Last April, I visited Boston addressing the New Anti-Semitism, the Academic Intifada, and the Great Betrayal American Jews experienced as Woke U becoming Jew-Bashing U. One morning, I jogged to Harvard. Running along the Charles River, the heaviness of the wars against Israel and against the Jews lifted. Reaching Harvard Yard, I time-traveled. The decades separating me and today\u2019s undergraduates \u2013 and some of the anger distancing me from some Harvard colleagues \u2013 vanished \u2013 at least temporarily.<\/p>\n
I remembered my undergraduate years as a Harvard Crimson Key tour guide sharing Harvard lore. Here \u2013 Weld 32 \u2014 is where John Kennedy lived in 1936-1937. There \u2014 the Sever Hall basement bathroom \u2014 is where Marilyn French was inspired to write her feminist blockbuster The Women\u2019s Room.<\/p>\n
The students looked unchanged: fresh-faced, enthusiastic, adults-in-the-making. You imagined all the brain-power churning. You could taste the wealth and power epitomized by the historic buildings, and some well-dressed, older, corporate types wandering the Yard, escorted by eager-beaver undergrads. You felt like harvesting the pheromones from the budding romances, as young couples arm-in-arm exited their dorms \u2013 or his or her dorm. And you remembered, beyond it all, how this universe was fueled by ideas, ideas, and more ideas.<\/p>\n
In short, a year after the encampments, amid the confusion as Jews wondered how America\u2019s president could be so illiberal yet so against anti-Semitism, the university\u2019s forever-magic triumphed. Despite its problems, North America\u2019s Higher Education system remains the most marvelous laboratory for instilling knowledge, nurturing ideas, generating innovations, and cultivating young minds invented since the Babylonian Yeshivas. That\u2019s why so many of us oppose what\u2019s happening on campus \u2013 while still encouraging students to enter what could be toxic environments.<\/p>\n
\u201cLook at me,\u201d I tell students, \u201cI\u2019m a case of arrested development. I got to university and never left.\u201d But many of us fear that the liberal-minded, critical, substantive university I fell in love with, left us.<\/p>\n
These then, are the clashing realities every thoughtful student, Jewish and non-Jewish, faces.<\/p>\n
Just as David Ben-Gurion advised Zionists during World War II to fight the British as if there were no Nazis, while fighting with the British against the Nazis, modern students must live a paradox. The Academic Intifada continues. Beyond demonizing Israel, Zionists, Jews, a small fanatic group of \u201chack-ademics\u201d hijack the holy classroom podium. They turn it into a political platform obsessed with romanticizing \u201cthe oppressed\u201d while targeting the \u201coppressors.\u201d While it\u2019s worse in elite social sciences and humanities faculties \u2013 my world \u2014 some medical schools teach \u201cDeColonizing Anatomy,\u201d not basic bone structure, and some mathematicians brand adding numbers correctly \u201cwhite supremacist.\u201d<\/p>\n
Similarly, some overly-influential students practice an all-or-nothing politics of intolerance, orthodoxies, litmus tests and cancel culture.<\/p>\n
So, yes, dear students, as this series will teach, you must be ready to resist this academic intifada. But only a small minority of hyper-politicized faculty and students have ruined the atmosphere. Their toxicity varies from campus to campus, department to department, class to class.<\/p>\n
Beware, if you see it everywhere \u2013 you\u2019ll learn nowhere; it\u2019s much harder to learn, laugh, live, thrive, if you\u2019re constantly tense or on the defensive.<\/p>\n
The greater obstacles to good education include parents\u2019 and students\u2019 obsession with credentials, grades, and future jobs, combined with too many professors\u2019 over-investment in research, not teaching.<\/p>\n
Relax. Make sure to see the magic, seek the magic, and cultivate higher education\u2019s forever-magic. Your parents, your society, your upbringing, have given you a mind-expanding, soul-stretching, character-building opportunity. Unlike in much of the rest of the world, most young Americans and Canadians don\u2019t have to serve in the army or work so many hours that they cannot enjoy the four-year-gift of college, which nearly 40 percent extend to graduate school.<\/p>\n
Start a new ritual: on your first day of school, call \u2013 don\u2019t text \u2013 the people in your life most responsible for this gift. A little gratitude goes a long way to helping you see the good around you not just the bad, and in this case, appreciate the structures of education that still work, beyond the misfires.<\/p>\n
Throughout the next ten weeks, this column will advise learners of all ages \u2013 and their parents \u2013 to maximize the wonderful opportunities many take for granted. You want to take challenging, thought-provoking, classes from open-minded, rigorous professors and don\u2019t just go for the \u201cgut course\u201d \u2013 easy grade. You want to learn how to be an effective educational consumer, advocating for your rights when necessary, but seizing great learning moments always. You want to taste what it\u2019s like to live the life of ideas, staying up late arguing with friends about the meaning of life, who your role models are, and what is the best ice cream flavor. And I hope you\u2019ll have experiences that get you questioning some of your core assumptions, either to change them, or to dissect them, re-examine them, reaffirm them, and then defend them passionately.<\/p>\n
To model the kind of journey you might follow, applying eternal wisdom from great books, to how you learn, think, live, consider Pirkei Avot, Ethics of the Fathers, 4:1. Ben Zoma said: \u201cWho are wise? Those learning from everyone\u201d \u2013 your peers have much to teach, along with your professors.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho are mighty? Those subduing their evil inclinations\u2026.\u201d Life unsupervised easily degenerates into life undisciplined. Know who you are, what you want, and how to limit yourself to achieve your best self.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho are rich? Those rejoicing in their lot\u2026.\u201d Universities are filled with smarty-pants superstars who can outdo you \u2013 alongside normies who find you intimidating. Spend less time competing with others, or feeling inadequate, and find your inner satisfaction, your balance, your happiness with who you are and what you have.<\/p>\n
Finally: \u201cWho gets honored? Those who honor others\u2026.\u201d Ultimately, Woke U runs on disrespect. A small, self-righteous, overly-influential group dismisses open-ended inquiry and thoughtful disagreement.<\/p>\n
Go in the other direction. Cultivate respect for others, stay open-minded, self-controlled, and satisfied with who you are \u2013 and be grateful for the magnificent opportunities universities offer to flourish.<\/p>\n