And So, Does Higher Education Cure Anti-Semitism?

"Contemporary antisemitism focuses obsessively on the alleged misdoings of ‘Zionism’, seeking to separate Zionism from its Jewish context. The ‘Zionism’ which these antisemites seek to malign and oppose has little in common with actual Zionism."

"We would never suggest that criticism of Israel is antisemitic. This argument is simply a strawman. However, when Israel’s very existence is delegitimized and threatened, when Israelis and Jews are excluded because of their association with the Jewish state, and when antisemitic conspiracies and tropes flourish under the guise of anti-Israelism and anti-Zionism, we recognize that this is antisemitism."

"We are incredulous at the suggestion that the adoption of the IHRA definition and the commitment to rooting out antisemitism is somehow opposed to the wider struggle against racism and oppression."

Open Letter of support of the IHRA definition by 350 academics

 

According to the IHRA definition, which has been adopted by 31 governments world wide ... "Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities."

"Criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic [while acknowledging that manifestations of antisemitism] might include the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity."

 

Infamously, it is in the world of Academia, where learned professors encourage their students to regard Israel as an aggressor and a military occupier of land that is claimed by Palestinians as their own, both historically and traditionally, anti-Semitism has blossomed. It has become an educational tool used by 'woke' left-wing academic progressives to smear Israel and lead to greater instances of overt anti-Semitism. It has helped to launch the BDS movement popularized by Palestinian expatriates and their supporters.

 

Where gratuitous hate-mongering has thrived and impressionable university students have absorbed messages that Jews are loathsome people, contriving to control every level of society from communications to finances, entertainment to business enterprises the work in progress carries on. The Jewish drive to command the world economy and gain control of everything that matters represents a world threat; no level of slander is too absurd or too scathing that it cannot be adopted by academia and circulated among exploitable minds.

 

Those who sympathize with the plight of the Jewish community, struck time and again by manifestations of society's mistrust and suspicion of the Jews in their communities, and the Jews themselves pin their hopes on combating anti-Semitism through the medium of education. With education comes rational thought and an examining mind that seeks the truth, as a tool to dispel vicious innuendos and claims blackening the reputation of Jews on the international stage.

Recently, three researchers headed a survey designed to determine whether anti-Semitism is indeed associated with low education levels. Their takeaway from the survey is not encouraging, leaving the impression that higher education leads to greater anti-Semitic sentiments. 

"We found that respondents with higher education levels are markedly more likely than those with lower education levels to apply a double standard unfavourable toward Jews ... subjects with college degrees were five percent more likely to apply a principle harshly to Jews than non-Jews ... among those with advanced degrees, subjects were 15 percent more unfavourable toward Jewish than non-Jewish examples."

Professors Jay P.Greene, Albert Cheng and Ian Kingsbury appeared in a feature article recently published in Tablet magazine. They burst the bubble of widespread belief that education would solve the human rights abuses that Jews face in their daily lives, verbal and physical violence and Holocaust denial that sullies human rights and historical facts. The result of this survey established that placing faith in the mind-liberating and cerebral focusing on facts and realities has been sadly misplaced. 

The trio revealed that they "discovered that more highly-educated people in the United States tend to have greater antipathy toward Jews than less-educated people do. Contrary to previous claims, education appears to provide no protection against anti-Semitism, and may in fact serve to license it -- in part by providing people with more sophisticated and socially acceptable ways to couch it."

"We found that respondents with higher education levels are markedly more likely than those with lower education levels to apply a double standard unfavourable toward Jews ... subjects with college degrees were five percent more likely to apply a principle harshly to Jews than non-Jews ... among those with advanced degrees subjects were 15 percent more unfavourable toward Jewish than non-Jewish examples."

So, should the fact that a group of over 350 academics representing institutions world-wide signing a letter supporting the adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, be happily viewed as encouraging, for the purpose of supporting the “urgent need” to fight prejudice against Jews and to “speak up” when Israelis and Jews worldwide are threatened?

Signed by academics, diplomats and intellectuals from the US, Europe, Australia, Israel and United Arab Emirates, the letter acknowledged the IHRA definition of antisemitism as "an invaluable tool that recognizes the various manifestations and garbs of contemporary antisemitism". That sounds good, really good, and is entirely appreciated for its level-headed deliberation, appearing to refute the findings of the three professors whose study concludes that individuals at that level of academia are anything but open-minded and reject anti-Semitism for the racial slur that it is.

Except that those who signed that letter, representing an elite echelon of academics, diplomats and intellectuals abroad are not representative of the aggregate in their exalted fields. They are, each and every one, supporters of Israel, Jews themselves or non-Jews who empathize with the Jewish community and who accept Israel as a legitimate state safeguarding the interests and security of Jews worldwide, when the world itself rejected that role, treating Jews differently than all others.

"Just as anti-Semitism on campuses cloaked itself as anti-Zionism in the 1970s and 1980s, Holocaust denial now serves as a campus vehicle for spreading hatred of Jews. By presenting their thesis as an academic question deserving debate, the deniers have found fertile ground among campus newspaper editors eager to demonstrate their commitment to free speech and the airing of controversial ideas. And through the student editors, Holocaust deniers have found an inexpensive method of reaching thousands of impressionable young adults who often have limited knowledge of the Holocaust and are in the process of forming their perceptions of world history."

Anti-Defamation League

Supporters of the 'BDS', Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement protest for lifting the Gaza blockade and to boycott the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest, outside the venue where the contest is to take place in Tel Aviv