The Way It Iz

Being an English Language Arts (ELA) teacher in an Orthodox Jewish all-boys school isn’t exactly the easiest teaching gig in the world. I should know – I did it for two years. The difficulty stems from the idea that the main skill you must impart on your students is critical thinking, a skill the boys tend to hone throughout their Judaic studies curriculum starting in the fifth grade. However, some people were born for such a position.

Over the last several months, we have seen an escalation in anti-Semitism on college campuses. This fact should not come as a shock to anyone reading this publication. The escalation culminated with the now-infamous Congressional hearing with three presidents of prestigious American universities refusing to say that calling for the genocide of the Jewish people was against each individual university’s student code of conduct (or at the very least, were “context dependent”). Only one of the presidents lost her job over this, prompting many in our circles to lament the understanding that anti-Semitism is allowed on college campuses.

Last week, Jews everywhere rejoiced in the news that Claudine Gay, the President of Harvard, had been removed from her post. Gay’s troubles began when she could not categorically state that calling for the genocide of Jews in Harvard was against the school’s student code of conduct. While Harvard stood by her, this opened the floodgates for scrutiny, as her detractors went on a crusade to find the over 50 instances of plagiarism in her “scholarly” works. As the number of uncredited sources mounted, Harvard was no longer able to defend their president, and Gay was removed from her post. While her inability to denounce genocide was not the ultimate reason for her departure, it certainly opened the door to it.

Two weeks ago, amid mounting pressure from community members and activists, Arizona State University (ASU) canceled a speech that was set to be delivered by Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib. This was seen as almost unanimously as a win by those on the side of Israel in the ongoing battle between Israel and Hamas. However, this celebration is both misguided and short-sited.

Many Jewish communities around the world have a special day to commemorate a great leader of the past. Chabad celebrates the 19^th of Kislev as the day that Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi was freed from imprisonment in Czarist Russia. Satmar chasidim celebrate the 21^st of Kislev as the day that the Satmar Rebbe, Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum, escaped the Holocaust. Both were great Torah scholars and leaders who influenced multiple generations and will continue to do so for generations to come despite no longer being with us.

Often in life, we find ourselves asking, What if? What if I had taken that job? What if I studied harder in school? What if this decision or that outcome were slightly different? Almost exclusively, these questions are focused around how unlucky we are to be in the situation we are in. What is far less likely is the exact same thought in a positive light. Wow! Imagine where I’d be if I hadn’t been so lucky is not as common a thought.