“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech.” As Jews we laud the principle of free speech as enshrined in the First Ammendment of the United States Constitution. Our people have lived in numerous countries where speech has been censored as well as practice of our religion. Yet too often there are people who hide behind free speech to spew hatred and threatening remarks. Too often people engage lawyers who know where the lines are drawn between free speech, hate speech and incitement and skirt on that line. Should #Hitlerwasright be free speech? How about having “easy access to Zionist journalists?” Do we need to wait for someone to be harmed in order to view speech as crossing a line?

On one hand we need to support free speech because of times when we were unable to speak out against evil and violence. On the other hand we must routinely condemn hate speech whenever we hear it-provided of course that our safety is not impacted in said situation. There is no such thing as an innocent bystander in Judaism. Not only must we condemn this hateful rhetoric but we also need to work with allies at creating a kinder, gentler world. Love will always triumph over hate and goodness will over evil.

Am Yisrael Chai!

I had a wonderful 3 years at the University of Wisconsin. Some of the best friends of my life were made there. Sure there were regular anti-Israel protestors but they were almost comical in nature (Jews United for Justice-4 middle aged men with a small protest sign). After seeing what is going on on liberal college campuses today, including at Columbia, a mere 6 blocks from JTS, I am enraged but not surprised. 

What can we do as these protests spread to numerous colleges throughout the United States? One thing is to withhold our funding to any of these universities that are not keeping our Jewish students safe. However I believe we need to do more. We need to call our local politicians and impress upon them the need for safety of our students-it is even better if we call on our non-Jewish allies to make these calls for us. We must also call on sanctions for those who are funding these demonstrations as well as elimination of federal and state funding for those who are allowing them to occur and putting their students in danger.

I want us to hear from our college students, as we did from Carly Klinger of Aggies for Israel on April 7, as to what they go through on a daily basis. I also want us to encourage sanctions on the countries who are funding Middle East programs who are inciting this hatred, most directly Qatar. It is no accident that these students are not only getting violent but also trying to incite Hamas to attack Jewish students on campuses. 

This is a crazy time that keeps getting crazier yet we will get through it with resilience and resolve. Am Yisrael Chai!v