Anti-Semitism on College Campuses: History & Current Trends in America - Understanding & Addressing Campus Hate Speech

While Yale and other Ivy League institutions have arguably fallen down on the job as far as the study of modern antisemitism goes, Professor Eunice G. Pollack of the University of North Texas has gone a long way in making up for it by compiling an important series of scholarly papers in this book which covers the history and current rise of antisemitism on American college campuses. As Clemens Heni wrote in his criticism of Yale:"There is nothing wrong with scholarship on France and Jewish history; it is important. But it shouldn't be seen as a replacement for serious scholarship on contemporary antisemitism. The study of dead antisemites and past campaigns of vilification is already part of every single Jewish Studies department in the world. And dealing with Jewish literature (the topic of [Maurice] Samuels' new book in 2010) has nothing to do with research on (contemporary) antisemitism."This book more than begins to fill that gap and goes a long way toward explaining the behavior of Yale and other universities today. It also explores the rise of antisemitism among our militant black movements and on the radical Left which dominates most of the political activism on campus. All of these papers are relevant and necessary if we are to intelligently confront this ancient and irrational hatred.Eunice G. Pollack is to be commended for her courage. She uses contributions by writers both inside and outside the American university system and each one contains rigorous scholarship, even though the subject matter is is often quite insane. Her own contribution, "African Americans and the Legitimization of Antisemitism on Campus," explains how black student associations in the 60's effectively prepared the way for Muslim student associations' aggressive assault on Israel and Jews today. Professor Stephen H. Norwood (whose important book, The Third Reich in the Ivory Tower is reviewed here:[...] discusses the rise of antisemitsm on the American Far Left between 1917 and 1973. Robert S. Wistrich covers antisemitism in Great Britain and there is a good section discussing the exclusion of Jews from American institutions of higher learning prior to the Second World War. Kenneth Lasson weighs in with "Antisemitism in the Academic Voice," which is not to be confused with the "polite" antisemitism of yesteryear. Leftist University professors today are often openly and aggressively antisemitic and this needs to be understood by the general public whose children are attending college. This book is an important contribution in understanding the rise of modern antisemitism and its increasing virulence today.Each paper is highly readable and remarkably free of the academic jargon which mars so much modern scholarship, especially in sociology. While it may not be the most pleasant summer reading, it is essential.