Back then, after my first post-COVID American speaking tour, I was struck by how troubled my peers and my students were. We were raised in Generation Hope \u2013 yet everyone seemed stuck in despair. We knew our lives were better than our parents\u2019 and grandparents\u2019 lives \u2013 yet took responsibility to roll up our sleeves and make them even better. Too many students \u2013 and their parents \u2013 while living safe, comfortable lives, lost that confidence. Feeling the same need to try reframing the conversation I had in 2001 when I wrote \u201cWhy I am a Zionist,\u201d I wrote a manifesto: \u201cCancel Me! Un-Woke and anti-Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n
I sought a middle path, rejecting the all-or-nothingness and violence of the post-George Floyd riots and January 6. Few Americans, Black and white, want either extreme.<\/p>\n
I started writing about Franklin D. Roosevelt\u2019s Four Freedoms, analyzing his expansive, visionary, and relevant liberal-democratic nationalism. This was my nerdy historian\u2019s response to our strange world filled with progressives who don\u2019t believe in progress \u2013 and conservatives who don\u2019t conserve institutions.<\/p>\n
You can retrace America\u2019s history through these four freedoms. Freedom of Religion replaced God with the people as the basis of sovereignty \u2013 the 18th century revolution. Freedom of Speech invigorated democracy \u2013 the 19th century breakthrough. Freedom from Want made America fairer \u2013 the mid-twentieth-century breakthrough, creating the first mass middle-class civilization. But we\u2019re still seeking Freedom from Fear.<\/p>\n
Too abstract<\/p>\n
ULTIMATELY, this scheme felt too abstract for the pressing challenges of the moment. I started writing personally, telling my story and my family\u2019s story to illustrate the transformation of millions of Americans from being \u201cEastern European Boat People\u201d fleeing Old World oppression, liberated by the New World\u2019s opportunities.<\/p>\n
Writing in the first person made it more compelling \u2013 although I felt awkward writing a memoir: I write about history, I don\u2019t make it. \u201cYou\u2019re a teacher,\u201d my astute editor Adam Bellow at Wicked Son urged \u2013 \u201cwrite letters to your students.\u201d So I did, using my life-story to champion Americanism, liberalism, and Zionism.
\nAfter October 7, I rewrote the book, strengthening the Zionist message that now became urgent. I rewrote it again during the spring as the Academic Intifada\u2019s encampments assailed Americanism, liberalism and Zionism, along with the critical thinking, open-mindedness, and mutual respect on campus, around which I built my academic career \u2013 and my life.<\/p>\n
Yesterday we launched the book. To Resist the Academic Intifada: Letters to My Students on Defending the Zionist Dream, is addressed \u2013 and dedicated \u2013 to my beloved students. \u201cYou\u2019re not crazy,\u201d I insist: the masked cowards threatening you, harassing you, yelling anti-American, anti-Zionist and antisemitic slogans are the deviants \u2013 as are their heavy-handed, propagandizing professors.<\/p>\n
The letters also challenge my peers, my students\u2019 parents. \u201cBuck up!\u201d I proclaim. \u201cTell your story, your family\u2019s Mayflower or Fleeing-from-Egypt tale. Don\u2019t allow racist ideologues to dismiss you and your kids because of your \u2018white privilege\u2019 when so many of our ancestors came from nothing and we made something of ourselves with sweat and smarts.\u201d We \u2013 Jews and non-Jews alike \u2013 must stop apologizing and start leading ideologically; celebrating the good in America, in Israel, in the West, while fixing the bad.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, let\u2019s sing a new song of Zion, loud, proud, unapologetic \u2013 without Jewish guilt, especially while fighting our genocidal enemies.<\/p>\n
The title tells it all. While acknowledging the ongoing horrors, I refuse to be cemented in the trauma; we must be positive, proactive, looking ahead. Second, when I call to \u201cResist,\u201d I refuse to allow these hooligans to romanticize themselves as some kind of righteous resistance.<\/p>\n
I ALSO reject the gaslighting of recent years: when thoughtful critics attacked \u201cwoke\u201d inanities, defenders said \u201cwe\u2019re just seeking justice\u201d or, more aggressively, \u201cwhat, you\u2019re a MAGA supporter?\u201d \u2013 as if those are the only two political paths. When critics called it \u201cpostmodernism,\u201d bystanders looked confused \u2013 it sounds too abstract. And when critics rejected \u201ccritical race theory\u201d or the race obsessions of \u201canti-racism,\u201d defenders called them \u201cracist.\u201d Ironically, the radicals first embraced each label \u2013 until criticism grew.<\/p>\n
The term \u201cacademic intifada\u201d locates much of the poison on campus \u2013 while noting that not every academic propagandizes. But the radicals seek to \u201cGlobalize the Intifada\u201d and vow \u201cFreedom for Palestine means Death to America.\u201d<\/p>\n
Balancing the title, the subtitle gives the punchline. The phrase \u201cthe Zionist dream\u201d evokes \u201cthe American dream.\u201d My letters champion both.<\/p>\n
The book concludes by making two essential arguments. First, that in many ways, even now, Israelis today live the American dream \u2013 in Zion, in a free, prosperous Jewish democracy, rooted in tradition and values, while forever seeking to improve. And, on October 7, my students, our kids, that extraordinary next generation, mobilized in Israel to save Israel \u2013 while mobilizing worldwide against this wave of Jew-hatred and America-hatred. Although the Israeli government and the IDF failed that day, Zionism succeeded \u2013 and was vindicated by these courageous children we\u2019ve raised.<\/p>\n
Finally, I\u2019m clear. If you don\u2019t agree with me on the fundamental morality of Americanism, Zionism, and liberalism: cancel me. If you do, read this book \u2013 but please question, disagree, argue with me: That\u2019s the best way we learn and grow together.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Last month, the JPPI \u2013 Jewish People Policy Institute \u2013 published The Essential Guide to October 7th and its Aftermath: Facts, Figures, History \u2013 my how-to-defend-Israel guide. This week, Wicked Son is publishing To Resist the Academic Intifada: Letters to My Students on Defending the Zionist Dream \u2013 my why-to-celebrate-Israel manifesto. The story of that book is the story of a changing agenda over three years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":18149,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","topics-antisemitism-and-de-legitimization","topics-diaspora","topics-identity","topics-education","topics-judaism","topics-jews-in-north-america","topics-israel-diaspora-relations"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19215"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19257,"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19215\/revisions\/19257"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}