“So the Kichels went on leave, huh? Just like that, without any warning?”
We should be grateful to Jonah James for chronicling the anti-Semitism he experienced on the campus of a prominent university, similar to what many others have reported. It is disturbing but not surprising that such hateful treatment of Jewish students with the courage and self-respect not to be cowed into disavowing pride in their Jewish identity (including support for Israel) is not widely reported in the mainstream media. The media’s suppression of such anti-Semitic incidents on college campuses facilitates a lack of accountability, which insures that similar anti-Semitic incidents will continue if not increase.
While it may be tempting for those of us with no connection to the college campus scene to feel that we are not affected by what goes on there, there is good reason not to feel secure. As Mr. James points out, today’s anti-Semitic students will soon enter the workplace and spew their venom there.
But there is another significant reason for concern, which may not be widely known. University anti-Semitism may be a harbinger of anti-Semitic attitudes and behavior in society at large. As the prominent (recently deceased) historian Paul Johnson explains in his outstanding book, A History of The Jews, German university students of the 1920s were at the forefront of virulent, radical anti-Semitism. Such anti-Semitism appeared and took root among German university students years before it spread to German society. It is worth quoting Mr. Johnson:
“Above all, Hitler achieved his greatest success among university students. They were his vanguard. At each stage in the growth of the Nazis, student support preceded general electoral support. The Nazis worked in the first place through the student fraternities…. As they grew more influential, they worked through the students’ union… which dominated student life in the 1920s. Finally, towards the end of the decade they set up their own student party. The success of the Nazis was due to the willingness of enough young fanatics to devote themselves full-time to the effort.”
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