Zip, Zilch, Zero, Nada
Jewish students
have even been
made afraid to
exercise their own
constitutional rights
to free expression,
fearing negative
consequences if they
sponsor programs
on campus that
support Israel.
occupier and oppressor. Although Israel
has taken huge risks and made major
concessions in the pursuit of peace, these
efforts are typically overlooked. There is
virtually no acknowledgment of the unre-
lenting terrorism that Israel has faced or
of the many attempts to destroy it. Israeli
leaders are compared to Nazis; Jewish
symbols are demeaned; and the
Holocaust is denied or twisted into an
inappropriate symbol of Israeli oppres-
sion. Zionism — the expression of the
Jewish people's yearning for their historic
homeland — is characterized as racism.
This is absurd, considering that Israelis
are comprised of every color of the rain-
bow, and they all possess freedom of
speech, of the press, of religion, and full
movements. In this context, we can readi-
ly understand how any activity or associ-
ation that implied Orthodoxy's recogni-
tion of Conservative or Reform rabbis as
peers would have signaled to the
Orthodox community that all denomina-
tional options were equally acceptable.
Today, however, the Orthodox commu-
nity has become a stable, indeed growing,
presence successfully retaining its youth.
The ideological battle is, for all intents and
purposes, over.
Even as denominational lines continue
to exist within the Jewish community, the
only line that is thick and red divides
those who ignore rising Jewish apathy
and those ready to combat it. In the 1950s
and indeed into the 1970s, intermarriage
was statistically negligible. Today, stand-
ing as it does at nearly 50 percent, inter-
marriage is the greatest threat to the
entire Jewish community. Indifference
access to the courts.
Jewish students have even been made
afraid to exercise their own constitutional
rights to free expression, fearing negative
consequences if they sponsor programs
on campus that support Israel.
College administrations have for the
most part silently tolerated the hate
expressed toward Jews and Israel, pur-
portedly to protect the rights to free
speech and open debate. But schools have
a legal obligation to ensure that Jewish
students are protected from harassment,
intimidation and discrimination, under
Title VI of the federal Civil Rights Act of
1964. If a school violates the law, it risks
losing its federal funding. Although Title
VI was historically interpreted as not cov-
ering anti-Semitism, the U.S. Department
of Education changed its policy in
September 2004 and determined that
Jewish students are an ethnic group enti-
tled to protection under the law
Jewish students need to know their
legal rights, and the U.S. Commission on
Civil Rights may help them. The
Commission is considering issuing a pub-
lication to inform students of their rights
under Title VI. Jewish students need not,
and should not, tolerate a campus envi-
ronment that renders them afraid to be
Jews or supporters of Israel.
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Susan B. Tuchman is director for the Center
for Law and Justice, Zionist Organization of
America.
towards one's Jewish identity, the frequent
precursor of intermarriage, is widespread
among America's Jews, as is evidenced by
the paltry rates of synagogue affiliation
that turn up in study after study. Anyone
willing to fight for Jewish survival is a de
facto ally.
The window is open; and it may repre-
sent our last, best chance to counter the
trends that have been eroding both the
quality and quantity of Jewish religious
life in the United States. The only question
facing us is whether we help each other
through by sharing ideas, resources and
comradeship or hobble through by with-
holding spiritual capital in the name of an
ideological battle that effectively ended a
generation ago. ❑
re alize
esollution
Don't miss out on our
Health & Fitness Issue
January 26
This issue will be all about
getting in shape, exercise
Yosef Kanefsky is the rabbi of the B'nai David-
equipment and long-term
Judea Congregation in Los Angeles and presi-
health issues.
dent of the Southern California Board of
Rabbis. He is an Edah resource.
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January 5 - 2006
41