Amidst the turmoil enveloping elite universities nationwide, the temptation arises to draw parallels between the ongoing student protests over the conflict in Gaza and the tumultuous uprisings that marked the Vietnam War era. Five decades after Columbia, Berkeley, and other hallowed halls were rocked by student riots, police incursions, and the defiant chant of “Hell No, We Won’t Go,” tent cities and mass “teach-ins” are once again sprouting up on some of those same hallowed grounds. Reminiscent of that bygone era, university administrators, driven by trepidation, hesitate to uphold regulations, while radical faculty members incite the unruly elements that wield their megaphones as weapons of intimidation. Students yearning for the education their parents have invested in find themselves marginalized, as classes are either canceled altogether or relegated to a remote-only format. However, the parallels to the past can only be drawn to a certain extent, for there exist fundamental disparities in motivations. The earlier uprisings were fueled by vehement opposition to a war waged in a distant land, a conflict that unfolded on television screens in the form of a relentless stream of American body bags and instilled terror in young men facing the looming specter of military conscription. Today’s protests, in stark contrast, are driven by a far more sinister force: antisemitism. From coast to coast, Jews have been cast as the villains of the hour, while Hamas terrorists are hailed as heroes. The narrative being peddled is an age-old one, merely updated with contemporary references and storylines. Otherwise, it is a faithful echo of the rhetoric that reverberated through Germany in the 1930s and bears the unmistakable imprint of millennia-old prejudices. History-deprived students, oblivious to the lessons of the past, accuse Israel of perpetrating genocide in a conflict instigated by Hamas. In their willful ignorance, they chant, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” a slogan that thinly veils a call for Israel’s annihilation. The question that begs to be asked is this: who truly advocates for genocide? The vile allegiance that these students and professors display toward those who aspire to wipe Israel off the map casts Hanoi Jane Fonda in a decidedly patriotic light. Outside the borders of Israel, America has long been the one nation in the world where Jews have found refuge and a sense of belonging. They have responded with unwavering patriotism and have made extraordinary contributions to the arts, sciences, and countless other fields. Today, many are deeply shaken by the unfolding events. Even New York, home to more than one in five American Jews, is proving to be an unreliable sanctuary. True to form, Mayor Adams and Governor Hochul offer soothing words but fail to take meaningful action to rectify the situation. A logical first step would be to demand the resignations of university presidents who lack the courage their positions demand. Columbia’s Minouche Shafik stands as a prime example. Under her leadership, the campus, my alma mater, has been transformed into a squalid haven for Jew-haters. After initially providing seemingly sensible responses during congressional testimony and inviting police onto the private campus to apprehend those who had unlawfully seized a central area of the quad, Shafik vanished from sight as the squatters returned in even greater numbers. She has since retreated into a haze of empty rhetoric about ensuring the safety of all students, as if it would be a violation of impartiality to acknowledge that Jews, and Jews alone, are the targets of these attacks. The Post and other media outlets have reported that at least some students initially suspended for their role in the illegal encampment have been reinstated, while all those arrested have been released without criminal charges. Shafik cannot seek refuge behind the First Amendment, which does not extend protection to threatening language and harassment – both of which are rampant at Columbia. She is also obligated to protect all students who belong to racial and religious minorities under civil rights laws. Her abdication of responsibility has emboldened the activists whose actions are driven by antisemitism and who harbor an unyielding admiration for terrorists. As such, they constitute a fifth column within American society, a resurgence of the pro-Hitler movement that reared its head in New York prior to the outbreak of World War II. An infamous rally of the German American Bund held in Madison Square Garden in 1939 epitomizes that movement. Attended by 20,000 members, the rally featured Nazi sympathizers spewing venomous rhetoric against Jews. One Bund leader went so far as to declare that if George Washington were alive, he would count Hitler among his friends. A short documentary released in 2017, “A Night at the Garden,” captures much of this rally, described as the largest Nazi gathering ever held in America. Written, produced, and directed by Marshall Curry, the documentary utilizes long-forgotten news footage that, according to Wikipedia, was deemed “too inflammatory” for public exhibition in the pre-war era. Audiences at the time often expressed negative sentiments toward Hitler and Nazism, leading exhibitors to shy away from screening the newsreels. The documentary, which clocks in at a mere seven minutes, vividly depicts the effort to fuse Hitlerian pageantry with American patriotic symbols within the confines of the old Garden building. A colossal image of Washington serves as a backdrop for the stage, flanked by swastikas. Military-style uniforms and sieg-heil salutes follow swiftly upon the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance and the singing of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The main speaker, Fritz Julius Kuhn, the head of the Bund, rails against his portrayal in “the Jewish-controlled press” and demands “Gentile-controlled labor unions free from Jewish-Moscow directed domination.” Although this portion of his speech is not included in the documentary, reports indicate that he referred to FDR as “Rosenfeld” and derided New York’s mayor as Fiorello “Jew Lumpen” La Guardia. A man named Isadore Greenbaum, a Jewish plumber’s assistant from Brooklyn, attempted to rush the stage but was swiftly surrounded and assaulted by brown-shirted thugs. He later testified before a judge, stating, “I went down to the Garden without any intention of interrupting. But being that they talked so much against my religion and there was so much persecution, I lost my head.” The film concludes with an on-screen statement indicating that the Bund meeting took place as Hitler was completing construction of his sixth concentration camp and a mere seven months before his invasion of Poland. The significance of these facts only became apparent in retrospect, a chilling reminder that we cannot afford the luxury of silence or the assumption that the current eruption will subside on its own. Not when echoes of that ominous era reverberate with such intensity day and night on campuses and in the streets of New York and America. Indeed, attacks on Jews in public spaces have been on a sharp upward trajectory even before the campus takeovers, with Jewish victims accounting for the overwhelming majority of hate crimes in New York. Last October, just three weeks after Hamas’s incursion into Israel, FBI Director Christopher Wray stated that attacks on Jews were approaching “historic levels.” He informed Congress that “our statistics would indicate that for a group that represents only about 2.4 percent of the American public, they account for something like 60 percent of all religious-based hate crimes.” Bear this pattern in mind when you encounter groups such as the one that styles itself the “NYU Palestine Solidarity Coalition.” This organization boasts on social media about its “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” and calls for an end to “all war profiteering and investment in genocide” as well as a “complete academic boycott of Israel.” It also demands that the NYPD be barred from campus and that “all students and faculty penalized for their pro-Palestinian activism” be granted amnesty. Is there no adult in the room willing to look them in the eye and say no, hell no?
Echoes of the Past: Antisemitism on American Campuses
