All is not lost

Gil Troy (“Will the love last?” May 17) offers a very sobering assessment of current American Jewish leadership. With few honorable exceptions, it encompasses, in unequal proportions, the timid, the conditional, and the openly hostile.

Most have always sought collegial coexistence within their communities, often ignoring leftist anti-Israel agitation. Others display little tolerance for Israeli actions that offend their political views or are widely unpopular. Still the smallest, but growing, are the outright collaborators with Israel’s enemies. Included are frauds, such as Jewish Voice for Peace, and politicians like Bernie Sanders. His provision of a “Nakba” hatefest platform should have been unforgivable. Yet, Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer has been steely silent.

Academia is a disaster area. Whole departments, even academic associations, have gone full BDS. Jewish studies programs have also been deeply infected with anti-Zionist rhetoric, leading to needed creation of a Jewish Studies Zionist Network.

Supporters of Israel are being harassed, intimidated and excluded on campus, often from encouragement by radical faculty, but met with indifference from administrators. How bad is it? Multiple Stanford Law School student organizations now bar “Zionist” speakers on any subject, which would include the university’s own Jewish president.

All, though, is not lost. Resisting in the academy are the Academic Engagement Network, and Scholars for Peace in the Middle East.

Alumni of American universities now have a collective voice in Alums for Campus Fairness, with 61 chapters, and over 40,000 members. More assertive groups, such as Students Supporting Israel, continually confront circulating campus canards. CAMERA and Honest Reporting tirelessly refute those coursing through world media. A newly formed Zionist Rabbinic Coalition is fighting anti-Zionist rot within the emerging rabbinate, while Americans for Peace and Tolerance now forcefully challenges a lackadaisical American Jewish leadership. The list of resistance continues to grow,

Syracuse, New York