I recently reposted an oped from Yale Daily News, sandwiched between a story about how they can’t fund their Yale Community Kitchen (average tuition at Yale is $62,250/semester) and a story about how they demand Israel ceases fire on H@mas: https://kingchill.com/jude/repost-yale1

Campus wide Judeophobia is a byproduct of decades of “anti-Zionism” indoctrination. In June/July of last year, I reposted a story about how anti-Jewish and anti-Israel biases led to virtually all of CUNY’s Jewish staff being forced out: https://kingchill.com/jude/repost-cuny Stories like this were why I was not shocked on October 7 when faux-liberals and self-described Marxists celebrated mass rape and murder.

Today it’s Columbia University’s turn to get attention. This story came up on my LinkedIn feed and was too good to pass on. I know for a fact that Jews at Columbia University feel betrayed by the admin. I’m talking with a friend who alleges that Columbia is about to face a major lawsuit, because the Jewish students learned that 0% of the Art school scholarships were awarded to Jews. I’m not able to say more about that allegation. You can instead read up on how Columbia’s “Antisemitism Task Force” has panned out. Spoiler: their “Antisemitism Task Force” is going after the Jewish Prof who called out antisemetism back in October: https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-professor-whos-slammed-campus-antisemitism-says-columbia-investigating-him/

Note, despite kicking off rape-apologist groups (including SJP) from their campus, after months of these hate groups harassing students and disrupting class, Columbia remains a cesspool of Jewish conspiracy theories. Today on Columbia Spectator’s homepage you can find two posts supporting Israel, both from this author. They’re next to a post complaining about genocide, while not citing any evidence of genocide, and an anon article that unironically suggests Palestine will be free when there is divestment from fossil fuel investments, but specifically those tied to Israel. Israel makes up 0.11% of the world’s population, yet anonymous Columbia students are blaming this part of the world for climate change issues. Not China. Not US. They outsourced their blame for climate change to the Jews. Even if you ignore that Israel created drip irrigation and water desalination, and focus entirely on these students’ Protocols of Elders of Zion framework, blaming such a small state for climate change is intellectually dishonest. Then again, what can we expect?

Original post from Columbia Spectator: https://www.columbiaspectator.com/opinion/2024/03/19/on-bigotry-in-the-classroom/ I got permission to repost this!

On bigotry in the classroom

BY ELISHA BAKER; MARCH 19, 2024

I work hard not to allow myself to be triggered or, worse, turn away entirely from difficult ideological positions I come to face. I engage with peers whose moral and ideological frameworks have come to be defined by the delegitimization of my experience and the vilification of my identity as a Jew. I do this because I still believe I can learn from these conversations.

I must admit, however, I was stunned when my Contemporary Civilization class read Karl Marx’s On The Jewish Question. Outside of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf, this is the most overtly antisemitic manifesto that I have ever read. I am struggling to come up with how anyone could spin this in any other way. In fact, the closest comparison to this manifesto that I can think of is the racist theory trafficked in the United States in the 19th century which labeled Black people as inherently violent.

As I read, I truly tried to look for real philosophical points in On the Jewish Question that might fall outside Marx’s pointedly antisemitic project. The laughable explanation presented by Robert C. Tucker in his Marx-Engels Reader’s chapter introduction, which all Columbia College students are encouraged to buy and read, only adds fuel to the antisemitism fire: “[Marx’s] concluding call for ‘the emancipation of society from Judaism’ (which has been seen on occasion as a manifesto of anti-Semitism) is in fact a call for the emancipation of society from what he here calls ‘huckstering,’ or from what he was subsequently to call ‘capitalism’”.

Tucker’s attempt to frame Marx’s antisemitism misses the mark—by a lot. It is not possible to simply separate Marx’s feelings about Judaism from his views on capitalism in On the Jewish Question; in fact, the idea that Judaism represents huckstering and capitalism is the essence of Marx’s antisemitism. What all readers of Marx must understand is that what makes Marx’s anti-Jewish sentiments so pervasive is precisely the way he finds what he views as negative in society and blames the Jews and Judaism itself.

Blaming the Jews for societal problems is nothing new. This is what the Russians did in the 1918-21 pogroms and what Hitler did in Nazi Germany. It’s also eerily similar to what “anti-colonialists” are doing today with Zionism to justify the murder of Israeli Jews. The nature of antisemitism—indeed what distinguishes it from other forms of prejudice—is its ability to shape-shift to fit with the societal bad of the time. For Marx, Jews were the huckstering capitalists. In Nazi Germany, Jews were communists and posed a threat to the Aryan race. Today, Jews are both responsible for the Great Replacement theory among white supremacists and referred to as white colonialists by anti-Zionists.

Marx’s prominent role in promoting and empowering antisemitism raises an important question about works and authors: separating the art from the artist, if you will. I want to be clear: I am not suggesting that we ban books due to historically problematic belief systems their authors hold. In fact, I believe that there is always something new to learn, even sometimes from overt bigots. I did not write an op-ed about Edmund Burke, who explicitly juxtaposed “men of great civil, and great military talents” with “the Jew brokers contending with each other who could best remedy with fraudulent circulation and depreciated paper the wretchedness and ruin brought on their country by their degenerate councils.” I did not write op-eds about various antisemites whose works we read in Literature Humanities. Not Fyodor Dostoevsky, who asks “why on earth was I such a Jew?” in the context of financial manipulation, nor Miguel de Cervantes’ Sancho, the heroic sidekick to Don Quixote, who proudly associated his belief in God with a belief that he is “the mortal enemy of the Jews”.

These are not exceptions. The Core Curriculum is littered with antisemitic comments and sentiments, but, problematic as these beliefs are, I remain of the opinion that they do not deserve to be cut from the syllabus. These authors’ antisemitism remains horrific but does not constitute the epistemological foundations of their works. As long as we call out their bigotry, I still believe we can learn from their larger projects.

Marx’s antisemitism, however, cannot be tolerated or cast aside as a footnote. In On the Jewish Question, antisemitism is not a question of the art and the artist; antisemitism is the art itself. There is a difference between a work that includes highly offensive language and a project whose express aim is to prove that because “Money is the jealous God of Israel,” i.e., the Jew worships money—and because Judaism itself is religiously defined by money, egoism, self-interest, and huckstering—we must therefore rid society of the Jew.

Even with the highest level of tolerance for bigotry in academia, it is hard for me to understand how Marx’s On The Jewish Question is held up with the great philosophical works of the contemporary era. Especially when the Core is no random selection of antiquated texts but rather “the heart of the Columbia College education.” According to the Core website, “The central intellectual mission of the Core is to provide all students with wide-ranging perspectives, a deeper understanding of history, and critical and creative thinking skills through the study of literature, science, philosophy, music, and art.”

Marx’s beliefs about Jews and Judaism forfeit all claims to intellectual seriousness and severely diminish his moral and intellectual credibility. I fear for the future of ideological debate when this remains a legitimate position. By including On The Jewish Question in a Core syllabus as an equal intellectual peer, Columbia University either undermines the credibility of its central academic mission or sends a message that this kind of hate and bigotry falls within Columbia’s umbrella of philosophical legitimacy.

I am a minority in my classroom. I am the only person who wears a kippah, and I sometimes speak about Judaism in the context of class discussions, when relevant. I could tokenize myself and state my objections to Marx’s antisemitism a thousand times in class, but the reality is that my claims probably lose credibility coming from the guy with the kippah (note the obvious double standard here—only a Jew could call out prejudice against him and lose credibility as a victim). I therefore rely on my professor and Columbia University to set the moral guidelines for our classroom.

I do not think that an intellectually serious classroom can, in good faith, legitimize the moral and philosophical framework of On The Jewish Question by placing it in conversation with other contemporary works. The only appropriate use for this manifesto is as part of a pointed discussion about the roots and manifestations of antisemitism. Done well, such a discussion could frame for students the ways antisemitism has shifted form to fit with perceived societal problems, repeatedly casting Jews in the role of the villain. It could also be an opportunity to categorically point out, especially to all those who don’t believe Jews can themselves promote antisemitism or, worse, be antisemitic themselves: Look no further than Karl Marx. If On the Jewish Question was framed by the curriculum as a primary source on historic antisemitism, the Core could actually provide a rare chance for a critical mass of students to confront this important yet tragically understudied topic. Otherwise, we are only enabling shameless, intolerable bigotry.

Elisha Baker is a sophomore in Columbia College studying Middle Eastern history. He is also the co-chair of Columbia Aryeh, a student-led Israel engagement group on campus which encourages engagement with a broad spectrum of opinions.

To respond to this op-ed, or to submit your own, contact opinion@columbiaspectator.com.