January 19, 2012
Re: Anti-Semitism Awareness
The recent rash of vandalism and arson against Jewish houses of worship in Bergen County, NJ highlights a disturbing reality: Anti-Semitism is flaring around the world in new and virulent forms. Writing in The Jerusalem Post, Benjamin Weinthal reports that “German experts in the field of contemporary anti-Semitism define the phenomenon as ‘Querfront’ anti-Semitism, which roughly translates as ‘crossover’. The fusion of hate ideologies coalesces the radical left and extreme right with fanatical Islamism.” We see such crossover in the United States in the strange bedfellows of the Westboro Baptist Church and some elements—small I hope—of the Occupy Wall Street Movement. “For the first time since the end of World War II,” Alan Dershowitz wrote a few weeks ago, “classic anti-Semitic tropes—the Jews control the world and are to blame for everything that goes wrong, including the financial crisis; the Jews killed Christian children in order to use the blood to bake Matzo; the Holocaust never happened—are becoming acceptable and legitimate subjects for academic and political discussion.”
A search of Hamilton web archives reveals no programming—zip, zero, nada-- on this important issue, and after months of trying I’ve had no luck getting the Days Massolo Center interested (or even getting the courtesy of a reply). The Dean of Faculty was peeved at my persistence in pursuing the matter with the Center.
With Hamilton’s calendar teeming with events about social justice, diversity, and prejudice, why the neglect of anti-Semitism? On a campus with a political center of gravity far to the left, two explanations come to mind. First, such programming may simply be crowded out by the reigning cultural left’s interest in other matters. Second, as Michael Cohen argued in a 2007 essay in Dissent, for “the left that doesn’t learn” anti-Zionism has become ostrichism or worse about anti-Semitism. “Anti-Zionism,” according to Cohen, “means, theoretically, opposition to the project of a Jewish state in response to the rise of anti-Semitism. Let’s be blunt: there have been anti-Zionists who are not anti-Semites, just as there have been foes of affirmative action who are not racists. But the crucial question is prejudicial overlap, not intellectual niceties.”
In the end, explaining our neglect is less important than rectifying it with serious, balanced programming about anti-Semitism, left and right. I am confident that, if necessary, the Alexander Hamilton Institute will, once again, step into the breach on behalf of Hamilton students. But the Hamilton administration would be well advised to take the initiative on this important, if not fashionable, issue.
Theodore J. Eismeier
Government Department
Re: Hamilton men should stand up for their rights
I want to preface my letter by saying that I have an enormous amount of respect for The Spectator’s staff and writers. That we have a school newspaper at all is a privilege, and I thank everyone who spends part of their time working hard every week to keep it up.
It’s been now two weeks since Jeremy Adelman’s Opinion piece, “Hamilton men should stand up for their rights” appeared in The Spectator. The following is my response to the response.
I can say with certainty that Jeremy Adelman’s piece was more thoroughly talked about (re: bashed) than any other article The Spectator has printed in my time at Hamilton. But can a piece’s publication be retroactively justified by the talk it generates? Furthermore, is all talk good talk? Indeed, much of the talk has been to ask—“should this op-ed have been published?” With respect to the editorial printed in the Dec. 8, issue, I answer “no” to all three questions.
In the editorial, “To each his own: Opinion section welcomes all,” you (the editorial board) write that Jeremy Adelman’s letters have “received more response” than anything else recently published and that you, “value his ability to generate campus-wide discussion.” I think we have to acknowledge the difference here between the terms response and discussion, and not use them interchangeably. What Adelman generated was response; what opinion pieces should generate is discussion.
Jeremy Adelman’s argument barely stands straight long enough to be scrutinized, but maybe there are some ideas buried within the tactless language that deserve some discussion. Rape? Abortion? These are some contentious issues, but it does nobody any good when novel opinions are delivered with such provocative language. The backlash against his article has been so strong that I would say he has even lost ground in the “men’s rights movement” he refers to.
While it’s true in one sense that “The Spectator doesn’t have say over the opinions of our writers,” it is also untrue in that you, as an editorial board, do have a say over who gets to be one of your writers. The market for Opinion pieces is surely tight—with this I can sympathize. But, it would say more about the integrity of The Spectator—and send a stronger message to the community about active participation—if the Opinion section were to be discontinued for want of quality contributions.
Jeremy Adelman is taking advantage of the low supply/high demand dynamic and using the Opinion section as a platform from which to broadcast woefully uneducated and deliberately inflammatory messages. Excusing the publication by explaining that there wasn’t anything else is acknowledging that you’ve lowered the bar to a point where Jeremy Adelman can crawl over it.
You don’t need to lower the bar. In fact, I think you have an obligation not to. I take issue with the statement, “The Spectator editorial board does not endorse nor condemn writers’ opinions.” If you publish it, you endorse it, simply because you have the power to not publish it. As a publication by and for the students, you are entrusted with the responsibility of opening discussion and publicly representing the student body for the alumni and prospective students. Jeremy Adelman’s voice is not one I want speaking for me, my friends, or my college.
What I’m saying is this: Be choosier. Don’t publish something because it comes from one of your writers, publish it because it’s interesting, or because it’s funny, or because you think it’s something people need to hear. Discretion is an editor’s job. You can’t avoid it; you can only pretend to.
Sincerely,
Pat Dunn ‘12
Hello! It was good to see everyone so agitated by a Hamilton undergrad on my Facebook feed (it’s been a few years)! As old father Heracleitus was wont to say, ε?δ?ναι δ? χρ? τ?ν π?λεμον ??ντα ξυν?ν, κα? δ?κην ?ριν, κα? γιν?μενα π?ντα κατ' ?ριν κα? χρε?ν. Chill out, bro! All things happen according to strife and necessity, and who cares about necessity? Strife’s a lot more fun anyway. It was getting to be that familiar time of year anyway up on those fair fields of College Hill when everyone gets mad, and I think you all should be privileged that this time it’s just one kid. I myself have been so edified by his use of semicolons. I’m glad Hamilton students know how to use semicolons. I mean, if I were at Hamilton this time of year I’d be all amped up about going down to the Deansboro for a very Deansboro Christmas, and if you really want to experience the power of strife and necessity I recommend trying to force your way through a violent mob onto a school bus before you’re stranded among the townies forever. What were we talking about again?
Oh yeah, speaking of townies, didn’t “between 70 and 125” Clinton high schoolers mob China Sea last week, trash the place, toss around racial epithets, and sexually harass between “1 and 3” females who were inside? Man, that shit is whack.
Chris Parmenter '10