The president of the University of Pennsylvania was pilloried last week for her response (“depends on the context”*) to a “gotcha” question posed by a grandstanding congresswoman (“Would calls on campus for the genocide of Jews violate the school’s conduct policy?”**). Had I been asked that question, I would have responded a bit differently. I would have pointed out that one of the most important lessons a student can learn at college is how to distinguish fact from opinion and to teach the distinction requires airing opinions which are iconoclastic, disconcerting, even inciting. If some of the country’s brightest young people cannot master this basic but vital skill, woe unto the nation.***
Let’s see how we do in this regard by positing a hypothetical statement and judging whether it is true based on the evidence supporting it:
Statement: Judaism is a tribal, supremacist ideology which discriminates against Gentiles (the rest of us) in a harmful and dangerous manner.
Evidence: (1) Jews believe the “Twelve Tribes of Israel” are God’s Chosen People, in essence coining the term “chauvinism” long before its eponymous namesake, the rabidly patriotic Frenchman Nicholas Chauvin, lived; (2) Jews celebrate vengeful, genocidal attacks by their god on Gentiles (see my posting “I Generally Don’t Critique Religious Beliefs, But…”); (3) According to Hebraic dogma, the Ten Commandments apply only to Jews, i.e., “Thou shalt not kill” prohibits Jews from killing Jews, but not from killing Gentiles; (4) Jews may not enslave Jews, but the enslavement of Gentiles is alright; (5) Jews cannot engage in usury (the charging of interest) on loans to Jews, but can if the borrower is a Gentile, (6) Jewish slang for a Gentile woman, “shiksa” (derived from the Yiddish word for “impure”), is “inherently condescending, racist and misogynistic”, according to a rabbi; (7) Jews’ contempt for Gentiles inspires antisemitism.
(I’m sure someone better versed in Judaism than I could come up with many more examples of how the Jews’ obligations to each other differ from their obligations to Gentiles.)
So, does my evidence prove my statement factual? Hardly. Even though each of my points (except the last) is a fact, the statement itself is an opinion. Its validity hinges on your definition of “tribal”, “supremacist”, “discriminate”, “dangerous”—even the word “Judaism”, there being much diversity of opinion on dogma within the religion (Hebraic scholars, for instance, have hotly debated whether throwing out the dishwater constitutes work and therefore cannot be performed on the Sabbath).
Is my statement on Judaism antisemitic? To answer that question, let’s consider another statement: “At one time, all eight major Hollywood studios were headed by Jews” (a fact). Citing that fact would be considered antisemitic by some because they assume the speaker means to imply Jews control Hollywood and that’s a bad thing (an opinion). On the other hand, the speaker could mean to praise Jews for making Hollywood the movie capital of the world (another opinion).
Should certain unpleasant, disconcerting, provocative facts not be mentioned? Elon Musk, the “free speech absolutist”, thinks facts should not be selectively censored (so why is my X account suspended, Elon?).**** If we are not going to look at the facts—all the facts—on what are we to base our opinions and ultimately our actions? Ignorance? Treating some facts as taboo is as damaging to our understanding as “fake” facts.
Facts are not dangerous in and of themselves; it’s how we interpret the facts that can be problematic.***** Commitment to the principle of free speech requires us to allow all interpretations to be aired. We can counter, mock, castigate, ostracize those whose views we find hateful, but we must not gag. Recognizing that interpreting human social dynamics is complex and accepting the possibility our own interpretations might be wrong, we should constantly test our opinions against the facts, as many as we can gather. “There is no evil in the world,” I profess (to shocked disbelief in light of so much apparent evil), “only ignorance.”
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* What the Penn president had in mind when she talked about context was probably Supreme Court Justice Olver Wendell Holmes‘ line that free speech does not legitimize shouting “fire” in a crowded theater. Those who love to cite that dictum to justify curtailing someone’s rights, should note that such is the case only if the shout, or a similar exercise in free speech, constitutes a “clear and present danger”, i.e., the context. (If inciting violence were a prosecutable offense, most of our commentators on foreign policy—from the president on down to inflammatory TV reporters—would face jail time. Should they be held accountable for inciting that man in Vermont to shoot three Palestinian college students? (Remember the 30 decapitated Israeli babies, the scurrilous charges of rape, the “brutal”, “savage”, “horrific” attack by Hamas which saw unarmed young men lead captives back to Gaza while Israel responded with tank fire that killed hostages and hostage-takers alike, etc.)
** As you hear of similar calls posted on social media and college walls, keep in mind that sometimes false-flag, antisemitic acts are committed by the Jews themselves, as was the case with bomb threats telephoned to over a hundred Jewish institutions in 2017 which were traced to an Israeli.
*** For those of you into identity politics, it’s interesting that all three of the university presidents grilled by Congress were women (and one a Jew). Also, interesting is which schools’ presidents were selected to testify. If it had been the presidents of all eight Ivy League schools plus MIT, of the nine, seven would have been women (and six, Jews).
**** Believing that the slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is a genocidal call for killing all Jews (as Musk reportedly does), not for the creation of a non-Zionist state in all of Palestine, i.e., the One State solution, is racist in the extreme, implying as it does that Arabs are “savages”, “subhuman”, “animals”, as racist Israelis are wont to call them (and our racist ancestors called Amerindians).
***** One of the interpretations I encounter frequently as a longtime proponent of the Palestinian cause is the claim that our unbridled support for Israel results from Zionist control of our foreign policy. Given that it’s unclear who determines our foreign policy and open to debate what policy is in the best interest of the country, those who hold this view may be right, but they should keep in mind that implying Zionists who are American citizens—Jew or Gentile—put their loyalty to Israel above that to the United States is tantamount to accusing them of treason. Such a charge should not be made lightly and is not justified merely by the fact Jews occupy a disproportionate number of positions in the upper echelons of our foreign policy bureaucracy.
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