The US Department of Education has launched an investigation into the rise of anti-Semitism on university campuses.

Their list of universities included the prestigious Columbia University, Cornell University, and the University of Pennsylvania on the East Coast (all three of which are part of the Ivy League).

“Hate has no place in our schools, period. When students are targeted because they are Jewish, Arab, Muslim, Sikh or any other ethnicity, educational institutions must act,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said.

University officials are accused of violating anti-discrimination laws passed in the 1960s. This could cause colleges to lose federal funding.

Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has recorded a significant surge in anti-Semitic incidents in the United States: the number of reported cases of harassment, vandalism and assault has now increased by 388%.

Between 7 and 23 October 2023, ADL recorded a total of 312 anti-Semitic incidents, 190 of which were directly related to the war in Israel and the Gaza Strip. The ADL also monitored anti-Israel rallies that have swept the country since October 7 and found «clear support for Hamas and/or violence against Jews» in 109 cases.

Many now attribute the rise in anti-Semitism to Israel’s military operation in Gaza, which was a response to the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7. However, the anti-Semitic incidents were on a rise even before this war; a trend has been noted in recent years. Thus, in March 2023, the ADL stated that “anti-Semitic incidents in the United States are at the highest level recorded since the 1970s.”

Is it fair, then, to justify anti-Israeli, anti-Jewish protests as a “protest” against Israeli actions in Gaza? Why, in fact, are these rallies not support for the civilian population in Palestine, but pure anti-Semitism covered by “tolerance”?

I spoke with Naya Lecht, a researcher on contemporary antisemitism at the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) and a lecturer and teacher at the Ramaz School in New York.

– Like most of us, Jews from the USSR and Eastern Europe, the fate of your family is in and of itself a textbook on the history of European Jewry.

– I was born in the Soviet Union and came to the United States in 1989, when I was 6 years old. My dad is from Kyiv, my mother’s family is from Chernivtsi. My dad is from a more assimilated family, but my mother’s family are real Zionists. My mother’s grandfather was born in Poland and fled to the Soviet Union during the war to escape the Nazis. His entire family, with the exception of his sister, died in the Holocaust. His mother and younger brother were burned alive in a synagogue in Baranovichi, now a city in Belarus, but then it was Polish territory. My mother’s grandmother was from Romania, and her family also fled to the USSR during World War II. In fact, I grew up with my mother’s parents, and my grandfather passed on to me not only a great love for the Jewish people, but also taught me a lot about the Holocaust. For me, as for most Ashkenazim, the Holocaust of European Jewry is a personal story, and not just pages from a textbook. In addition, as I already said, my grandfather was a very big Zionist. He was lucky to attend a speech by Zeev Jabotinsky, the leader of the Zionist movement, in Poland. And thanks to my grandfather, from an early age I knew that yes, we are Soviet Jews, but we are from Jerusalem, from Judea, and our home is there.

— My mother always said: “No matter where we live, Israel is our home.”

— Yes exactly. And at the same time, I knew about the anti-Semitism that my parents experienced, even in everyday life. When I entered graduate school here, I wrote a dissertation about Soviet Jews, about how Jews lived in the USSR after the Holocaust.

But personally, I first encountered anti-Semitism here in America, at my university in California in 2001. I heard all the same slogans that the whole country has now heard: “free Palestine”, and “from the river to the sea”. And I remember how shocked I was. I went to complain to the university administration, but they sent me with my complaints from one office to another. They hid behind the bureaucracy, and not only did no one help, they were not even going to do anything to stop this growing anti-Semitism.

And the worst thing for me personally was that when I turned to professional Jewish organizations, like the Hillel on my campus, they, too, were completely indifferent to what was happening. I said: “guys, this is not normal, this is not criticism of Israel, this is anti-Semitism.” And they answered me: “stop, you are exaggerating, this is freedom of speech.” It must be understood that Hillel is partially funded by the university, so, of course, it will not bite the hand that feeds it.

I was very upset and felt that I had to do something to counteract it. Together with another Russian-speaking Jew, we created our own group on campus. And they invited various interesting speakers and experts on the Middle East. We even managed to bring Dennis Prager himself, the founder of PragerU, to give a lecture. Of course, I don’t think we’ve changed anything in a global sense, especially given what’s happening on campuses now. But the very fact that we were doing something, trying to resist somehow, was very important to me. Inaction for me was tantamount to betraying my ancestors.

This is my story. Actually, I have a doctorate in Russian literature. And I would never have dealt with the issue of anti-Zionism, anti-Semitism, if I had not encountered a very ugly manifestation of this at my university.

– Of course, it cannot be denied that in the States there were also restrictions for Jews. For example, in our neighboring town, a very nice and prestigious town, until the end of the 1990s it was forbidden to sell or rent out real estate to Jews. That is, a certain level of oppression existed here too. However, the history of American and Eastern European Jews developed differently. I remember during our acquaintance you said: “American and Russian-speaking Jews assess the situation with anti-Semitism in the United States differently: Russian-speaking Jews still have intuition, that same radar that very clearly picks up such things, but Americans no longer have it.” Perhaps the absence of this “radar” led to the fact that America overlooked, missed this moment when anti-Semitic sentiments began to grow?

– American Jews do not think of themselves as an ethnic group. They think that Jews are a religious category. That is, if you are not religious, then you are sort of a Jew, but first of all you are an American. And this goes back to the distant past. In 1885, Reform Jews arriving from Germany wrote the Pittsburgh Platform manifesto. And there are these words: “We no longer consider ourselves a nation, but a religious community, and therefore we do not expect either a return to Palestine or the restoration of any laws relating to the Jewish state.” In other words, our land is America, not Palestine.

I understand the reasons for the Pittsburgh Platform. America was originally built on the idea of ​​religious freedom, not ethnic identity. You came here and you became an American, no matter what you believed. And those first Jews who came here, they really wanted to join American society. The same notorious “melting pot”. And although representatives of other religious Jewish movements did not accept this manifesto at that time, it still had a great influence on many generations of American Jews.

American Jews never thought that Israel was their homeland. Israel was like a spiritual center for them, never an ethnic center. They didn’t understand one fundamental thing: Jews are not just a religion. And so, it is still very difficult for them to accept that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. Soviet Jews were deprived of their religious identity, but they always knew that they were not like everyone else, and this ethnic component was always very strong. They knew that it didn’t matter whether you kept Shabbat or not, you were still Jewish by blood.

Look, until today there was a very clear division in the United States: there are believing Jews, and there are “ordinary” Americans who know or sometimes remember their Jewish roots. And suddenly now these “ordinary” Americans are reminded: no, guys, you are not like everyone else, you are different, and it doesn’t matter whether you go to synagogue or not.

– Yes, I saw a post on Facebook by one woman, she wrote in horror: we are Jews, but we have never been to Israel, we don’t go to synagogue, we didn’t care about all this; but now, my daughter was subjected to anti-Semitic bullying at the university, for what?

– One woman told me: only in the last month have I realized that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. Because for her, Israel is not a Jewish identity, it is like a state in and of itself. And most American Jews thought so before the terrorist attack on October 7 and the explosion of anti-Semitism that followed.

– Notice how even Holocaust museums, organizations designed to combat crimes against Jews, are silent about the terrorist attacks on October 7. Not a single museum canceled current exhibitions, changed the program, or added an emergency exhibition in memory of the victims. From my point of view, this is completely inexplicable, because what happened in Israel is a continuation of the Holocaust.

– Because they do not understand that the Holocaust is not just a moment in the history of the 20th century, due to one or another socio-economic reasons. I teach, among other things, the history of the Holocaust, and I see that most of my colleagues present the Holocaust of European Jewry as a history of racism. But this is not true. The Holocaust did not become possible on its own, it is a methodical continuation of centuries-old hatred, centuries-old destruction of the Jewish people. Ideological Nazism and complicity in the Holocaust by collaborators, people who killed their own neighbors, is the pinnacle of historical anti-Semitism.

— However, since then it’s somehow been a no-brainer to admit to anti-Semitism, but anti-Zionism is very fashionable and modern.

– I graduated from Jewish school here. We were taught Jewish traditions, religious principles, culture, but if not for the influence of my parents, I would never have understood that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. What is Zionism? This is the understanding that Jews are a people from Judea, and they have the right to return to their homeland. That’s all.

– There is no disdain for other peoples, no ideas about “ruling the world,” as the so-called “anti-Zionists” are trying to present to us, in Zionism.

— Of course not. This is one of the misconceptions, a false narrative that people believe due to the lack of knowledge. In general, I call everything what is happening the War of Narratives. And it is built on ignorance of the subject.

– I’ll be the devil’s advocate: is it really impossible to be against Israel’s actions? We criticize the governments of other countries and this is normal, but only critics of Israel are accused of anti-Semitism.

— Well, there is a big difference. It’s one thing when you say: this particular politician is doing the wrong thing. It’s different when you use classic anti-Semitic techniques. For example: Zionists are oppressors, racists, they want to take over the whole world, Israel is an apartheid state. I assure you that most of those who say this do not know that there is a large Arab faction in the Israeli government, in the Knesset. How many Jews sit in the parliaments of Arab countries?

The famous Soviet “refusenik” and Israeli politician Natan Sharansky came up with his own formula that helps determine whether a person is speaking out against Israel or with anti-Semitic narratives. The formula is called 3D Test.

— Interesting name.

– Yes, I asked him about this too. He went to the cinema with his grandchildren to watch a 3D film, but did not know that special glasses were required to watch it. As expected, he had a headache; he couldn’t understand what was happening. And then his grandchildren gave him glasses and everything became clear, everything was visible in focus.

That’s how it is with this test, which has three components. First: double standards. When you criticize Israel but don’t criticize any other country for the same actions. Second: demonization. When you talk about how Israel is apartheid, racist, how Israelis deliberately kill children, and so on. Third: delegitimization. When you fundamentally question whether Israel should exist. When they say that Israel stole the land or “from the river to the sea,” this is delegitimization. Put on 3D glasses and you can see everything at once.

Once again, Zionism is a Jewish national movement. Its goal is to return the Jewish people to their homeland. If you are against this, then you are against the Jewish people having their own country. If you are against the Jews having their own country, but you are in favor of all other people having their own countries, then this is a problem.

– Another argument: we are in favor of having two countries. But few people know or talk about the fact that the Arab countries themselves abandoned this idea.

From the history of the issue:

In 1937, the British Peel Commission was created to find ways of cooperation between Arabs and Jews in Palestine. The Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin Husseini, then the leader of the Palestinian Arabs, said: “The majority of the inhabitants of the Jewish lands will not receive citizenship in our future country.” He proposed deporting Jews from Palestine and promised that if such a state was created, every Jew would be expelled from the Palestinian Arab state. In November 1947, Husseini refused to accept the UN partition plan, which proposed the creation of two states: Jewish and Arab. His successor, Yasser Arafat, refused to recognize the right of the State of Israel to exist. When Anwar Sadat signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, Arafat called for a boycott of Egypt. The Arab states accepted this boycott and did not allow Cairo to participate in the Arab League from 1977 to 1989. Most Arab ambassadors to Egypt were recalled, and Arabs who visited Egypt were considered either traitors or spies.

The so-called Oslo Accord, or Oslo peace process, which began in 1993 between Israel and Palestine under US mediation, also ended in nothing. At the Camp David summit in July 2000, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered Arafat a series of far-reaching concessions as part of a comprehensive peace agreement. In return, Arafat had to end the conflict. Israeli proposals were rejected, Arafat initiated a new wave of violence. The terror called the Al-Aqsa Intifada had no equal at that time in scale and mercilessness. In total, 1,184 Israelis were killed.

In August 2005, the Israeli government, led by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, carried out a unilateral evacuation of all Israeli villages from the Gaza Strip and the northern West Bank. Instead of using this concession as an opportunity to achieve peace and create their own state, the capabilities of Iranian-backed terrorist organizations were expanded. In June 2007, Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in a violent coup. Since that time, settlements in southern Israel have been subject to constant shelling.

– The Arab countries have a different goal: so that there is no Jewish state at all, not so that the state of “Palestine” would be created.

— And the problem is that it is precisely due to ignorance of the issue that this narrative has now permeated not only Arab countries, but has also penetrated into American society. I recently returned from Milwaukee, where I gave several lectures. All listeners were American Jews aged 60-70 years (apparently, none of the young people who are protesting on the streets wanted to come and understand the history of the issue). But you know what else amazed me? People generally did not know even basic historical facts. When I asked where the word «Palestine» came from, no one could answer.

– Where does the word “Palestine” come from?

– The term “Palestine” first appeared in the 5th century BC, when the ancient Greek historian Herodotus wrote in “History” about the “region of Syria called Palestine” between Phenicia and Egypt. Later this name was used by both Greek and Roman historians, as well as by Roman Jewish authors Philo of Alexandria and Josephus. Palestine is the Hebrew “plishtim”, migrated to English as “Philistine”, in Russian – “Philistines”. These same Philistines, Plishtim, are the eternal enemies of the Jews, this is what the story of David and Goliath tells us. You see, the Roman Empire believed that military victories and the destruction of the Second Temple were not enough, that it was necessary to rename the land of Israel Palestine in order to humiliate the Jews and erase all memory of them. I say in lectures: imagine you have your name that was given to you. But then they started calling you the most terrible name that you don’t like. This is what the Roman Empire did. And since then, Palestine has been Judea, Israel, and since then Jews have been called Palestinians, not Arabs.

It is also interesting that the Ottoman Empire, which ruled this land before it came under the British Mandate, did not call this land Palestine. The Arabs themselves did not use this word! The term “Falastin”, which we have today, is not of Arabic origin at all. The Turks divided their empire into municipalities. There was the Jerusalem municipality, there was the Damascus municipality. The name “Palestine” was used only by Western countries, Western politicians. And it returned to the geopolitical vocabulary after these lands came under the British Mandate. Why did the British Empire do this? Because Europe is the direct heir of the Greco-Roman civilization, and uses the same narratives. Therefore, the use of the term «Palestinians» to refer to an Arab ethnic group is a political innovation that did not have any international or academic recognition until 1967.

– What about the creation of the Palestinian Authority, to which the Soviet government had a hand?

– The USSR simply took advantage of British narratives. Another, no less important story is connected with the Soviet Union. In 1948, Stalin voted for the creation of the State of Israel. It’s no secret, the Soviet Union thought that a Jewish country would be their outpost in the Middle East. And Israel chose America as its main ally. And after that, the USSR turned its back on Israel and began to support Arab countries. Yes, the USSR supplied the Arabs with weapons. But the most important thing that the Soviet Union gave the Arab world was propaganda that could be used against Israel and the Western world. And part of this propaganda is the story about the existence of some kind of separate “Palestinian people.”

– It turns out that now the American and European protesters are repeating narratives originally from the Soviet Union.

— Certainly. But they don’t know this, and, believe me, they will be very surprised if they are told that they are using the slogans of the communist regime. This is a terrible gap in our education on the history of the Jewish people. This is why we have such a hard time fighting this war of narratives.

– I cannot understand how in a country that experienced the terrible terrorist attack of 9/11, they can support terrorist attacks and support Hamas? And we hear such words of support not only from poorly educated youth, but also from university professors, journalists, and politicians; in other words, the elites of society?

— This all didn’t start yesterday. I was shocked when these same elites you speak of argued that America “deserved” 9/11, that we should understand why the terrorists did what they did. They said the reason was American imperialism. In the logic of these “elites” the world is divided into “oppressors” and “oppressed”. If you are white, then you are an oppressor, an imperialist. America is an oppressor country. Israel is white Jews who came from Europe and took land from the “Palestinians,” the indigenous population. This is all not true, of course. But these are precisely the narratives that have been propagated in our universities for many years.

Anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism — they are very close to anti-Americanism, to anti-Western culture, to aggressive Marxism. They share the same ideals.

– Are you saying that in American universities, in the elites, there are those who do not even support their own country?

— Exactly.

— But at the same time, universities did not hesitate to take money from Jewish sponsors. And with this money they raised anti-Semites. Only now are Jewish organizations and philanthropists waking up, it seems.

— I don’t know how much they woke up. I hope, but… I have seen these statements, but so far, I do not know of cases where funding has been stopped or reduced. So far this is all at the threat level.

– My neighbor’s friends died in the terrorist attack on October 7. We spoke to him recently and he said: “We taught our children tolerance and thought that this extended to everyone; now it’s obvious that it’s for everyone except the Jews.” One of his sons is studying at a university in New York, and we discussed the situation with pro-Palestinian rallies and attacks on Jewish students on campuses. I asked him whether it was too late to change something, from his point of view. He replied: “late, but I hope not too late.”

— I do not agree. I think it’s already very late, unfortunately. Only now have some of us begun to see the light — not all of us — and have begun the fight against anti-Semitism in universities, but this hatred has already entered schools.

– Yes, I told you that several years ago my child became a victim of anti-Semitic bullying in elementary school.

— And now the situation is worse. On October 9, students from more than 100 New York City schools took to the streets, organized by a pro-Palestinian movement. The Los Angeles teachers’ union officially supports anti-Israeli sanctions (BDS), although, it would seem, why is the professional community involved in international politics at all? It’s everywhere. In schools, colleges, offices. Google employees were sent emails saying their company supports the ceasefire demands.

But why is everyone so surprised? After all, all this is done by those people who graduated from universities. The very universities in which these narratives, as I said, took root a long time ago. I would say that it all started in the 1960s in America, with the civil rights movement, with the movement against colonization. In colleges, people received a full dose of indoctrination against the West, against America, against Israel. These are our teachers, lawyers, journalists. It should not be surprising that they are now demonstrating what they have been taught.

– But the civil rights movement, in which, by the way, American Jews actively participated, had a good goal!

— Certainly. But who knew how it would ultimately turn out? After all, those who fought for the rights of colored minorities, for the rights of women, they didn’t think about where it would lead to. There is a phrase, “hindsight is 20/20,” which means that it is easier to analyze and evaluate situations when we look back at them in the past than when we are in the present moment.

Remember the history of the Russian revolution. After all, they also thought that all these sacrifices, these struggles, were with the best intentions. And in the end, the most ardent Bolsheviks died at the hands of their own comrades.

– As you know, the revolution devours its children. Well, if this problem is old, if its roots are deeper than we thought, what should we do? Realistically, what should those parents whose children are now going to college or planning to do? Your words “it’s too late” sound very pessimistic.

– Now there are two views on solving this problem. Some believe that we need to fight in schools and universities. And the others think  that these schools and universities are already lost and there is no point in spending your energy on these institutions. We need to create our own. And I adhere to the second point of view. Moreover, I believe that we need to unite with traditional Christian American communities, because they are also interested in preserving Judeo-Christian civilization. And this is already happening! People do it. Many parents take their children out of schools and organize their own mini-schools with classical, traditional education. This was evident during the COVID-19 pandemic when parents did not want their children to learn online, and has continued now because children need to be educated, not learn narratives. Dennis Prager talks a lot about this, and the Tikvah Fund in New York is doing this. First, you need to wake up, see that there is a problem. And secondly, start taking action.

Victoria Averbukh