“It’s fascinating that there was not a Jewish president of a major university — with one or two exceptions — until about 15 years ago. And then all of a sudden — without notice — there are Jewish presidents now at dozens of major institutions.”
This statement was made by a prominent academician in speaking to students at Dartmouth College. Is it antisemitic? The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) thinks so. It labels as antisemitic “allegations about Jews… controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.” As of December 11th, when President Trump signed an executive order on antisemitism, countenancing such a statement by a recipient of federal financial assistance could cause it to lose its funding, as the order adds discrimination based on antisemitism to the other types of discrimination (race, color, national origin) penalized under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The statement above about Jewish college presidents was made by James Freedman, the Jewish President of Dartmouth College, in talking with members of the Jewish campus organization Hillel in 1998. I think President Freedman would be surprised to learn he is an anti-Semite, but then little surprises him these days. Fortunately for Trump and the IHRA, they are spared the embarrassment of punishing Dartmouth for Freedman’s remark as he died in 2006.
Here’s another brainteaser in the same vein: if 6 of the 8 presidents of Ivy League schools were women, do you think it would be noted and remarked upon? How about if they were Blacks. Or Mormons. Or Jews. If you answered “Yes” to all but the last group, you would be right. At least 6 of the presidents of Ivy League schools are Jews and the president of one exception, Harvard, is married to a Jew (I don’t know the religious affiliation of the president of my alma mater, Dartmouth). If you were unaware of this, consider the observation of Gilad Atzmon, a dissident Israeli: “Jewish power is the power to stop you questioning Jewish power.”
There has been much outcry over the likelihood Trump’s order will cause criticism of Israel to be censored. In the order, Trump instructs federal agencies to use the examples of antisemitism enumerated by the IHRA in evaluating whether an act of discrimination has occurred. Examples given by the IHRA include claiming Israel is a racist state, requiring of Israel behavior not demanded of any other democratic nation, using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism to characterize Israel or Israelis, holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel, and drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis (this last is problematic as many prominent Jews make the comparison).
I have for long (since 1969) been a critic of Zionism and the Jewish state, but I think the concern over the stifling of free speech with regard to Israel may be overblown. I can’t think of any statement about Israel I have made in the past or am likely to make in the future which would meet the IHRA’s criteria as being antisemitic, except maybe that one about Israeli/Nazi commonality (in that I’m in distinguished company). But there is another aspect of antisemitism covered by the order that has received little notice and about which I am particularly and personally concerned. That is the issue of Holocaust “denial”.
Among its examples of antisemitism the IHRA lists: “Denying the fact, scope, mechanisms (e.g. gas chambers) or intentionality of the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of National Socialist Germany.” I do that all the time, but I’m not worried much about it as I’m not a recipient of federal funding (other than a monthly Social Security check). The likelihood of Trump’s order resulting in critical discussion on the Holocaust being banned from college campuses doesn’t worry me either, as critical discussion on the Holocaust has been banned from college campuses for decades (“Veritas” = “Never us” in this regard, to twist Harvard’s motto).
One diligent revisionist, Bradley Smith, founder of the “Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust” (CODOH), spent years trying to arrange speaking engagements at America’s colleges with little success. He couldn’t even place an ad for his autobiography, Break His Bones: The Private Life of a Holocaust Revisionist, in campus newspapers. This despite his not fitting the stereotypical image of a Holocaust denier as a Nazi-loving, Aryan supremacist, what with his being married to a Mexican (nor do I with my Semitic wife).
What does concern me is that Trump’s order might represent a step towards the United States adopting the sort of Holocaust denial laws common in Europe. Under such laws, a respected historian spent 13 months in an Austrian prison. A PhD. Candidate in Chemistry at the Max Planck Institute was similarly imprisoned in a German prison for four years. One “denier”, a Jew who has avoided imprisonment so far because he is an American (God bless the First Amendment!), quips, “The leaders of Germany today want to prove they’re not the sort of Germans who lock people up for writing books by locking people up for writing books.”
Will the United States join the ranks of the book-burners? (Literally. German authorities burn all copies of books by those convicted under Germany’s holocaust denial law. They just don’t do it as publicly as the Nazis turned piles of forbidden literature into bonfires.) I hope this impingement on our freedom of speech never comes to pass; but just in case, from now on I’m going to be very careful and precise about what I say with regard to the Holocaust. So, let me make myself perfectly clear. THERE WERE NO GAS CHAMBERS!!! (For the reasoning behind this claim, read my pamphlet DID THE HOLOCAUST REALLY HAPPEN The Way We’ve been Told? or visit the CODOH website.)
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