my grandparents changed my father's name from Rubinstein to Hunter in 1938, when he was 14. His oldest brother refused to change his name so my cousins are Rubinsteins. I have thought many times over the years of changing my name back to Rubinstein.
Sarotzky changed to Cooper by my great-grandfather, a coppersmith who immigrated from what is now Belarus in the 1880s, eventually owned his own brass foundry, which enabled him to fund my grandfather’s undergraduate education at Columbia, where my dad earned his M.A. and Ph.D. and where I earned an M.I.A. at SIPA whose current dean is Jewish and Israeli.
Chodasch changed to Chodosh. I don’t know the story but suspect it was too hard to spell and probably say. Of course Chodosh is also hard for people to spell AND say. I recently discovered my grandfathers original lady name while researching the Polish side of my Jewish family. I grew up in NJ in the 50s and 60s very aware of Jews being “sidelined.” My father, a physician, never got privileges at two Catholic hospitals despite his being their primary surgeon. He studied at the University of Virginia but wasn’t allowed to stay in the dorms. Instead he and fellow Jews lived at a boarding house probably run by a Jewish woman, whose name I can’t now recall. When my parents began going to Rangeley, Maine in the mid 40s, they could only stay at two lakeside camps. The others advertised themselves as having a “congenial” atmosphere, code for Jews not allowed. All of this was part of our story growing up but it was not at the center, I don’t think. It was just one aspect of our life. I feel all this more and more, especially post October 7th. Thank you to the author for writing about this painful and worrisome time we Jews now live in.
If wouldn’t have been for the free tuition CCNY, it would’ve been no college for me. My father told me get the grades; it was before Open Admissions. It was a great experience without antisemitism.
I’m Jewish. Khalil has a green card and deporting him seems like a pretty obvious attack on free speech. Whether we share his political inclinations or not, this is concerning
No, I was ordained by JTS. The rabbinical school is not a part of the Columbia. JTS has an undergraduate program (List College) which has a partnership with both Columbia and Barnard. Students in the Joint program study and receive separate degrees from Columbia/Barnard and JTS.
Yes, even so I assumed Columbia counted some percentage of those students which would account for the higher overall Jewish student percentage. There’s no possibility of actually getting a real explanation, so I took a guess as to why. Happy to edit if I can find what the data includes.
Then, in a final stroke of genius, Columbia’s president invented the college interview.
My immediate thought when reading this was the the Senate confirmation hearing was invented for the nomination of Judge Brandeis. Up to that point, nominations went right to the floor for a vote, but hearings were needed for a Jew.
Oh there is so much more. Former Pres Taft was opposed to Brandeis for one reason and one only. Then, a few years later Taft gets nominated and the hearings were pretty contentious. Oh wait, there were no hearings for Taft. The next time there was a judicial nomination hearing was for Felix Frankfurter. One can only wonder why.
Never forget that even modest criticism of anything Israel does via West Bank squatters, East Jerusalem home thefts, or extreme violence in Gaza or the West Bank means that whoever issues such criticisms is on a par with Hitler as an antisemite.
Why is it that Americans love the indigenous Arabs of Palestine so much while hating all Jews? If only Jewish-Americans had even a tiny bit of the political influence in America that the Palestinians have.
My grandfather, a surgeon in the Canadian Air Force, changed his name when a wounded soldier refused to be treated by him when he saw his Jewish name on his uniform.
Well aware of the history and that is the point. Using events from 60 to 100 years ago to try an establish a current point is not only dishonest but laughably foolish.
She was wrong on her Ross Geller comment but can’t even acknowledge that. Nor apologize for her use of the term shiksa which is clear disparagement in addition to being wrong in the circumstance.
Did you even watch these shows? There was no self hatred so now you are just throwing shit out to avoid acknowledging not only the ridiculousness of her screed but its blatant dishonesty.
I saw all of the films you mentioned either on TV or in the movies Fiddler championed assimilation Exodus and Cast a Giant Shadow were important films in their time but Woodie Allen’s films were not exactly portraits of normal human beings let alone committed traditional Jews
Hello, person who is perhaps new to substack, definitely new to Jews and civility. Rachel Greene was never said to be Jewish, nor was she shown doing anything Jewish. She was from Long Island - stereotype much? Shiksa is not derogatory unless you think being not Jewish is demeaning, but please, goysplain some more Yiddish to me. We control the weather too.
The only thing greater than your arrogance is your ignorance:
It’s hard to deny evidence from the source. In 2011, Friends co-creator Marta Kauffman told The Jewish Telegraph that Rachel was not only a Jew, but she’s actually the only “real” Jew of the gang: “only Rachel Green (Jennifer Aniston) is Jewish according to halachic law [a.k.a. Jewish law]” because she had a Jewish mother, where Ross and Monica only had a Jewish father.
As for your other pathetic attempt to avoid your bigotry:
Shiksa (Yiddish: שיקסע, romanized: shikse) is an often disparaging[1] term for a gentile[a] woman or girl. The word, which is of Yiddish origin, has moved into English usage and some Hebrew usage (as well as Polish and German), mostly in North American Jewish culture.
I have read posts from Jewish people on facebook asking the same question, because they want to be able to explain to (coworkers, children, friends).
.
I think the reason for the question is that our lovely media is doing all they can to AVOID reporting the truth. So people find it hard to figure out what EXACTLY did he do.
Ilya Shapiro has written a similar article at City Journal that marshals legal precedent in favor of such deportations and is a must read in the issue .
I don’t know exactly what he did and what he didn’t do - one would have had to follow him around for an entire year presumably. I will just make the general observation, that the “campus protests” have been banalized, as well as mischaracterized by most news outlets as being “anti-war,” and he was at the epicentre of the most extreme and full-blown of them, namely those at Columbia. I think this has happened because, unlike Israelis, most of us haven’t been fed a daily diet of the atrocities that Hamas perpetrated, but rather reports of bombs falling on children in Gaza and their aftermath: the protests seem pretty mild, almost civil, compared to the mayhem and destruction of war.
Why and how is the movement anti-semitic (the fact there are Jews involved in it is irrelevant)? The refrain “we don’t engage with Zionists” was (and is) pretty much universal. They decry Israel as being a “settler-colonialist” project, an “ethno state,” an “apartheid state,” and so on and so forth. All of the simply wrong and ahistorical nature of these barbs has been amply described and analysed by competent historians. This has nothing to do with criticism of the “Israeli government” or the nadir of the Israeli land-for-peace movement. Hopefully it goes without saying that no government is above criticism (especially not Netanyahu), and it is a cliché that criticizing their government is the Israeli national sport.
Terrorism is the use of physical violence to achieve political aims. The protests at Columbia and elsehwere targeted Jews, in particular. They used violence, verbal and physical intimidation to achieve their goals. They also openly celebrated the actions of Hamas terrorists, who zealously slaughtered and tortured well over 1000 people. DId Khalil or other “protesters” engage in terrorist activities as we normally understand it: fabricating bombs, attacking, kidnapping and killing people in ambushes? I doubt it. Does full-throated support for terrorist organizations make one a “terrorist” (remember all of those signs “by whatever means necessary”)? I personally wouldn’t use the word that way - “terrorist supporter” or “apologist” or “fascist” is as far as I think I could get. Celebrating a murderer or being part of a genocidal movement doesn’t make one a killer, but it’s certainly “terrorism adjacent,” and makes of one at least an enabler or accomplice. Khalil, like so many other millions, has probably been fed a diet of this toxic ideology since childhood, with no one in his life to challenge him to reconsider or reflect more deeply. Unfortunately, I don’t think his current situation is likely to lead to a conversion. The holy wars waged on campus have just served to alienate millions of people from each other, and polarize society even further. They have made dialogue more difficult by orders of magnitude. My fervent hope is that most of them will at least feel embarrased, if not shame, twenty years from now. The biggest question, however, is will faculty in universities, many allegedly funded by Qatar, continue to present their biased and hateful fabrications into the foreseeable future, to infect many more generations of credulous students?
It is not only UNRWA, or Hamas for that matter, which is responsible for the anti-Israel ideology that has poisoned the well and made it impossible for all of Palestinian society to create a positive national project. Those seized by this mindset repeat one thing, over and over, « our land was stolen, the Zionists are usurpers and illegitimate rulers and one day we will win (which could only mean kill all the Jews)». The cruel irony is that the extent to which this has helped Palestinian society advance (i.e., not at all) is inversely proportional to the tremendous political success it has had, becoming the dominant narrative and set of truisms of an entire generation around the world.
From a Jesus/Gospel perspective, The reason, that is the basis and always has been, for conflict and suffering and chaos, is the battle in the spiritual and real realm between the father of lies and the only true God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob . Truly seek and you will find the way and the truth.
I don’t know exactly what he did and what he didn’t do - one would have had to follow him around for an entire year presumably. I will just make the general observation, that the “campus protests” have been banalized, as well as mischaracterized by most news outlets as being “anti-war,” and he was at the epicentre of the most extreme and full-blown of them, namely those at Columbia. I think this has happened because, unlike Israelis, most of us haven’t been fed a daily diet of the atrocities that Hamas perpetrated, but rather reports of bombs falling on children in Gaza and their aftermath: the protests seem pretty mild, almost civil, compared to the mayhem and destruction of war.
Why and how is the movement anti-semitic (the fact there are Jews involved in it is irrelevant)? The refrain “we don’t engage with Zionists” was (and is) pretty much universal. They direct spurious claims towards Israel, the most frequent being “settler-colonialist” project, “ethno state,” an “apartheid state,” engaged in “genocide.” The simply wrong and ahistorical nature of these epithets has been amply described and analysed by competent historians. This has nothing to do with criticism of the “Israeli government” or the nadir of the Israeli land-for-peace movement (due to terrorism and perceived lack of interest on the other side). Hopefully it goes without saying that no government is above criticism (especially not Netanyahu), and it is a cliché that criticizing their government is the Israeli national sport.
Terrorism is the use of physical violence to achieve political aims. The protests at Columbia and elsehwere targeted Jews, in particular. They used violence, verbal and physical intimidation to achieve their goals. They also openly celebrated the actions of Hamas terrorists, who zealously slaughtered and tortured well over 1000 people, including babies and children. DId Khalil or other “protesters” engage in terrorist activities as we normally understand it: fabricating bombs, attacking, kidnapping and killing people in ambushes? I doubt it. Does full-throated support for terrorist organizations make one a “terrorist” (remember all of those signs “by whatever means necessary”)? I personally wouldn’t use the word that way - “terrorist supporter” or “apologist” or “fascist” is as far as I think I could get. Celebrating a murderer or being part of a genocidal movement doesn’t make one a killer, but it’s certainly “terrorism adjacent,” and makes of one at least an enabler or accomplice. Khalil, like so many other millions, has probably been fed a diet of this toxic ideology since childhood, with no one in his life to challenge him to reconsider or reflect more deeply. Unfortunately, I don’t think his current situation is likely to lead to a conversion. The holy wars waged on campus have just served to alienate millions of people from each other, and polarize society even further. They have made dialogue more difficult by orders of magnitude. My fervent hope is that most of them will at least feel embarrased, if not shame, twenty years from now. The biggest question, however, is will faculty in universities, many allegedly funded by Qatar, continue to present their biased and hateful fabrications into the foreseeable future, to infect more generations of credulous students?
My father’s uncle changed my father and his brother’s last name from Eisenberg to Estin. Someone literally looked in the NY phone book to find the name. This was so that the brothers, who were from Russian Jewish parents who lived on a chicken farm, could apply and get into colleges: my father, Cooper Union, and my uncle, University of Chicago.
my grandparents changed my father's name from Rubinstein to Hunter in 1938, when he was 14. His oldest brother refused to change his name so my cousins are Rubinsteins. I have thought many times over the years of changing my name back to Rubinstein.
We also had a family disagreement! Schank v Schank. I wish they’d split the difference and gone with Smith.
Sarotzky changed to Cooper by my great-grandfather, a coppersmith who immigrated from what is now Belarus in the 1880s, eventually owned his own brass foundry, which enabled him to fund my grandfather’s undergraduate education at Columbia, where my dad earned his M.A. and Ph.D. and where I earned an M.I.A. at SIPA whose current dean is Jewish and Israeli.
Chodasch changed to Chodosh. I don’t know the story but suspect it was too hard to spell and probably say. Of course Chodosh is also hard for people to spell AND say. I recently discovered my grandfathers original lady name while researching the Polish side of my Jewish family. I grew up in NJ in the 50s and 60s very aware of Jews being “sidelined.” My father, a physician, never got privileges at two Catholic hospitals despite his being their primary surgeon. He studied at the University of Virginia but wasn’t allowed to stay in the dorms. Instead he and fellow Jews lived at a boarding house probably run by a Jewish woman, whose name I can’t now recall. When my parents began going to Rangeley, Maine in the mid 40s, they could only stay at two lakeside camps. The others advertised themselves as having a “congenial” atmosphere, code for Jews not allowed. All of this was part of our story growing up but it was not at the center, I don’t think. It was just one aspect of our life. I feel all this more and more, especially post October 7th. Thank you to the author for writing about this painful and worrisome time we Jews now live in.
acquantance family: Schau to Shaw
(well played imo)
Columbia is clearly a dangerous school for Jewish students
If wouldn’t have been for the free tuition CCNY, it would’ve been no college for me. My father told me get the grades; it was before Open Admissions. It was a great experience without antisemitism.
Yes!
Be courageous and face the future with a smile, time is on your side and things will turn in your favor my dear jewish friend.
I’m Jewish. Khalil has a green card and deporting him seems like a pretty obvious attack on free speech. Whether we share his political inclinations or not, this is concerning
Perhaps you should read the explanations that describe exactly how Khalil’s behavior violated the terms of his green card.
Columbia “houses a rabbinical school?” Since when?
It is factually untrue to say that Columbia has, houses, or administers a rabbinical school.
JTS - I assume they are included in the count.
No, I was ordained by JTS. The rabbinical school is not a part of the Columbia. JTS has an undergraduate program (List College) which has a partnership with both Columbia and Barnard. Students in the Joint program study and receive separate degrees from Columbia/Barnard and JTS.
Yes, even so I assumed Columbia counted some percentage of those students which would account for the higher overall Jewish student percentage. There’s no possibility of actually getting a real explanation, so I took a guess as to why. Happy to edit if I can find what the data includes.
Then, in a final stroke of genius, Columbia’s president invented the college interview.
My immediate thought when reading this was the the Senate confirmation hearing was invented for the nomination of Judge Brandeis. Up to that point, nominations went right to the floor for a vote, but hearings were needed for a Jew.
WOW. I did not know this - thank you.
Oh there is so much more. Former Pres Taft was opposed to Brandeis for one reason and one only. Then, a few years later Taft gets nominated and the hearings were pretty contentious. Oh wait, there were no hearings for Taft. The next time there was a judicial nomination hearing was for Felix Frankfurter. One can only wonder why.
I’m going to dig into this. Thank you!
maybe it was because he was from Kentucky? :-)
Never forget that even modest criticism of anything Israel does via West Bank squatters, East Jerusalem home thefts, or extreme violence in Gaza or the West Bank means that whoever issues such criticisms is on a par with Hitler as an antisemite.
Why is it that Americans love the indigenous Arabs of Palestine so much while hating all Jews? If only Jewish-Americans had even a tiny bit of the political influence in America that the Palestinians have.
My grandfather, a surgeon in the Canadian Air Force, changed his name when a wounded soldier refused to be treated by him when he saw his Jewish name on his uniform.
Your screed is an insult to the majority of Americans, and reveals you to be just another bigot.
Selective examples from decades past is not “proof” of anything but shines a light on your obvious goal to obfuscate the facts of the present day.
Also, Ross’s desire, the “shiksa”, which is a demeaning term to describe Gentile women, was Rachel Green, who was Jewish.
If you can’t get the small things right, it is no surprise you fail on the big things.
I know, I lie and obfuscate like a Jew.
Nice try - instead of dealing with legitimate critique you respond in a feckless manner further proving the point.
Her piece was not a screed. Maybe you are unfamiliar with the history of Jews and universities in America. Reschedule up.
Well aware of the history and that is the point. Using events from 60 to 100 years ago to try an establish a current point is not only dishonest but laughably foolish.
Why? What’s foolish?
Using distant events as “proof” of current events.
I don’t think she was doing that. She was contextualizing the present by describing the past.
Bullshit - suggest you read the screed.
The quotas against Jewish students in the Ivies up until WW2 are well documented as are the same quotas imposed now by DEI and CRT advocates
Yes - 80 years ago! Hasn’t been the case since has it! I guess the rest of us Americans aren’t very good at antisemitism.
The author was clearly describing how Hollywood portrays American Jews which borders on self hatred
Are you kidding?! 😂😂😂😂
She was wrong on her Ross Geller comment but can’t even acknowledge that. Nor apologize for her use of the term shiksa which is clear disparagement in addition to being wrong in the circumstance.
Did you even watch these shows? There was no self hatred so now you are just throwing shit out to avoid acknowledging not only the ridiculousness of her screed but its blatant dishonesty.
Name one movie in which the Jewish experience and Jewish tradition was not portrayed in a negative self hating fashion
So you can’t accept the truth about the TV programs, so you move the goalpost to movies! Ridiculous. So desperate to prove your point.
Ok - Fiddler on the Roof; Exodus; Cast a Giant Shadow are 3 that come to mind immediately. Annie Hall would be another one.
I saw all of the films you mentioned either on TV or in the movies Fiddler championed assimilation Exodus and Cast a Giant Shadow were important films in their time but Woodie Allen’s films were not exactly portraits of normal human beings let alone committed traditional Jews
Actually I looked at Exodus a few years ago and I’ll maintain it had antisemitic themes.
All those films do not portray self hatred - case closed.
Hello, person who is perhaps new to substack, definitely new to Jews and civility. Rachel Greene was never said to be Jewish, nor was she shown doing anything Jewish. She was from Long Island - stereotype much? Shiksa is not derogatory unless you think being not Jewish is demeaning, but please, goysplain some more Yiddish to me. We control the weather too.
The only thing greater than your arrogance is your ignorance:
It’s hard to deny evidence from the source. In 2011, Friends co-creator Marta Kauffman told The Jewish Telegraph that Rachel was not only a Jew, but she’s actually the only “real” Jew of the gang: “only Rachel Green (Jennifer Aniston) is Jewish according to halachic law [a.k.a. Jewish law]” because she had a Jewish mother, where Ross and Monica only had a Jewish father.
https://www.vulture.com/2014/12/friends-countdown-is-rachel-green-jewish.html
As for your other pathetic attempt to avoid your bigotry:
Shiksa (Yiddish: שיקסע, romanized: shikse) is an often disparaging[1] term for a gentile[a] woman or girl. The word, which is of Yiddish origin, has moved into English usage and some Hebrew usage (as well as Polish and German), mostly in North American Jewish culture.
For the record, shikse, used in a derogatory way, basically means a whore. Like your sister, you fucking antisemitic troll. Fuck off.
Thanks for confirming my point.
As for your comment about my sister, typical stupid response by a gutless twerp who thinks he has some power throwing around the antisemitism charge.
It don’t play no more fucktard.
The word is of Hebrew origin. Then Yiddishized. It means something like cockroach.
Still confirming it is derogatory.
That makes me laugh.
Just want to give the correct translation.
You should let Wikipedia know.
What exactly did Khalil say or do that earned him the terrorist label?
https://www.city-journal.org/article/columbia-student-mahmoud-khalil-hamas-deport-legal
I’ll leave you to do your own research, but you’ll have to remove the Jew Hating goggles first.
I have read posts from Jewish people on facebook asking the same question, because they want to be able to explain to (coworkers, children, friends).
.
I think the reason for the question is that our lovely media is doing all they can to AVOID reporting the truth. So people find it hard to figure out what EXACTLY did he do.
.
Ah, the token Jew defense.
Agreed
Ilya Shapiro has written a similar article at City Journal that marshals legal precedent in favor of such deportations and is a must read in the issue .
I’m sorry, are you accusing me of hating Jews?
Your question demonstrates the Jew hatred inherent in the system.
I respectfully disagree, but wish you all the best!
Hey--he's "just asking questions."
I don’t know exactly what he did and what he didn’t do - one would have had to follow him around for an entire year presumably. I will just make the general observation, that the “campus protests” have been banalized, as well as mischaracterized by most news outlets as being “anti-war,” and he was at the epicentre of the most extreme and full-blown of them, namely those at Columbia. I think this has happened because, unlike Israelis, most of us haven’t been fed a daily diet of the atrocities that Hamas perpetrated, but rather reports of bombs falling on children in Gaza and their aftermath: the protests seem pretty mild, almost civil, compared to the mayhem and destruction of war.
Why and how is the movement anti-semitic (the fact there are Jews involved in it is irrelevant)? The refrain “we don’t engage with Zionists” was (and is) pretty much universal. They decry Israel as being a “settler-colonialist” project, an “ethno state,” an “apartheid state,” and so on and so forth. All of the simply wrong and ahistorical nature of these barbs has been amply described and analysed by competent historians. This has nothing to do with criticism of the “Israeli government” or the nadir of the Israeli land-for-peace movement. Hopefully it goes without saying that no government is above criticism (especially not Netanyahu), and it is a cliché that criticizing their government is the Israeli national sport.
Terrorism is the use of physical violence to achieve political aims. The protests at Columbia and elsehwere targeted Jews, in particular. They used violence, verbal and physical intimidation to achieve their goals. They also openly celebrated the actions of Hamas terrorists, who zealously slaughtered and tortured well over 1000 people. DId Khalil or other “protesters” engage in terrorist activities as we normally understand it: fabricating bombs, attacking, kidnapping and killing people in ambushes? I doubt it. Does full-throated support for terrorist organizations make one a “terrorist” (remember all of those signs “by whatever means necessary”)? I personally wouldn’t use the word that way - “terrorist supporter” or “apologist” or “fascist” is as far as I think I could get. Celebrating a murderer or being part of a genocidal movement doesn’t make one a killer, but it’s certainly “terrorism adjacent,” and makes of one at least an enabler or accomplice. Khalil, like so many other millions, has probably been fed a diet of this toxic ideology since childhood, with no one in his life to challenge him to reconsider or reflect more deeply. Unfortunately, I don’t think his current situation is likely to lead to a conversion. The holy wars waged on campus have just served to alienate millions of people from each other, and polarize society even further. They have made dialogue more difficult by orders of magnitude. My fervent hope is that most of them will at least feel embarrased, if not shame, twenty years from now. The biggest question, however, is will faculty in universities, many allegedly funded by Qatar, continue to present their biased and hateful fabrications into the foreseeable future, to infect many more generations of credulous students?
Khalil worked got UNRWA which is Hamas dominated and controlled
It is not only UNRWA, or Hamas for that matter, which is responsible for the anti-Israel ideology that has poisoned the well and made it impossible for all of Palestinian society to create a positive national project. Those seized by this mindset repeat one thing, over and over, « our land was stolen, the Zionists are usurpers and illegitimate rulers and one day we will win (which could only mean kill all the Jews)». The cruel irony is that the extent to which this has helped Palestinian society advance (i.e., not at all) is inversely proportional to the tremendous political success it has had, becoming the dominant narrative and set of truisms of an entire generation around the world.
From a Jesus/Gospel perspective, The reason, that is the basis and always has been, for conflict and suffering and chaos, is the battle in the spiritual and real realm between the father of lies and the only true God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob . Truly seek and you will find the way and the truth.
Oh good. In a war between Jews and genocidal Islamicists, we finally have the Jesus/Gospel persoective.
I don’t know exactly what he did and what he didn’t do - one would have had to follow him around for an entire year presumably. I will just make the general observation, that the “campus protests” have been banalized, as well as mischaracterized by most news outlets as being “anti-war,” and he was at the epicentre of the most extreme and full-blown of them, namely those at Columbia. I think this has happened because, unlike Israelis, most of us haven’t been fed a daily diet of the atrocities that Hamas perpetrated, but rather reports of bombs falling on children in Gaza and their aftermath: the protests seem pretty mild, almost civil, compared to the mayhem and destruction of war.
Why and how is the movement anti-semitic (the fact there are Jews involved in it is irrelevant)? The refrain “we don’t engage with Zionists” was (and is) pretty much universal. They direct spurious claims towards Israel, the most frequent being “settler-colonialist” project, “ethno state,” an “apartheid state,” engaged in “genocide.” The simply wrong and ahistorical nature of these epithets has been amply described and analysed by competent historians. This has nothing to do with criticism of the “Israeli government” or the nadir of the Israeli land-for-peace movement (due to terrorism and perceived lack of interest on the other side). Hopefully it goes without saying that no government is above criticism (especially not Netanyahu), and it is a cliché that criticizing their government is the Israeli national sport.
Terrorism is the use of physical violence to achieve political aims. The protests at Columbia and elsehwere targeted Jews, in particular. They used violence, verbal and physical intimidation to achieve their goals. They also openly celebrated the actions of Hamas terrorists, who zealously slaughtered and tortured well over 1000 people, including babies and children. DId Khalil or other “protesters” engage in terrorist activities as we normally understand it: fabricating bombs, attacking, kidnapping and killing people in ambushes? I doubt it. Does full-throated support for terrorist organizations make one a “terrorist” (remember all of those signs “by whatever means necessary”)? I personally wouldn’t use the word that way - “terrorist supporter” or “apologist” or “fascist” is as far as I think I could get. Celebrating a murderer or being part of a genocidal movement doesn’t make one a killer, but it’s certainly “terrorism adjacent,” and makes of one at least an enabler or accomplice. Khalil, like so many other millions, has probably been fed a diet of this toxic ideology since childhood, with no one in his life to challenge him to reconsider or reflect more deeply. Unfortunately, I don’t think his current situation is likely to lead to a conversion. The holy wars waged on campus have just served to alienate millions of people from each other, and polarize society even further. They have made dialogue more difficult by orders of magnitude. My fervent hope is that most of them will at least feel embarrased, if not shame, twenty years from now. The biggest question, however, is will faculty in universities, many allegedly funded by Qatar, continue to present their biased and hateful fabrications into the foreseeable future, to infect more generations of credulous students?
My father’s uncle changed my father and his brother’s last name from Eisenberg to Estin. Someone literally looked in the NY phone book to find the name. This was so that the brothers, who were from Russian Jewish parents who lived on a chicken farm, could apply and get into colleges: my father, Cooper Union, and my uncle, University of Chicago.