This week’s update brings the same message as that of last week: deeply rooted Jewish education helps Jewish youth withstand and even push back through the maelstrom of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hatred on campus. This week, however, the message emanates from a professor of Jewish history based upon his actual experience two weeks ago at a university in California.
Prof. Jeffrey Blutinger, the Barbara and Ray Alpert Endowed Chair in Jewish studies and a professor of history at California State University, Long Beach, wrote of his attempt to deliver a lecture at San Jose State University on the subject of a two-state solution to Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians. “I tried to speak….the police had to evacuate me,” Prof. Blutinger titled his report of the experience.
Blutinger has been teaching the subject of Israel and the Middle East for 22 years. “I have never seen campuses as threatening to Jewish students and faculty as today,” he writes. Police were need to evacuate him from a building because anti-Israel protesters had poured into the hallway adjacent to the lecture room and created what university security deemed to be an “imminent danger” for the professor and everyone else attending the lecture.
Blutinger had been invited by SJSU’s director of Jewish studies to speak to a class about the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. His plan was to discuss with students how the two sides were achingly close to a solution, between Oslo in 1993 and Taba in 2001.
About 20 minutes into his talk, the campus police and the San Jose Police Department interrupted the lecture to tell Prof. Blutinger they had to evacuate him immediately. The mob in the hallway was bordering on violence. He did not want to leave but he had no choice.
Most of Prof. Blutinger’s op-ed is a lament for the future of American colleges in general and for “the future of Jewish scholars and scholarship in American higher education”, in particular.
He confirms the importance of “safe spaces” for Jewish students on campuses because of the proliferation of virulent anti-Israel, anti-Jewish protests. But Prof. Blutinger adds the following broad instruction for the parents of prospective campus-age children. Within the broad instruction, Prof. Blutinger, includes a narrower, more pointed statement about Jewish education.” It is this latter statement, of course, that GAJE wishes our readers to know.
“Parents want to shelter their children, but today’s antisemitism on campus shows us that these students will not benefit at college if they are thrust into it from a cloistered background. It is crucial for Jewish students to understand what it means to be Jewish and all the nuances of events in the Middle East, so they have the confidence to advocate for themselves. (Our emphasis) It is equally crucial that well before arriving at college, parents ensure their children are exposed to myriad opinions on all sorts of issues, not just Israel and Judaism. If students aren’t raised to hear opinions that may make them uncomfortable, they will never be prepared for higher education and certainly the wider world. They must have the basis of resilience and self-confidence when they graduate high school so they can further develop those qualities at college.”
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To help our children on campus have the resilience and self-confidence that flow from understanding what it means to be Jewish and all the nuances of events in the Middle East, they must have access to Jewish education. And that is why GAJE is trying to help make Jewish education affordable to all Jewish families in Ontario that seek it for their children.
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Prof. Blutinger’s article can be found at:
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If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit for fairness in educational funding, please click here.
For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com
Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of underwriting the costs of the lawsuit.
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Shabbat shalom. Am Yisrael Chai.
Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)
March 1, 2024
Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education 