An Open Letter to YU President Ari Berman
Dear Rabbi Berman,
I have a deep affinity for Yeshiva University. My wife and one of my daughters are proud alumnae. While I did not attend YU, I did have the amazing merit, shortly after my wedding, to go to HaRav Aaron Soloveichik’s Tractate Shabbos shiur for several months. My “yeshivish” training aside (I still, at age 66, learn in my mainstream yeshiva in the morning), my hashkafa is often aligned with YU’s own.
It is with this background that I express shock at the disturbing claims made by Prof. Alan Dershowitz in The Jewish Press (“Diversity Of Viewpoint: Not Welcome At Cardozo Law School,” April 26). According to Dershowitz, he recently spoke at Cardozo, only to receive a malevolent reception from many of the students. When he criticized the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs that are central to many universities, quoting Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to buttress his view, he was shouted down. After his presentation, he asserts, Dean Melanie Leslie denounced Dershowitz for his opposition to DEI, despite the fact that DEI is the cause of many current ills, including the exclusion of Jews and Asians from equal participation in campus and corporate cultures. And DEI, as Dershowitz rightly notes, shares significant blame for the pro-Hamas views of students around the country.
Again according to Dershowitz, Dean Leslie, who originally opposed having him speak at Cardozo, did not apologize for the behavior of her students. Meanwhile, many students told Dershowitz that they avoided making their anti-DEI views known for fear of reprisals. DEI, as we know, claims to support “diversity” while it simultaneously shuts down opposing opinions.
Rabbi Berman, the notion that a Jewish university, no less the leading Jewish university in the world, would permit its law school to side with an anti-Jewish and anti-Israel philosophy is stunning. How can you stand by as your own law school flirts with the vile ideologies that underpin this hatred of Israel and Jews?
Rabbi Berman, in a recent Times of Israel interview, you denounced the sort of campus atmosphere that nurtures hatred of Jews and Israel. I submit that as Dershowitz states, DEI is very much a complicit actor. Assuming that Dershowitz’s assessment of Cardozo is accurate (Cardozo’s website touts its devotion to DEI), I call upon you to dismiss Dean Melanie Leslie and to install in her place a leader who supports Jews and Israel. If this is not done, then I call upon Cardozo’s private donors to reassess whether this law school is worthy of their support. At the end of the day, money talks.
Avi Goldstein
Far Rockaway, N.Y.
Mob Rule Undermines Democracy’s Rule of Law
Your April 26 front page photo with the headline “Standing Up To The Mob At Columbia” describes just one of an explosion of demonstrations, both on and off campus, against Israel in its war against Hamas. The speed and extent with which they erupted show that they were not spontaneous but were well planned and organized beforehand. Mob rule is a relatively new experience in America but one with a very serious omen for the future.
At the beginning of the 21st century, the United States was the greatest and only world superpower, economically, militarily and politically. American democracy’s rule of law was a guiding light among the world’s nations.
However, starting with the Obama presidency in 2009, that began to radically change, and street mob rule has become commonplace and is increasing rapidly, undermining the American constitution’s rule of law.
Many officials at all levels of government make no effort to stop this progression, and in fact are spearheading the charge to increase it. This, along with open borders which allow millions of migrants of unknown backgrounds to enter, undermines American democracy as we know it, producing the existential threat of an ever-tightening death spiral that, if not reversed now, will “fundamentally transform” America from a model of free enterprise democracy into another socialist autocracy.
And with it, one of the last bastions of security for Jews in the world will also be lost.
Max Wisotsky
Highland Park, N.J.
Call in the National Guard
The hatred, bigotry, antisemitism and disrespect for the law, as well as fear, can easily be stopped by calling in the National Guard. This is like the hatred in Little Rock, Arkansas, stopped by President Eisenhower in 1957. It is very sad that it has come to this level, but unfortunately, it has. This calls into question the teaching in our universities and high schools.
Charles Winfield
Princeton, N.J.
Take Back Campuses and Streets
Kaffiyehs. Masks. Constant fashion statement chic attire at pro-Palestinian rallies now roiling American city spaces and college campuses.
Kaffiyehs showing support by organizers and their emotionally driven dupes for Hamas’s Oct.7 unspeakable atrocities against innocent Israeli civilians. Masks to protect rioters’ anonymity against reprisal for their brazen, disruptive behavior. Early in the last century, many Southern states, reacting to KKK resurgence, passed laws banning masking in public. Such bans, with minimal exceptions, are needed now more than ever. Campuses, in particular, should incorporate them as part of their student code of Conduct.
Current codes incorporate more than enough means for college administrators to retake control of their campuses. Few have been up to that challenge. All students should be treated equally. Every college space should be safe. Citing “free speech” has allowed administrators to look the other way as pro-Palestinian mobs, often incited by radical faculty, harass and intimidate Jewish students, faculty and administrators. Their current circumstances are clearly perilous. The organized Jewish community must take a very strong stance against this intolerable situation. Alumni, by joining online “Alums for Campus Fairness,” with now 76 chapters at elite colleges nationwide, and over 50,000 individual members, can be an especially potent part of that.
Other “unmasking” is warranted as well. Those protests are hardly spontaneous. They are notably well organized, well directed, and well financed. They are far more than just antisemitic and anti-Israel. They are anti-America at their core. Their subversive presence constitutes a clear and present danger to American democracy. There needs to be the fullest exposure of the shadowy groups behind them, with an intensely bright light shone on their insidious means and goals. America must take back its streets and campuses.
Richard D. Wilkins
Syracuse, N.Y.
Jewish Politicians’ Capitulation
Governor Shapiro can’t use the word antisemitism without chiming in with Islamophobia. Jewish students and faculty are being battered and bruised from coast to coast and Shapiro finds the one Muslim to feel sorry for. And what’s there to say about Senator Schumer. The shomer for Joe Biden’s capitulation to the Squad.
Thank G-d for Speaker Mike Johnson, senators Tom Cotton, John Fetterman and Lindsey Graham, and representatives Elise Stefanik and Virginia Foxx, to name a few. Non-Jews they may be, but they know how to stand up for Jews and Israel in our time of need. That’s more than can be said for the aforementioned Jewish politicians.
Zachary Margolies
Philadelphia, Pa.
