19 years ago, the Los Angeles Times published a column about anti-Semitism on American campuses

The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the author.

Anti-Semitism on American college campuses is not new. University presidents and professors did not start tolerating or teaching anti-Semitism on October 8. Students marching in the name of the annihilation of the Jewish state, student activists tearing down posters of kidnapped Jewish children, locking out Jewish students in a Cooper Union library, and ” 70% of Jewish college students feel compelled to hide their identities Jew” are the result of decades of anti-Israel, anti-Zionist and anti-Jewish rhetoric.

An example I came across recently is a column titled “When Young Jews Grow Up in Anti-Semitism,” published in 2005 in the Los Angeles Times. When I looked to see who wrote the column, I saw, to my surprise, that he did. He didn't remember writing the piece. But it's well worth reading today.

“American Jewry is experiencing cognitive dissonance like it has never known. To illustrate this, consider my recent lecture in Virginia Beach, Va.: 'Anti-Semitism on Colleges: What Can We Do About It?'

“It is very significant that a major (meaning largely secular and liberal) Jewish organization (the Jewish Community Center) would fly a speaker in from across the country to speak about anti-Semitism on campuses….

“Universities have become society's main breeding ground for hatred of Israel. This hatred is often so intense that the college campus has become a haven for people who use anti-Zionism to mask their anti-Semitism. Furthermore, anti-Zionism itself is a form of anti-Semitism, even if some Jews share it. Because? Because anti-Zionism is not just criticism of Israel, which is as legitimate as criticism of any country. Anti-Zionism means that Israel as a Jewish state has no right to exist. And when a person argues that only one country in the world is not worthy of existence, and that is the only Jewish country in the world, he is engaging in anti-Semitism, whether he is personally anti-Semitic or not.

“Not long ago, on my radio show, I invited a UCLA student who, on the occasion of Israel's birthday, had written a hateful article about the Jewish state in the Bruin, the school paper. I asked him if he had always been anti-Israel. She said that as a Jewish girl who grew up in Britain, she was actually a Zionist who had visited Israel several times on Jewish student trips there.

“'What changed you?' I asked

“”The university,” he replied.

“This kind of transformation may be what inspired Harvard University President Lawrence Summers to deliver a speech in which he identified the university as replacing the far right as a center of anti-Semitism. “Wherever anti-Semitism and deeply anti-Israel views have traditionally been the main preserve of uneducated right-wing populists,” he warned, “deeply anti-Israel views are increasingly finding support in progressive intellectual communities.” Serious People and reflexively defend and take actions that are anti-Semitic in effect, if not in intent.'

“The vast majority of pro-Israel Jews, secular and religious, liberal and conservative, know this. This explains the lecture topic I was asked to speak on in Virginia to a largely secular and liberal Jewish audience.

“To make matters worse for the psyche of many Jews, not only has the institution they most revere turned out to be a moral wasteland and the most welcoming place for the enemies of the Jewish people and America (but that's another story) — at the same time, the people that many Jews have feared most, the conservative Christians, have turned out to be the most loyal friends of the Jews. That the secular university is bad for the Jews, and that the conservative Christians are good for the Jews, is a dissonance cognitive more than enough for a Jew to experience throughout his life.”

Two thoughts on what I wrote 19 years ago:

First of all, neither I nor any description of universities as “dreary moral wastelands” would be printed in the Los Angeles Times today. The Los Angeles Times was liberal for at least 60 years (the last Republican presidential candidate the paper endorsed was Dwight Eisenhower in 1956), but now it's left-leaning. Its editorial and opinion pages went from liberal, which meant that I and other conservatives could often be published, to left-wing, alarmist insanity. The standard of its editors and columnists is as low intellectually as it is morally. One such columnist wrote that Larry Elder, one of the brightest conservative minds in America today, is “the black face of white supremacy.” The fools who run the Los Angeles Times are consigning the paper to a fate similar to Sports Illustrated. “SI,” as it was known to sports fans, was once the most revered sports magazine in the country. Then, like the LA Times, he woke up. Soon it won't be anymore.

Second, Harvard's decline is also reflected in my column from 19 years ago. I quoted Harvard's then-president, Lawrence Summers, who denounced the Israel-hating views that led to anti-Semitism in “progressive intellectual communities.” From Larry Summers to Claudine Gay, Harvard's moral decline perfectly mirrors that of Sports Illustrated and the Los Angeles Times. Everything the left touches, it destroys.

Dennis Prager is a national radio talk show host and columnist. His commentary on Numbers, the fourth volume of “The Rational Bible,” his five-volume commentary on the first five books of the Bible, will be published in October 2024. He is the co-founder of Prager University and can contact dennisprager.com.

Dennis Prager, one of America's most respected radio talk hosts, has been broadcasting in Los Angeles since 1982. The popular Dennis Prager Show was distributed nationally in 1999 and airs live, Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. (Pacific Time), 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. (East) from its home station, KRLA.

Latest messages from Dennis Prager (see everything)

We have zero tolerance for comments that contain violence, racism, profanity, profanity, doxing, or rude behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it, click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for engaging with us in a fruitful conversation.