Rabbi In Harvard Crimson: It’s Time to ‘Confront and Overcome’ Anti-Semitism on Campus
“Once you divide humanity by race or creed or nation into two camps — the good and the evil — you have adopted the mentality of the despot.”
Rabbi David Wolpe is a visiting scholar at Harvard’s Divinity School. In December, he resigned from the school’s anti-Semitism committee, calling the left-wing ideology that has descended upon the school “evil.”
He continues to speak out about what’s happening.
He just wrote this for the Harvard Crimson:
On the Hatred of Jews
“An antisemite is someone who hated me before I was born,” Elie Wiesel, survivor of Auschwitz, said.
Antisemitism is a denial of humanity of the Jew. The reactions that occurred at Harvard in the wake of Oct. 7 considered Jews oppressors and, in some way, unworthy of human consideration.
In the calculus of an antisemite, Jews are both subhuman and superhuman – vermin who control the world. Common antisemitic rhetoric places Jews at the center of conspiracies, secretly controlling anything and everything: America, the banks, the Middle East, a vast colonialist enterprise, immigration, the Federal Reserve, NATO, and even Taylor Swift’s concert tour schedule.
People hate Jews because they are communists, capitalists, foreigners, residents, immigrants, elitists, have strange ways, are unassimilated, too assimilated, bankroll the left (like George Soros) or bankroll the right (like Sheldon Adelson). People hate Jews because they are weak and stateless, or because they are Zionists and defend Israel.
This hate is justified in a number of ways, and it is never just because someone is Jewish.
One ideology common at Harvard is the colonialist settler ideology. Colonialists are people who come from one place, take a land, and now have two.
But, Jews are far from being colonialists. Jews come from Israel…
Much of Harvard is captured by an ideology that centers oppression, but dividing all of the world into oppressor and oppressed is dangerous. Once you divide humanity by race or creed or nation into two camps — the good and the evil — you have adopted the mentality of the despot. This is bad for society, as well as for Jews.
Wolpe recently appeared on FOX News to discuss this issue and was asked to address the question of free speech:
“This has created a climate of intimidation,” Wolpe told Bill Hemmer. “When students can’t study, when they’re afraid, when they don’t want to go to their classroom, that’s not anymore a question of free speech, not at university. If you want to express yourself in a paper, or you want to say something publicly at a rally, nobody thinks that that’s illegitimate, but that isn’t what’s going on here.”
“What is going on here is that a certain group is being systematically targeted over and over and over again: supporters of Israel and particularly Jews,” he continued.
Watch the segment below:
Featured image via FOX News video.
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Comments
I don’t excuse racism, but racists can be lazy. That is: “Someone has a different skin color. They are less intelligent than me.”
Anti-semitism requires real effort. “Someone doesn’t eat pork and wears a little hat. They must control the world banks.”
It’s a different thought process and is truly toxic.
“Antisemitism is a denial of humanity of the Jew.”
There are two varieties
1. Resentment of Jewish success while somebody else is failing. Jews vs blacks, Jews vs Arabs would be examples.
2. Tired of Jews finding antisemitism everywhere as a cultural habit.
Neither is concerned with the humanity of anybody.
Whites are in the same boat (1) but don’t complain incessantly (2).
Your passive aggressive antisemitism is noted.
Knowing which one to dwell on and how gets better results.
Need no advice from antisemities. Pretending it makes a difference is absurd.
The passive? Or the aggressive? Both are pretty disgusting.
I’ll tell you who is tired of Jews finding antisemtism…….Jewish people are…they don’t have to find it, it finds us.
Academic book catalogs in the 80 in the Jewish Studies section had a subsection “Holocaust for Children.” That’s training the kids to see the same stuff.
Jews have a culture of alienation, tied to both prophets more than (early) Greek philosophers. Hegel called it an unhappy consciousness. Alienation is a great creative resource in the hands of the smart end of the Bell curve, and a crutch for the dumb end.
Compare blacks finding racism everywhere. It’s not the smart blacks.
Referencing antisemites. Who is next? The big guy?
Teaching history to children is so terrible. Pretending to know what that teaching is. Got it.
The stupidity of your remark is that these children and other Jews will face prejudice whether taught about the Holocaust or not, and will have to deal with people (antisemites) that intellectualize antisemitism.
You pretend as if Jews are making it all up.
They’re not making it up, they’re making it a cultural resource. Think alienated.
Whites are discriminated against heavily yet aren’t encouraged to have a chip on their shoulder about it. Why not?
You’ll find Hegel’s unhappy consciousness diagnosis in contemporary Jewish philosophers Jacques Derrida and Emmanuel Levinas and Jewish poet Edmond Jabes.
Whites are a majority of the population and certainly not discriminated in the same fashion as a fraction of Jews, at all. Even a pretend intellectual should know that.
Jews can be antisemites, too. No excuse for you, however, no matter how you grasp at intellect.
Whites don’t have the incentive because they’re already assimilated. For Jews, strengthening the tribe through the production of a common enemy is a survival of the tribe strategy. Why assimilate with the enemy?
It’s why Jews have a culture of alienation. Preservation of the culture.
I have no idea what academic book catalogs you are referring to…I find your condescending attitude appalling.
You know well as does everyone reading this, that the reason to teach children about the Holocaust is so they hopefully do not grow up as moronically stupid as the current batch of 18-24 yr olds who think Osama bin Laden is one of the good guys.
The so-called ‘culture of alienation’ is proved historically.
I have no further words to describe what a perfectly awful person you are…
University of Chicago in the 1980s.
Substitute “structural racism’ for antisemitism to see that there are two varieties, one being actual racism and the other being made up by the victim, without much concern to distinguish them.
The claim is that the racism that we make up deserves the same contempt as real racism.
“made up by the victim.” An antisemite speaks.
/“made up by the victim.” An antisemite speaks./
For example.
Stop acting like an antisemite, then.
I.e. you can’t tell whether it’s antisemitic or not. Take that into account next time.
Can tell, however. It’s not like there isn’t a pattern. As indicated above, the passive-aggressive antisemite. Your pathetic pontificating is another clear sign. Why pretend?
I have about ten shelf feet of jewish scholarship that I’ve read through and annotated over the years, not because it’s Jewish but just for pleasure. Those do tend, however, to the the smart Jews.
Who cares? A pretend intellectual antisemite is still an antisemite. Even worse, trying to justify the antisemtism with theories. Be careful who you classify as “smart.”
Number of citations might be a good clue, in picking authors. It would be in philosophy and in lit. crit., the fields they tend to span.
Nonsense words without ANY real meaning. Someone that is always talking about smart people, if actually smart, when told their words and ideas are antisemitic, would at least heed, rather than continuing with reference to “citations,” as if that matters more than what they are told.
Well, just for the literary effect, read back over the thread and see how antisemitic is thrown around and what for.
Compare the October 7 attack.
Of course, an antisemite would think it’s just “thrown around” and cite “literary effect.” However, you keep showing it in actuality, as you have so many times leading up to this point, intellectualizing antisemitism. Will leave it at that.
So it’s exactly like structural racism. The racist doesn’t suspect it but the victim knows it. It doesn’t seem like October 7.
Or has trained himself to know it.
I can’t reply to his last comment for some reason, but I find it amusing that he denies anti-Semitism on the one hand, and on the other hand says we (deliberately? Can’t tell from his unclear prose) bring it upon ourselves because we refuse to assimilate. I guess he didn’t read much of the article he claims to be commenting, and, did he?
It only allows a 3 levels of indentation, then you have to search upwards for the last reply button and continue at the 3rd of indentation.
There are two things called antisemitism. The first is Hitler and the second is whatever continuing complaint produces Jewish solidarity, resisting assimilation in other words. Perhaps Christmas decorations in the lobby at work are antisemitic. The ADL just said that cartoonist Scott Adams is an antisemite. That sort of antisemitism. Who knows what it’s about but it’s typical and nobody cares.
The rhetorical trick is to say that the second sort deserves the same abhorrence as the first because it’s the same word.
You don’t get rid of the two in the same way because they’re not caused by the same thing. If Harvard is looking for a new antisemitic purity, it had better not be by finding more of the second sort of antisemitism. That’s exactly counterproductive. You will find more of it because it itself is its own cause.
It’s commonly claimed that slavery involves denying the humanity of the slave. It’s quite the reverse. The slave holder is perfectly aware of the humanity of his slaves. The one thing that the slave-holder wants is that his slaves not see him as human.
“ So it’s exactly like structural racism. The racist doesn’t suspect it but the victim knows it. It doesn’t seem like October 7.
Or has trained himself to know it.”
So according to rhhardin it’s not antisemitic to say ‘That cheap **** tried to Jew me down” or “Everyone knows Jews murder Christians to drain their blood & bake it into unleavened bread to celebrate Passover, to commemorate their murdering Our Lord,” unless the speaker suspects he’s being antisemitic.
The thing to look for is malevolence. The speaker can detect that, or if not he has a habit of malevolence and that’s the problem. For Augustine what charity was was thinking the best of people instead of the worst. That’s how charity came to be soul-saving. Later it became money but that was after Augustine.
The guy jewing you down doesn’t have to be jewish. In high school having a snap quiz sprung on you was called being japped.
Jewish comedian joke on ethics. I sold some fabric to a woman for $100 and when I looked closely I saw that she gave me two $100 bills stuck together. Here’s where the ethics come in. Should I tell my partner?
Stamping those out will not be popular.
In response to your earlier comment, I have to remind myself that it is not necessary to react to nor answer this vile person.. It is never helpful to lower yourself to their level in order to win a game of repartee.
This from the comments at The Crimson (btw I find it encouraging that some of the LI contributors & commenters are among the rare exceptions):
“ Some day, someone at Harvard who isn’t Jewish will write something equally as strong. And some hedge fund manager who isn’t Jewish will withdraw his support form Harvard in solidarity. But for now it is only the Jews circling the wagons, and it’s just whispering in the hurricane.”
If you want to know how Harvard got to this stage, you can start with the fact that this clown was Hillel director there for 18 years! His article shows that he was manifestly unfit for that position, and having someone with his views in it can only have fostered the atmosphere we see today.
“If you prick us do we not bleed?”