By Emil Monda
Five years ago, I wrote a column for the Indy with the headline, “The New Anti-Semitism.“ I am sorry to report that this abomination is growing and, as I said in 2019, it is a phenomenon of the progressive left that has found a home in many of our elite universities. Using the latest FBI Uniform Crime report for 2022, I’ve calculated the specific rates of hate crimes against Jews adjusted for a 100,000 population.
In 2022, there were 1,124 for a rate of 15.8 per 100,000. In 2017, there were 938, a rate of 13.8 per 100,000 people. This means that the rate of hate crimes against Jews increased by 14.49% over three years. During that same period, hate crimes against Muslims declined slightly to 6.75 per 100,000, even if you include all Arabs as Muslims.
The point is that Jews suffer the highest rate of hate crimes in the U.S., but it does not show that America is a racist country. There are, however, pockets of antisemitism in places where we would never expect it. I reference the Ivy League schools, our most prestigious institutions of higher learning, where the liberal staff and student body we might think are the most enlightened. But that is not the case.
A recent report by the Anti-Defamation League and Hillel International found that, while many Jewish students felt physically and emotionally safe on campus before Oct. 7, those numbers have dropped to 46% and 33%, respectively.
Jewish students have found themselves the object of violence and protests, and the administrators of these universities were incapable of simply condemning antisemitism. On Dec. 5, 2023, testifying at a hearing of a U.S. House committee on antisemitism on college campuses, the administrators of these schools, when pressed by Republican representative Elise Stefanic, had difficulty in simply condemning how Jewish Students on their campuses were treated. I believe almost all the presidents of our elite universities who did not outright condemn antisemitism on their campuses have resigned. They all said one would have to understand the context of antisemitism. These people have lost their moral compass. There is no situation or “context’ that makes antisemitism acceptable. Just like no situation or context makes racism acceptable.
Congressmember Elise Stefanik’s attempt to get a straightforward answer from the presidents of Harvard, Penn, and MIT to her pointed question: “Does calling for the genocide of Jews constitute a violation of (the schools) code of conduct,” can be found by a Google search. I point you to their actual remarks so the reader can decide for themselves whether these school presidents are so influenced by political correctness that they are incapable of moral clarity. Columbia University President Minouche Shafik resigned on Aug. 14 following mounting concerns over her handling of antisemitic complaints on campus and the recent resignation of three deans who were forced out of their positions over text messages that Shafik said “touched on antisemitic tropes.”
On a local level, we can all be proud of what our city council did when, on June 27, they adopted a resolution, proposed by me as the president of the Laguna Beach Republicans, condemning Hamas’s acts of terrorism against Israel. Well-meaning politicians tend to try to be even-handed in these statements. Even our then-Mayor Bob Whalen and President Joe Biden have done this.
“The important thing to us [in passing the resolution] was to condemn the acts of terror and to urge two things,” Whalen said in a phone interview with the Daily Pilot. “One, protect the lives of innocent civilians, and secondarily, take all the steps necessary to eliminate the humanitarian crisis. Our focus there was to urge all parties to eliminate the suffering that’s going on and not take lives of innocent civilians.” While this is an admirable sentiment, it ignores the reality that it was Hamas who attacked the Jewish people on Oct. 7. There is no moral equivalence between Hamas and the Jewish people’s right and obligation to defend themselves. Going down this path of moral equivalence, in my opinion, will only lead to the murder of more Jews.
So, in summary, back in 2019, antisemitism was beginning to be a problem, and now that problem has grown and should not be ignored.
When Russia invaded Ukraine, there was a joint protest against Putin’s Russia on Main Beach by the local Laguna Beach Republicans and the Democratic Club. It’s time for Republicans and Democrats to stand together once again, this time against antisemitism.
Emil has lived in Laguna Beach for 25 years with his wife, Michèle and three sons. He is the president of the Laguna Beach Republicans and a member of the Laguna Art Museum Board of Trustees.
