַראַן נײַע שפּילערס וואָס ענדערן דאָס דעמאָגראַפֿישע און סעקטאָריאַלע פּנים פֿון געוויסע טראַדיציאָנאַלע פּאַרטייען, אָדער פֿון נײַע פּאַרטייען וואָס זײַנען ערשט אויפֿגעקומען. למשל, צו דער אַראַבישער/איסלאַמישער פּאַרטיי „רע׳ם“ האָט זיך צוגעשטעלט אַ ייִד — יואבֿ סגלוביץ (סעגאַלאָוויטש) — וואָס איז אַ געוועזענער הויפּט פֿון דער ישׂראל־פּאָליציי, אַ פֿיגור מיט וויכטיקע דערגרייכונגען.
„עמך ישראל“ – שטיפֿקינד פֿון די רעכטע
אויף דער רעכטער זײַט פֿון דער פּאָליטישער מאַפּע איז אַנטשטאַנען אַ נײַע פּאַרטיי, „עמך ישראל“, פֿון עופֿר ווינטער, אַ געוועזענער גענעראַל־בריגאַדיר. זײַן שותּף, דער צווייטער אין זײַן רשימה, איז יוסוף חדד (כאַדאַד), אַ קריסטלעכער אַראַבער וואָס איז אין דער צײַט פֿון דער צווייטער לבֿנון־מלחמה פֿון 2006, געווען אַן אָפֿיציר אין דער גולני דיוויזיע פֿון צה״ל. קעמפֿנדיק פֿאַר ישׂראל, איז ער שטאַרק פֿאַרוווּנדיקט געוואָרן. ער איז אויך באַקאַנט אויף דער סאָציאַלער מעדיאַ בײַם העלדיש פֿאַרטיידיקן מדינת־ישׂראל קעגן אַנטי-ציוניסטן און אַנטיסעמיטן. ווינטערס ציל איז, אַרײַנברענגען פֿרישע בלוט אין די רייען פֿון די רעכט-געשטימטע פּאַרטייען.
די פּאַרטיי ווערט פּראָיעקטירט צוצונעמען שטימען פֿון דער גרעסערער „ליכּוד“־פּאַרטיי, געפֿירט פֿון בנימין נתּניהו. לויט די מערסטע שטים־אַנטקעטעס ביז הײַנט, וועט „עמך ישראל“ ניט דערגרייכן די געהעריקע 3.75% און אַלע שטימען וועלן דערפֿאַר פֿאַרלוירן גיין. עס ווערט דעריבער איצט געפֿירט אַ גאָר שטאַרקע אַקציע פֿון דער ליכּוד פּאַרטיי אַז „עמך ישראל“ (און אויך נאָך עטלעכע קליינע רעכט-געשטימטע פּאַרטייען) זאָל זיך אָפּזאָגן פֿון אָנטיילנעמען אין די וואַלן. עופר ווינטערס קעגנערס האָבן שוין מצליח געווען אָפּצושרעקן איינעם פֿון די 4 וויכטיקסטע קאַנדידאַטן פֿון „עמך ישראל“, וואָס האָט זיך די טעג אָפּגעזאָגט פֿון קאַנדידירן.
„מילואימניקים„ (רעזערוויסטן) מיט „כּלכּלית„ (עקאָנאָמיע) – „וואָס“, ניט „ווער“
ווען מע קוקט אויף אַ גראַפֿיש בילד פֿון ווי די 120 כּנסת־ערטער ווערן אײַנגעטיילט צווישן די פֿאַרשיידענע פּאַרטייען — לויט די טעגלעכע שטים־אַנטקעטעס — זעט מען דאָס אײַנגעטיילט אויף דרײַ חלקים. פֿון איין זײַט, זעט מען די מעגלעכע צאָל קאַנדידאַטן פֿון דער איצטיקער קאָאַליציע (וואָס נעמט אַרײַן „ליכּוד„ צוזאַמען מיט די חרדישע און אַנדערע רעכט־געשטימטע פּאַרטייען). פֿון דער אַנדערער זײַט, זעט מען די צאָל מעגלעכע קעגנער (סײַ צענטריסטישע, סײַ לינקע, סײַ רעכטע פּאַרטייען) וואָס ווילן פֿאַרבײַטן די איצטיקע רעגירונג פֿון נתּניהון. דער דריטער בלאָק באַשטייט פֿון די אַראַבישע פּאַרטייען. פֿאַראַן אָבער — אין געוויסע פֿון די דיאַגראַמעס — אַ פֿערטע גרופּע, וואָס געהערט צו אַ ספּעציפֿישער פּאַרטיי וואָס פֿירט גאָר אַן אַנדערע פּאָליטיק פֿון די אַנדערע.
צוויי נײַע פּאַרטייען לייגן אָבער פֿאָר עפּעס גאָר אַנדערש פֿון די טראַדיציאָנאַלע רעכטע און לינקע פּאַרטייען: יועז הנדל (יאָאַז הענדל) פֿון דער „המילואימניקים“ (רעזערוויסטן) פּאַרטיי בשותפֿות מיט ירון זליכה (זאַליכאַ) פֿון דער „הכּלכּלית„ (עקאָנאָמיע) פּאַרטיי. זיי וואַרפֿן אָפּ די פּאָלאַריזירטע געדאַנקען און האָבן אֶ פּלאַטפֿאָרמע וועלכע שטעלט דעם טראָפּ אויף „וואָס“ מע דאַרף טאָן. דעם „ווער“ עס דאַרף דאָס אַדורכפֿירן איז ווייניקער וויכטיק – ספּעציעל וואָס אין דער הײַנטיקער פּאָליטיק איז שוין ניט קלאָר ווער עס איז אויף וועלכער זײַט פֿונעם פּאָליטישן ספּעקטרום.
די פּאַרטיי האָט זיך פֿון אָנהייב געוואַקלט בײַ 3.75%, אָבער אין די לעצטע וואַל-אַנקעטעס זעט אויס אַז זיי וועלן ניט נאָר דערגרייכן די געוווּנטשענע פֿיר דעפּוטאַטן, נאָר זיי שטרעבן אויף אַפֿילו נאָך מער. דאָס קען גוט זײַן דערפֿאַר, וואָס צו דער רעזערוויסטן־פּאַרטיי איז צוגעשטאַנען עינת ווילף — אַ באַגאַבטע פֿיגור וואָס איז זייער אָפֿן־האַרציק מיט אירע געדאַנקען. (מע קען זי אָפֿט טרעפֿן אויף דער סאָציאַלער מעדיאַ פאַרטיידיקנדיק מדינת־ישׂראל קעגן אונדזערע שׂונאים).
ווילף האָט אַליין געשאַפֿן אַ פּאָליטישע פּאַרטיי „עוֹז“ וואָס איז זייער ציוניסטיש געשטימט, און וועמענס אידעאָלאָגיע פּאַסט זיך גוט צו צו די פֿון אירע שותּפים הענדל און זליכה. יעדער ישׂראלדיקער בירגער דאַרף דורכמאַכן אַ מדינה־דינסט (ניט דווקא אַ מיליטערישע): מענער און פֿרויען, ייִדן, און ניט-ייִדן. זי דריקט אויך אויס אַנדערע געדאַנקען ווי אַזוי צו פֿאַרבעסערן דעם מצב סײַ וואָס שײַך דער זיכערקייט, סײַ דערציִונג, סײַ דער ישׂראלדיקער עקאָנאָמיע. איר פּאַרטייס נאָמען, „עוֹז“, איז אינספּירירט פֿון די ווערטער „יהוה עוז לעמו יתן יהוה יברך את עמו בשלום“ (ספֿר תּהילים) …
און נאָך אַ זאַך: יועז הענדלס פּאַרטיי, „די פֿאַראייניקטע ליסטע“, איז די איינציקע, אויף וויפֿל מיר ווייסן, וואָס האָט אַ לאָזונג אויף ייִדיש. אין אַ געוויסן זינען קלינגט עס ווי עפּעס, וואָס דער אַמעריקאַנער פּרעזידענט דזשאָן עף. קענעדי וואָלט געזאָגט: „פֿרעגט ניט ׳ווער׳, נאָר ׳וואָס׳ מע מוז טאָן פאַר דער מדינה.“
The post The stepchildren in the upcoming Israeli elections appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
In Oct. 7 blame game, former Shin Bet chief sues Netanyahu ahead of elections
(JTA) — The bitter battle that has raged between Israel’s security and political establishments over who bears responsibility for the failures ahead of the Oct. 7 attacks is kicking into high gear as Israel prepares to hold its first election since the Hamas invasion in 2023.
This week, former Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar upped the stakes by filing a defamation lawsuit against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The premier has blamed the intelligence head for the failures leading up to the attack even as many in the security establishment have pointed the finger at Netanyahu. Bar in his lawsuit lists a litany of occasions Netanyahu allegedly ignored or rejected advice that might have prevented the attacks.
In the run-up to the national vote on Oct. 27, Israeli media have been preoccupied with reports of intelligence that was purportedly shared with top government officials ahead of the attacks. What Netanyahu knew about the Hamas threat before the invasion — and when he knew it — has become a central issue in the campaign and a line of attack for his political rivals.
Gadi Eisenkot, leader of the Yashar party and Netanyahu’s leading challenger, said in response to the lawsuit that “Netanyahu was warned and did not act,” and that he would not allow Netanyahu to “evade the truth.” Opposition leader Yair Lapid said that “Netanyahu can no longer claim that he didn’t know,” while Yair Golan, leader of the left-wing “The Democrats” party, said Netanyahu’s responsibility for “the worst massacre in Israel’s history is direct and clear.”
A range of political and security leaders who were in charge at the time have assumed responsibility and left their posts: Among them are Bar, IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and military intelligence chief Aharon Haliva.
Not Netanyahu. He has rejected accusations that he is responsible for the failures even as he has prevented the establishment of a state commission of inquiry to investigate those responsible. He has argued that such a commission, whose members would be appointed by the president of the Supreme Court, as is traditionally the case in Israel, would be biased and would not enjoy public trust.
Beyond blaming the security establishment, Netanyahu has also sought to shift responsibility onto political rivals and previous governments. He has pointed to the actions, or failure to act, of political opponents, including Eisenkot, Naftali Bennett and Benny Gantz, when they held senior positions, as well as Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, as factors that contributed to the Oct. 7 massacre.
In the lawsuit itself, Bar accuses Netanyahu of “trying to rewrite history and completely evade his responsibility for the events of Oct. 7.” The filing sets out a series of alleged warnings Bar gave Netanyahu before the attack, as well as Netanyahu’s alleged refusal to adopt Bar’s recommendations for offensive action in the months leading up to the massacre.
The lawsuit details more than a dozen instances in which Bar allegedly warned of Hamas’ growing strength and its intentions to attack Israel, alongside repeated recommendations that Netanyahu take more aggressive action against the group.
Among the warnings cited in the lawsuit, Bar said he presented Netanyahu in January of 2023 with his assessment that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar wanted a multifront campaign against Israel.
In February, Bar allegedly sent Netanyahu a personal letter warning that terrorist organizations saw an opportunity to act and that the combination of Israel’s internal divisions and instability in the Palestinian arena could bring the country closer to a “perfect storm.”
In July, Bar said he told Netanyahu directly that he was conveying a strategic warning of war.
In September, he allegedly warned that Hamas wanted to escalate the conflict during October.
Netanyahu responded to the lawsuit in a post on X, addressing one specific claim in the filing: that he had never given Bar his personal phone number.
“Ronen, are you serious? You had my red phone number and could have called me immediately, as all heads of the security establishment do,” Netanyahu wrote. “How many lives could we have saved if only you had called in time.” Netanyahu has claimed recently that had security officials awoken him earlier on Oct. 7, he would have somehow stemmed the attack.
Bar’s suit also alleges that he consistently recommended initiating offensive operations against Hamas, including a “preemptive strike” and targeted killings. According to the lawsuit, Netanyahu strongly opposed those recommendations because he wanted to keep Hamas as a secondary concern. Bar also said Netanyahu reprimanded him for dealing with “strategy.”
“The defendant had been in a state of slumber for many long months beforehand and refused to wake up despite the alarm bells the plaintiff sounded in his ears incessantly,” the lawsuit alleges, alluding to Netanyahu’s plaints that he was not awoken early on Oct. 7. “The gap between the professional warnings and recommendations the plaintiff presented to the defendant and the response the defendant gave them is beyond comprehension.”
The defamation claim focuses in particular on a post Netanyahu published on X late last month, in which he claimed that Bar “knew about the real danger” in the early hours of Oct. 7 but chose not to wake him or take other preventive measures. Netanyahu accused Bar of trying to shift responsibility for “all of Ronen Bar’s failures and crimes” onto him.
In a press statement after filing the suit Wednesday, Bar called Netanyahu’s post a “blood libel” and announced that he was suing for 3 million shekels ($968,500) in damages and seeking a correction of Netanyahu’s statements.
Bar repeatedly emphasized in the lawsuit that he was not seeking to absolve himself or the Shin Bet of responsibility for the failures that led to the Oct. 7 massacre. Rather, he said, the suit was a response to Netanyahu’s attempt to “shift the responsibility exclusively onto Bar.”
“I waited quietly for three years for the establishment of a commission of inquiry that would finally expose the Shin Bet’s work, alongside its failures, in the face of an ongoing blood libel,” Bar said.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post In Oct. 7 blame game, former Shin Bet chief sues Netanyahu ahead of elections appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
When ‘Nuke Jews, Save Lives’ note was left at the Center for Jewish History, its message was a window into antisemitic thinking
As hate manifestoes go, this one was terse: “Nuke Jews, Save Lives.”
Our security team at the Center for Jewish History, where I serve as president, recently discovered a notecard bearing this hateful message by our front entrance, just blocks from Union Square in Manhattan.
The Center for Jewish History was created a quarter century ago to help scholars research the Jewish past and disseminate that knowledge to the public. An institution that is sometimes likened to the national archives of Diaspora Jewry, the Center houses more than 65 million documents and artifacts painstakingly collected by its distinguished partner organizations. Countless books and articles on Jewish history have been published using this archival source material, all pursuing the goal of historical understanding.
This hateful note was a direct rebuke to our mission and a window into antisemitic thinking. The declaration confirmed antisemites’ tendency to see their hatred as virtuous. By claiming that “saving lives” was their ultimate goal, the author sought to avoid any suspicion of ulterior motives. Hitler did something similar in Mein Kampf, writing that by combating the Jews he was “fighting for the work of the Lord.”
The historical record also teaches that while the charges brought by antisemites against Jews vary considerably, they serve a consistent function. Whatever threat Jews are accused of posing – whatever the reason why “lives” need to be “saved” – the accusation channels society’s deeper fears. These fears often differ between the left and right political positions, but they converge in the antisemite’s belief that a solution rests with solving the Jewish “problem.”
Jews have traditionally believed that understanding history can solve the problem of antisemitism. From antiquity to modernity, Jews have penned eloquent, historically informed rebuttals to antisemitic accusations, believing that public opinion can be swayed by truth. Whether Flavius Josephus’s reply to the hostile claims of the Egyptian scholar, Apion, in the first century C. E. or the Central Association of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith’s response to the Nazis in the 1930s, history shows that Jews have consistently sought to defend themselves through rational argument.
The Center for Jewish History is no different. We regularly organize public programs on a range of topics in the interest of fostering knowledge and dialogue. Of late, out of necessity, we have been sponsoring events that address the history of antisemitism.
Shortly before the hateful note was left on our doorstep, the Silicon Valley investor, Michael Moritz, was in conversation with The New York Times Company CEO, Meredith Kopit Levien, about his new book, Ausländer, which movingly chronicles the tragic story of his German Jewish family in the Nazi era. The book also raises discomforting comparisons about Jew hatred yesterday and today.
The event was a bittersweet affair. While we were gratified that our fully packed auditorium validated our institutional mission, the conversation’s main takeaway – that what was old is new again – was sobering.
That feeling was further compounded when we encountered the words, “Nuke Jews, Save Lives,” one week later. We could easily have thrown up our hands in despair at the futility of our mission. That, of course, would have served the antisemite’s goal.
Antisemitism’s impact is akin to that of the heckler’s veto. By wielding crude, simplistic slogans in the spirit of Der Stürmer’s tagline, “The Jews Are Our Misfortune,” antisemites use hate asymmetrically to undermine cultural and intellectual traditions assembled over centuries.
Antisemitism validates the core idea of Brandolini’s Law – that the work needed to refute calumnies dramatically exceeds the work needed to disseminate them. It calls to mind Edmund Burke’s remark in Reflections on the Revolution in France that “rage and phrensy will pull down more in half an hour, than prudence, deliberation, and foresight can build up in a hundred years.”
But my money is on archives.
The 65 million documents housed at the Center do not just numerically exceed the four hateful words left on our doorstep many times over. They testify to the authority of archives. Ever since they were invented in antiquity, archives have wielded tremendous power. Not for nothing does its Greek root, “arch,” denote “ruler” (as in “monarch”).
When belief in truth is challenged by a flood of lies, the archive offers a redoubt. It guards the facticity of history so that people of good faith can defend themselves against their enemies.
The campaign against antisemitism is complex and requires arguments and allies, resources and resolve. It cannot be won easily and may never be won decisively. But one thing is for sure: it cannot be won without facts. In this latest war, the archive can serve as an arsenal.
The post When ‘Nuke Jews, Save Lives’ note was left at the Center for Jewish History, its message was a window into antisemitic thinking appeared first on The Forward.
