Bias Festered 'For Years,' Professor Says (Columbia U. investigates anti-Israeli tilt in classrooms)

The New York Sun ^ | October 29, 2004 | JACOB GERSHMAN

[Stoat]

Bias Festered 'For Years,' Professor Says

BY JACOB GERSHMAN - Staff Reporter of the Sun
October 29, 2004

A leading scholar of Hebrew literature at Columbia University said yesterday that for years students have complained to him about anti-Israel bias in the classroom.

As Columbia University begins to investigate claims from students who say professors routinely promote hatred of Israel, the scholar, Dan Miron, a tenured professor in the Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures, told The New York Sun that the school is awakening to a long-existing problem.

"It's been going on for years now," Mr. Miron said. Students who have come to his office, he said, complained that they "were humiliated."

"They were not allowed to ask questions," he said. "It's high time for this to be investigated."

Mr. Miron, a scholar of modern Hebrew and Yiddish literature who came to Columbia 17 years ago from Hebrew University, said he is one of the department's few sympathizers of Israel.

"The department as a whole has been developing an ideology or agenda that is not particularly pro-Israel," he said. "There are some professors who question the legitimacy of Israel as it is."

The department has come under intense public scrutiny with the release of a documentary film, "Columbia Unbecoming," which alleges numerous cases of professors' displaying open hostility toward Jewish students who express support for Israel.

Lee Bollinger, who is in his third year as president on Morningside Heights, decided Wednesday to investigate allegations about professors' conduct. That was announced after reports of the film provoked a flurry of concerned reactions from Jewish leaders and alumni. In addition, Rep. Anthony Weiner, a Democrat of Brooklyn and Queens, demanded that Columbia "fire" an assistant professor accused of intimidating Jewish students.

[Stoat]

A nice start...now if they would just develop an interest in stopping the anti-conservative and anti-Christian bias as well... (((sigh)))

[NRA2BFree]

Ping!

[xuberalles]

Likewise, you'll find the liberal bias that has festered in colleges all across America. Solve one, you solve the other.

[livius]

It's very strange, because Columbia is probably majority Jewish (professors and students), but hatred of Israel seems to be one of its major institutional preoccupations.

[rmlew]

A nice start...now if they would just develop an interest in stopping the anti-conservative and anti-Christian bias as well... (((sigh)))
A number of the students involved are members of the Columbia College Conservative Club. We would like to follow their lead on this, but do not have the $uopport of the David Fund.
Any attempt to remedy thi$ $ituation, would be greatly appreciated.

[rmlew]

Columbia is only about 1/3 Jewish. Jews are more noticeable at Columbia because of the large number of Orthodox Jews on campus. In general, the universities in the Ivy League are about 1/4 Jewish. However, many of these are no more Jewish than most students are Christian.
The campus effort to defend the terro-symps is run by students with Jewish names.

[livius]

Whoever they are, I wish they'd go away. One of the major problems, of course, is not the students, but the professoriate, which is leftist to the bone.

[dennisw]

Many campus buildings and additions are named after old time Jewish donors to Columbia. What a disgrace

[sport]

but hatred of Israel seems to be one of its major institutional preoccupations.



4 posted on 10/29/2004 7:03:41 PM PDT by livius

And hatred of America is the other.

[jackal7163]

They go after the Jews first, because they were the ones who made the rules in the first place. Then they go after the Christians because they follow the rules. Jews and Christians are waking up to that fact which is why you see many Jews changing their traditional fear of Christianity. They now realize that while we may worship differently we are bound by the same fundamental moral beliefs. The reason it is important to fight it when it is against Jewish groups is that it helps the Christian cause more than fighting for a Christian group would.
Example 1: You fight for the rights of Christians in your school. Everyone piles on you because you are: 1) the majority in the country, 2) they accuse you of being privileged and turn the minorities against you, and 3) they call you a whiner. At the end of the day, you regret ever having protested.
Example 2: You mask your fight as a fight against anti-semitism on campus. Anyone who piles on you can be labelled anti-semitic (which they are), the Jewish alumni are much more likely to withhold donations than their Christian counterparts, and faculty is more likely to give in. At the end, you get a decision which is favorable to both Christians and Jews. This is the same way that minorities on campuses nationwide have have exaggerated the harm done to the most sympathetic minority of the week in order to ram down "special rights" to all the other minorities.

[John Thornton]

And I imagine you find find that a great percentage of today's donors are Jewish---but these donors seem oblivious or supportive of an anti-Jewish atmosphere because it is based on Leftist anti-semitism. Look at the New York Times.

[eclectic]

It's very strange, because Columbia is probably majority Jewish

Jews are prone to self-hatred. Unfortunately.

[livius]

Yes, it's hard to say which takes priority. What's a poor leftist to do?

[livius]

I think leftists are full of self-hatred. Orthodox Jews that I know don't have this problem. In fact, leftist Americans in general are full of self hatred - but conservative Americans are not. Interesting.

[Bonaparte]

Columbia is a joke. These are the people who gave the "coveted" Bancroft Prize in history to Michael Bellesiles, a proven liar who has been dismissed from his position with Emory U.

[jackal7163]

I am on the other side of the spectrum. Jewish by birth, born in Israel as an American citizen, and married to a Catholic. I agree with you on the self hatred. I have never understood how a Jew could be anti-Israel. Unfortunately, I have met many such Jews. However, things are changing. The anti-Zionist Reform Jews are dying out. They have thrown away so much of Judaism that they don't have what it takes to stay as Jews. This is why Conservative and Orthodox congregations are growing as a percentage while Jews are declining demographically as a whole. We don't have the self-hatred that is endemic in Reform Jews.
I for one feel much closer to Christians than to Reform Jews. More shared values. I find it interesting how many Christians in the USA are exploring the Judaic roots of Christianity, something you will never see done in Europe.

[livius]

The anti-Zionist Reform Jews are dying out.

I think that's one of the lovely things about liberals of any kind - they non-breed themselves out of existence. I have always felt that's because liberalism is pessimistic and has no hope in the future. Orthodox Judaism and orthodox Christianity are not pessimistic, and I think that is what will give these two groups their ultimate win. Their members invest in the future by having families, while the liberals reduce their lives to complaints about the present and do not give children to God and to the world.