Words From Rabbi White

HAIL COLUMBIA!

For the first part of the holiday, we traveled to Passaic (a 20-to-40-minute drive, depending on traffic) to be with my son Yehoshua and his family. As usual, we had a wonderful time.  It happens that an old friend of mine, Rabbi Charles Sheer, whom I hadn’t seen in over 50 years, was also visiting his son in Passaic, and was davening in the same shul as I was.

As I knew that my friend had been Hillel Rabbi at Columbia for 25 years, and as Columbia had been in the news this past year with multiple instances of harassment and ostracism against Jewish students and professors, I naturally asked Rabbi Sheer to compare “then and now.” He answered that there has always been a problem at Columbia, due to the influence of outspoken anti-Israel professors. Yet up until the past year, the antisemitism has been contained. After October 7, the hatred came out in the open in full force. 

I was reminded that when I was a student at YU, I was allowed to take an advanced course at Columbia. My kippah did not seem to cause an eyebrow to be lifted. 

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By coincidence, when I picked up this past week’s Jewish Standard (a local Jewish paper,) I saw an article by columnist Rosanne Skopp. She wrote that among her 4 children, there were a total of 8 degrees earned at Columbia. Attendance at Columbia was a mark of pride for her, and for the Jews of NY and NJ. 

HOWEVER, her article, titled “Hating us at Columbia…” goes on to write of the “disastrous turn in the university, which has become a world-class leader of the scourge of antisemitism.” ...

“What once gave us pride, enormous pride, is now stained, soiled, sullied!…”

She continued “One of our daughters, who earned a BA and an MA from Columbia, spent many unpaid hours over three decades recruiting and interviewing for Columbia. She will now cease and desist….

“We Jews fell in love with you, Columbia. You met all our parameters of intellectuality and loving acceptance. It was a glorious symbiotic relationship. We brought out the best in each of us.

“No more, Columbia. You’ve made your bed, and now you can lie in it. You’ve endorsed violence and rejected earlier apologies for a student who said “Zionists don’t deserve to live.” May these abominable unprincipled words come back to haunt you!”

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P.S. “Hail Columbia” was the first National Anthem of the USA.

DEPT. of good news: Simcha Foxman’s daughter gave birth to a son, Akiva Baruch, her 17th child, on Oct. 7.  Rivka’s first girl Kayla had her first child on the very same day, and in the same hospital in Jerusalem!! May the day of Simchat Torah be turned from the sadness of this past year to joy!!

Good yontov, gemar hatima tova, chag sameach. May this be a year of good health and good news, for all of us, and for all of Am Yisrael

Rabbi Menahem White