My friend Moshe Vardi is a computer scientist at Rice University, the Karen Ostrum George Distinguished Service Professor in Computational Engineering. He has published an essay, “A Moral Rot at Rice University”:
“I was well
aware that antisemitism is alive and well in the US, but I had believed that it
exists only in the margins, among the extreme Left and extreme Right. I have
been rudely awakened. I now realize that not only is it a mainstream
phenomenon, but it is also quite prevalent on my very own campus, among Rice
faculty and students. This is a profoundly bitter lesson for me. I am not quite
sure how to cope with it.”
6 comments:
That letter is the voice of reason, which will be shouted down by the voices of unreason which seem to dominate in our universities.
My wife is Jewish. As we light the candles this week, I look around at her, our son, his children and our extended Jewish family and friends, I wonder at the unpredictable turn the world has taken. Anti-semitism and the crimes it generated are some of the most thoroughly known, written about and discussed topics in the modern world. Yet here we have intelligent people in responsible positions, failing to defend Jews against a revived debate on whether their existence should be tolerated. None of our family and guests brings this up. Our sense of everyday life and normality is too strong to be shaken by this bizarre development in world affairs. I hope and believe it will blow over - as I imagine other people in less fortunate times and places hoped it would also.
This whole wretched episode has revealed (if further revelation were necessary!) the utter cowardice of the "virtuous" classes that control so much of our culture. It makes me think of this, by Karl Stern:
"In the 1930’s it first dawned on me that the great Dividing Line in Europe, in fact in the entire world, is not the line between Left and Right. All of us who grew up in the intellectual atmosphere of the Twenties were sincerely convinced that people who were to the Left of the middle acted under a moral incentive. Indeed, as I have said, in most radicals there had been during the early post-war period, underneath it all, a love of justice and a compassion for the multitude. Conversely, it was held that people were conservatives out of material motives for conservation, no matter how much some of them were able to deceive themselves. In this respect the Nazi years taught us a lesson. It happened not infrequently that you met a friend whom you had known for years as a ‘staunch liberal,’ and he turned out to be eager for any compromise to save his skin. On the other hand, we saw people whom we had disclaimed as ‘reactionaries’ go to concentration camps and to the gallows. In the beginning it seemed confusing. But gradually the issue became clearer and it was obvious that the only thing that counts in this world is the strength of moral convictions."
Antisemitism is one thing but anti-Judaism is more important. It has been around since the time of the Pharaohs so it is unlikely to disappear anytime soon. The best book on the subject is David Nierenberg's brilliant Anti-Judaism.
I can only express my appreciation for the original posting and these responses.
I have asked the local college to buy the book you recommend, Jack.
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