Discomfort and harassment
Regarding Gil Troy’s “Some American Jews turn silent” (April 6), too many American Jews suffer from Stockholm Syndrome to the point that they cannot approach the situation in Israel in reference to the Palestinians with anything approaching clear thinking.
There are too many stories about Jewish students in different grades of public schools suffering from teachers. But it is on college and university campuses that the situation is worse, much worse. No one should be unaware of the level of discomfort and outright harassment that takes place on any of our college campuses against both students and faculty who attempt to stand up. For anyone still in denial, I suggest reading Anti-Zionism on Campus by Andrew Pessin and Doron S. Ben-Atar.
The tides of antisemitism have been rising for over 25 years, but we are only reactive as clearly antisemitic occurrences take place on campus after campus. Too often the argument is phrased as “freedom of speech.” How this squares with the accepted criminal standard of hate speech is already hard to understand. However, just as other legal precedents are being reviewed and revised, such as abortion and gun manufacturer liability, perhaps it is time to imagine using other legal standards to protect our students.
I would like to make a few suggestions:
1. Jewish college students come from three sources – public high schools, private secular high schools and religious Jewish high schools. It is inconceivable that their high schools are oblivious to the situation on campus. It is the duty of these schools to demand from the colleges pledges that the incoming Jewish students be treated equitably. Such demands would have an impact on college administrations.
2. On college nights, members of the high school administrations should be asking what the climate on campus is vis-a-vis Jewish students.
3. In the area of legal redress: change the forum from freedom of speech to contract law. When parents pay tuition they expect certain return value. These include educational quality, housing, food and personal security. When Jewish/Zionist events are disrupted, when speakers are shouted down, when coursework and professors bring politics into class, then the college is in dereliction of its contract responsibility and should be open to lawsuits.
I would guess that there are other ways of pressuring colleges to live up to the high principles that they pretend to espouse. I look forward to hearing from others about their ideas. We cannot allow our children to be chewed up on campuses.
SURA JESELSOHN
Jerusalem