Dear friends,
I read and then reread Frank Bruni’s essay, “The Most Important Thing I Teach My Students Isn’t on the Syllabus,” this weekend.
It is about the importance of humility. Bruni aims to teach an appreciation of nuance and complexity of issues in a world where
identity politics and the influence of social media. . .promote a self-obsession at odds with community, civility, comity and compromise.
I thought a great deal about Bruni’s essay. When you’re acting on what you perceive to be a clear moral issue, compromise can seem dangerous. This is how many anti-abortion people and anti-death-penalty people feel. It is how those of us who are horrified by the Israeli war on the Palestinian people feel.
Nonetheless, Bruni’s conclusion is one that I can get behind:
We mustn’t lose sight of the struggle, imperfection and randomness of life. We mustn’t overstate our vulnerability and exaggerate our due.
While grievance blows our concerns out of proportion, humility puts them in perspective. While grievance reduces the people with whom we disagree to caricature, humility acknowledges that they’re every bit as complex as we are — with as much of a stake in creating a more perfect union.
I have had multiple conversations with friends and family over the passions that threaten seder tables this year. Jews of different generations and political leanings are struggling to celebrate the liberation of Jews from Egypt while acknowledging, mourning, and resisting the destruction of the Palestinian people in Gaza.
There is haggadah-wrangling, because how we tell a story matters.
As the current conflicts unfold, you can be glad that the Iron Dome protects Israelis from attacks by Iran and Hezbollah and still believe that raining missiles on Gaza and starving millions of people is plainly wrong.
JFREJ and a number of other organizations are bringing New Yorkers together for an Emergency Seder in the Streets to protest US funding for Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza.
Join the Emergency Seder in the Streets tomorrow night!
The class I’m auditing at Barnard will be held on Zoom today because of the ongoing protests on the Columbia campus calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
“to deescalate the rancor and give us all a chance to consider next steps.”
A joint statement from professors in Columbia and Barnard chapters of the American Association of University Professors criticized Shafik’s decision last week to call in police and to suspend and evict student protesters.
“We are shocked at her failure to mount any defense of the free inquiry central to the educational mission of a university in a democratic society and at her willingness to appease legislators seeking to interfere in university affairs,” the chapters said, adding that Shafik invoked a “unilateral and wildly disproportionate punishment [for] peacefully protesting students”.
Lydia Polgreen correctly noted that we now inhabit
"a world where almost any kind of advocacy on behalf of Palestinian self-determination risks being interpreted as antisemitism or a call for the destruction of Israel."
Polgreen also cited a report in The Columbia Daily Spectator that included comments from the Police Department’s chief of patrol, John Chell:
“To put this in perspective, the students that were arrested were peaceful, offered no resistance whatsoever, and were saying what they wanted to say in a peaceful manner.”
For months, students at Columbia University have been calling for divestment from companies that profit from the displacement of Palestinians. Although there is a lack of transparency to the university’s investments,
filings submitted to the Securities Exchange Commission [reveal that as of November 14, Columbia’s third largest investment is in vacation rental company AirBnB. A 2019 report from Amnesty International showed AirBnB was one of many vacation companies that “list numerous hotels, B&Bs, attractions or tours in Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories,” despite knowing “Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is governed by international humanitarian law under which Israeli settlements are deemed illegal.”
Now, in addition to demands for financial divestment from Israel and transparency in Columbia’s finances, protesters are calling for the NYPD to drop the charges against students who were arrested last week.
You may not agree with calls to cut ties with Israeli universities. Even if you favor the delivery of humanitarian assistance to Gaza, you may not fully agree with the demand for a statement in support of an immediate, permanent ceasefire.
I hope we can agree that all human lives have equal value and that Islamophobia is every bit as detrimental to the human project as anti-Semitism. Similarly, I hope we can agree that evicting students from their dorms without due process is not acceptable, and that peaceful protest should not result in arrest.
Human rights advocates have highlighted an increase in hate speech against Jews, Arabs and Muslims since the Hamas attack on October 7. Columbia’s president acknowledged that
"these tensions have been exploited and amplified by individuals who are not affiliated with Columbia who have come to campus to pursue their own agendas.”
Contact the presidents of Columbia and Barnard to express your nuanced views on the protests and the response of the administration.
I’m going up to campus after my Zoom class to see what’s happening for myself.
with love,
L