https://pjmedia.com/athena-tho
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here’s that Ayn Rand clip on Israel and the Middle East and here’s Thomas Sowell on the rise in antisemitism around the world.
The Middle East Forum cordially invites you to a podcast series. |
Israel Insider with |
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| by Richard A. Epstein via Defining Ideas A cease-fire is not an armistice—and temporary “peace” is no peace. ++++ While Biden is busy destroying America he has also thrown in the military for some Biden treatment. +++ West Point 'Wokeness': More Problems with America's Colleges | Bobby Eberle Ep. 603  Click here to subscribe to my YouTube channel With the ongoing antisemitic protests or the class curriculum at West Point, it's clear that America's colleges and universities have been taken over by radical leftists bent on brining down this country and spreading the woke mind virus. +++ The Blessing of the College Riots: Part 1 How to fix the college rot. Dov Fischer How to fix the college rot. The glorious eight-day festival of Pesach (Passover) ended Tuesday night. It coincided with the end of a challenging four-week recovery period from a surgery that was followed by severe post-op complications. I am 80 percent recovered, and I finally now can write. The enforced separation from the outside world and everyday activity allowed me time to cogitate. I now am bursting with thoughts about the campus riots, and I have prepared a five-part series that offers specific and unique proposals to take back our universities and stop the rot. Why do I write and propose if I know that Biden and Kamala will not implement these proposals? Because, maybe, if G-d smiles on America and if America is worthy, there will be a change in government in only six more months. And even if not — G-d forbid — maybe brave and courageous governors like Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott will consider creating state equivalents to these federal proposals I offer. I begin with a bit of background. I graduated from Columbia University in 1976 with a B.A. in political science. During my last two years, I had the extraordinary honor to be elected by the entire undergraduate body — thousands of freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors — to represent all of them, the entire college student body, as their chosen representative in the University Senate, Columbia’s highest deliberative body. Why would a left-wing student body elect one of the most right-wing students in the college? Because I was known campus wide as a fighter who does not take “no.” My primary cause then was freedom from communism for Soviet Jewry, but the concern of the collegiates was rising tuition. I campaigned on a promise to fight tuition hikes as I fought for Soviet Jewry, and I won. And, wow, did I ever fight as one voice among more than 100 University Senators to stop or at least reduce tuition hikes. So I know Columbia University. I met my first wife, a Barnard student, on campus. I sent children to Columbia University. My first wife earned her doctorate at Columbia University. I also know UCLA. I attended for law school, and I have wonderful law school memories. I was selected by my peers to be the No. 2 on law review, chief articles editor. I later was told in confidence by two of those who had been in the inside circle that voted that I had lost by a single vote in the decision to name the editor-in-chief because three of those voting expressed doubt that an Orthodox Jew with four children could do the job effectively while taking off one day every week to observe the Sabbath. So, I came in second and became chief articles editor. I loved my role, and it has stood me well even these 30 years later. In four years at Columbia, I never once met a professor with conservative values. They all were leftist, many outright communist, or at best apolitical. I majored in political science and never heard of William F. Buckley Jr. or Ayn Rand. I took an introductory course in economics and never heard of Adam Smith or Milton Friedman. I took a course on the History of Judaism, and it was taught by an atheist who devoted the entire term to propounding his theories that the Torah is not the word of G-d but a compilation of texts written by nomads. I once challenged him in class respectfully with a compelling question. After class, he told me not to do that again, or he would reduce my grade. At UCLA School of Law, each and every professor was a leftist except for two blessed souls: Wesley Liebler, who taught mergers and acquisitions, and Grant Nelson, who taught real estate and property law. It was non-stop leftist indoctrination, like a Mao Zedong reeducation camp. Class after class, term after term, year after year. In the past 30 years in particular, these and all the other universities like them have become cesspools of intellectual toxicity and rot. Students are presented with only one distorted worldview. Each professor professes the same. They literally tell students how to vote: vote for McGovern over Nixon, vote for Carter over Ford, vote for Carter over Reagan, vote for Mondale over Reagan, vote for Dukakis over Bush I, vote for Clinton over Bush I, vote for Clinton over Dole, vote for Gore over Bush II, vote for Kerry over Bush II, vote for Obama over McCain, vote for Obama over Romney, vote for Hillary over Trump, vote for Biden over Trump. They indoctrinate and hammer the lesson in. To seal the deal, they create curricula, syllabi, and reading lists that seem scholarly enough. But they all are of one perspective. There is no balance. Students spend 15 or so weeks each semester reading Marx and Engels and Fanon, and they never read anything else. So, as naïve innocents out of high school, they think they now are gaining a broad-spectrum education, but they are not. They are being indoctrinated. They are being brainwashed. I am a rabbi of more than 40 years and am engaged in the broader society. Thus, I am close not only to Jews but also to Christians. I hear the same plaint over and over again: “Rabbi Fischer, we reared our child to be a good, honest, decent kid. She never opened a mouth, never uttered a curse word, and none were spoken around her at home. She attended church with us every Sunday and loved it. Sometimes, if we awoke lazily, she pressed us to hurry to get to church on time. We recited grace at the table before eating. Our home was wholesome. Her friends were wholesome. She attended a Catholic parochial school (or a Protestant church Sunday school, or a yeshiva), loved G-d, loved America. We invested 12 years educating her at the finest schools through high school. And then we sent her to XYZ College because we wanted the best for her: to gain a broad worldly education to make her competitive in the modern world and to expand her horizons and make her even brighter and more interesting. “And she came back destroyed. We don’t recognize her. Rabbi, we literally don’t recognize her. Everything we did from the day she was born through age 18 was destroyed in a mere four years at college. Now she sleeps with boys. She mocks religion. Won’t go to church. Hates America. Criticizes us as vapid materialistic ogres. She went to a campus therapist who convinced her that her mother had been a monster and that her father had engaged in ‘emotional incest,’ whatever that means. The therapist told her she must never again communicate with her father. She has tattoos all over her body. A small ring on her tongue. Rabbi, where did we go wrong?” I have been writing in these pages throughout the eight years I have had this column about the peril to our young people posed by most of America’s colleges and universities. (There are a few discrete exceptions.) People read my words and warnings, nod their heads in agreement, and shrug that there is nothing that can be done about it. That as long as ego-driven billionaires keep donating to see their names on buildings or endowed professorial chairs, the rot cannot be stopped. That is the hidden blessing in this month’s campus riots. Forget about the fiction of “Palestine.” There never was an “Arab Palestine,” and there never — ever — will be. And don’t worry about Israel. There will not be a third Churban (“catastrophe,” as with the Babylonian destruction of the First Holy Temple in 586 B.C.E. and the Roman destruction of the second in 70 C.E.). Long after Columbia and UCLA are torn and turned to ashes, Israel will stand strong with brides and grooms dancing and singing in the cities of Judea and the outskirts of Jerusalem. So forget about the cause du jour, the excuse of the day to riot. Here is the blessing. Finally — finally, finally — all of America is taking notice that the colleges and universities have gotten out of hand. It is no longer about the ideological brainwashing of kids but about insurrection. Thank G-d! Thank G-d people finally are talking about what must be done. I am not a prophet of G-d, and I very well may be wrong, but I expect the riots to end in one month, even if nothing is done to stop them. We now are in May, the last weeks of the spring term. Final exams are coming soon, and term paper deadlines are due. Either the schools will close down and cancel finals and term papers, or they won’t. But the campuses will empty in four weeks. I may be wrong, but remember you heard it here first. And, honestly, when was the last time I was wrong these past eight years on a prediction? As the spring term ends, the rich New York kids will return to their wealthy parents’ lavish estates in Long Island, Longer Island, Longest Island, and Great Neck, Greater Neck, and Greatest Neck, where they will denounce their parents’ materialism, even as they expect their African American maids to pick up their socks and launder their dirty underwear, while they await their Hispanic gardeners and pool cleaners to clean up after them. And the dreck on campus from Malaysia and Indonesia and Pakistan and Saudi Arabia will return to the dirt holes they come from to ride camels and mash garbanzo beans into hummus. And what of the others? The ones without rich estates and Arab Muslim dictatorships to go home to? They will regather on TikTok, on Facebook and X (Twitter), and will reunite shortly in Chicago for the Democrat National Convention to fight with the Chicago police and chant, “The Whole World Is Watching! The Whole World Is Watching!” as they get clubbed in their heads. It will be 1968 all over again. That one made heroes of Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and Tom Hayden — and elected Richard M. Nixon. So may it be again. All a blessing. To receive Rav Fischer’s Weekly Extensive Torah Commentaries or to attend any or all of Rav Fischer’s weekly 60-minute live Zoom classes on the Weekly Torah Portion, the biblical Prophets, the Mishnah, Rambam Mishneh Torah, or Advanced Judaic Texts, send an email to: shulstuff@yioc.org. His 10-part exciting and fact-based series of one-hour classes on the Jewish Underground liberation movement (Irgun, Lechi, and Haganah) and the rise of modern Israel can be found .here. In it, he uses historic video clips of Irgun, Lechi, and Haganah actions, decades of past Arab terrorist atrocities, as well as stirring musical selections from the Underground and videoed interviews of participants, to augment data, statistics, maps, and additional historical records to create a fascinating, often gripping, and scholarly enriching educational experience about issues that remain deeply relevant today as Israel engages in an existential war in Gaza against Hamas terrorism. His latest deeply moving weekly series of informational and inspirational programs on the Hamas Gaza war may be found here. His 40-part Bible study series covering all of I Samuel (First Samuel) intensively with Talmudic and Midrashic commentaries, and now into II Samuel, is up here. And Blessings of the College Riots:Part 2 Sue Members of the Boards Trustees have a fiduciary responsibility to see that students receive a safe, unimpeded education. By DOV FISCHER If you have not done so, I urge you to read Part One of this series here. For years we have been urging billionaire donors to stop donating their billions to universities that stand in opposition to everything they believe in. They are successful capitalists who donate to institutions teaching their students to be socialists and communists, to hate them. For example, Jewish donors are big givers, supporting universities whose professors teach their students that Israel is illegal and must be destroyed entirely from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea and that Jews who support Israel — Zionists — need to be extinguished, too. The Final Solution. Yes, they are behind the scenes. No one knows them, sees them, or thinks of them. But they are the power. There is no stopping or persuading these idiot billionaires. They became billionaires because they would not stop as multi-millionaires. They had egos and needed to have more. Three hundred million. Seven hundred million. A billion. Two billion. Three Billion. Five billion. No amount ever was enough to sate their egos. And so be it. If that is what they needed, so be it. To each his own. I need to learn more Torah and to write more articles and books. It never is enough. For me, I am always driven to more Torah learning and writing. For billionaires, making money is never enough. Okay by me. The problem is that they are partly driven by insatiable ego. I happen to know a few billionaires personally, from fundraising for my synagogue, so I know. They need to see their names on buildings, on classroom doors, in endowed chairs, in kitchens, on everything but toilet bowls. They must see their names on walls. And, again, really, that is basically O.K. by me. Some guy named Keck, whoever he is, made it possible for USC to have a magnificent medical center. A guy named Hoag gave Orange County a premium medical center that has saved countless lives. A lawyer named William Shea gave money to help bring National League baseball back to New York after the Dodgers and Giants left for California, so the Mets named their original playing field (READ MORE from Dov Fischer: A Rabbi, a Pastor, and a Bishop Defend a Shared Goal) The problem with these egomaniacal billionaires is that, for all intents and purposes, they will not stop donating to the universities whose students despise them. We have tried for years to persuade them, and with only a very few exceptions, they are useless. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin once said that a capitalist will even sell you the rope to hang him. A contemplation of billionaire donors to American universities confirms that Lenin got that one right. Even a broken clock is right twice each day. So who can be pressured to change the campus climate. Yes, that is what we desperately need: climate change — on campuses. The next step was to pressure college and university presidents. Time has taught us that that, too, is useless. In Judaism, we have an expression: a “brakhah l’vatalah” — a wasted blessing, uttered for no purpose. Just as I hyphenate “G-d” because the Creator’s Name is holy and should not be spelled out completely other than in prayer or in Torah study, so it is forbidden to recite G-d’s name in vain in a purposeless blessing. Therefore, whenever someone suggests even a secular action that is pointless, a waste of time, and will lead to nothing, we say “Don’t bother. It’s a brakhah l’vatalah.” A waste. We have learned the hard way, from experience, that appealing to university presidents for justice and fairness and an end to the rot in university life is a brakhah l’vatalah, useless, a waste. They are not part of the solution because they are essential components of the problem. So who on G-d’s earth has the power to change things, and whom can we pressure? :Here is a novel proposal: In 1992, I published a landmark law review article on FIRREA (David B. Fischer, Comment, Bank Director Liability Under FIRREA: A New Defense for Directors and Officers of Insolvent Depository Institutions — Or a Tighter Noose?, 39 UCLA L. Rev. 1703 (1992)). It may be called “landmark” because it was cited in at least 13 separate federal court opinions, several state court opinions, and dozens of law review articles. FIRREA was the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act. (In its initial form, the proposed first word of the law’s title was “Depository,” not “Financial.” Honest to goodness. You figure out why they changed the word.) Back in the 1980’s, America had a widespread network of independent financial institutions that were very similar to banks, called “Savings and Loans,” or “S&Ls.” S&Ls were so similar to “banks” that most Americans did not even notice a difference. But there were important technical differences that lie outside the scope of this article. I refer you to my law review article. If a bank ever goes “insolvent” (the technical term for when a financial institution goes “bankrupt”), depositors may line up to be reimbursed by the FDIC, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Similarly, if an S&L would go insolvent, its depositors would be reimbursed by the FSLIC, the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation, a body separate from the FDIC. In the 1980’s, there were a spate of S&L insolvencies. It was a national financial catastrophe. S&Ls were dropping like flies. Perhaps you may remember the name of Charles Keating, a central figure in the mess. Depositors throughout the country demanded recompense from the FSLIC, and the feds had to cough up the cash. And then Bupkes. the Feds, in turn, through the Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC), looked for ways to recoup some of the lost millions. But whom could they sue? The S&Ls that failed? Pointless — they had no money left. The bank managers? How much could be collected from them? . So whom could the Feds sue to collect? The federal government landed on a terrific idea: let’s sue all members of all boards of directors and boards of trustees at any and every failed S&L. Sue them for recklessness, gross negligence, and even simple (or “ordinary”) negligence. As directors of the S&Ls, they were the governing body of the financial institutions, and that meant they had a “fiduciary duty” to oversee administration of the Savings and Loans. They could be liable for damages. And even if they could not fork over all the money awarded in a court judgment, most such people are covered by “D&O” (Director and Officer) insurance policies that cover that kind of liability. So the Feds sued away, like crazy. (READ MORE: A Queen, Two Bishops, Jews, and Muslim Madmen in Turbans) I worked at a prominent law firm that represented such a defendant. He was no financial wizard. Rather, on an S&L Board of millionaires and billionaires, he was added because he was locally prominent, a very successful local entrepreneur, owner of several auto dealerships. So they invited him onto the Board, and he gladly accepted the honor. Now he was being sued for millions. I still remember, thirty years later, the meeting with the client in which he beamed: “I’m the easiest guy to defend on the whole Board. While they were making and approving crazy things — toilets made of gold, windmills that produced no electricity — I never voted for any of that garbage.” The partner in charge of our team asked: “So you voted against those things?” And our client boastfully responded: “Even better: I never attended a single Board Meeting!” We attorneys looked at each other. This guy was finished, kaput. He had utterly violated his fiduciary duties. Not malfeasance. Not misfeasance. But major league non-feasance. We had to settle with the RTC for a boatload of money, within the limits of his D&O policy. He went back to selling cherries and lemons, and he never sat on another board again. And that got me thinking, When Rep. Elise Stefanik conducted the Congressional Hearing heard ‘round the world, a spotlight on three decayed worms, the presidents of Harvard, University of Pennsylvania, and MIT. It became clear that all needed to be fired. The Board of Directors at Penn rapidly fired their decayed worm, Liz Magill. The board of directors at MIT refused to fire their decayed worm. And the board of directors at Harvard initially refused to fire their decayed worm, Claudine Gay, until Christopher Rufo broke the story that Claudine was a mega plagiarist. The story grew like kudzu and got uglier until students at the Harvard Crimson called for her resignation. And finally the Board of Directors at Harvard put a boot in her derriere and showed her the door. So who indeed has the power? Not the billionaire donors. Not the professors. Not the university presidents. But the Boards of Directors, the Boards of Trustees. Until the publication of this article today, I don’t think anyone else has figured out the ramifications of this. It is time to enact a law like FIRREA that empowers the federal government — and private citizens, too — to sue university and college directors and trustees, not only collectively but also individually. They have the millions and the billions, and they have the D&O policies. They — and no one else — decide whom to hire as university president and whom to fire. They run the universities. Yes, they are behind the scenes. No one knows them, sees them, or thinks of them. But they are the power. It’s like in baseball: the all mighty manager on the field and in the dugout makes the lineup, decides when and whom to pinch-hit, and when and whom to bring in as a reliever. And then, with the flick of a pen, the front office will fire the manager and bring in a new one. That’s where the power lies. Yes, like that hapless car dealer, many university directors and trustees have no grasp of the entirety of responsibilities they have accepted and assumed when they became directors and trustees, but they bear those fiduciary duties nonetheless. What fiduciary duties do they have to the federal (and state) government? The Feds allocate millions of dollars to the universities for research. They allocate millions in Pell Grants and other federal financial grants to students so that the kids get a full unhindered education. They extend loans at advantaged interest rates and often end up writing off those loans, at the expense of the national budget and American taxpayer, when it becomes clear that the students cannot or will not pay the loans back. They grant the universities tax exemptions that waive millions in federal tax revenue so that donors will give more to the colleges and universities. Any single federal expenditure for a college entitles the federal government to subject matter jurisdiction and standing in any lawsuit brought over Director or Trustee malfeasance, misfeasance, or non-feasance in the conduct of fiduciary duties. (READ MORE: Catching Up on More Infuriating Things in the Past Month’s News) Most students’ parents also would have legal standing to sue. If their kids pay all the tuition and dorm rent, or borrow it all, then such parents may not have standing. But if a parent has paid even one dollar, not to mention tens of thousands, or borrowed tens of thousands in Parent PLUS loans, toward paying tuition or dorm fees, then they have paid for their child to receive a full, unhindered education on a safe and peaceful campus. Any extended rioting or other insurrection on campus distorts the very purpose for which that money has been spent. It comprises, at the very least, a breach of contract. The failure of the directors or trustees to impose solutions, fire ineffective university presidents, demand the removal of toxic professors, and implement all steps necessary to secure the campus for reasoned and calm learning legally exposes them to great individual liability. And what a fabulous class action that lawsuit would be! One thousand parents suing Columbia University for $60,000 apiece, a winning class action for $60 million. I am almost tempted to return to practicing law. All that is needed is a federal law like FIRREA and similar state laws, since states also finance educational institutions within their borders. Overnight, you will see one Claudine Gay after another, like that evil woman now at the helm of Columbia University, fired; students expelled and a great many deported back to the dirt holes whence they came, and a return to proper, reasoned, and respectful learning. To receive Rav Fischer’s Weekly Extensive Torah Commentaries or to attend any or all of Rav Fischer’s weekly 60-minute live Zoom classes on the Weekly Torah Portion, the Biblical Prophets, the Mishnah, Rambam Mishneh Torah, or Advanced Judaic Texts, send an email to: shulstuff@yioc.org His 10-part exciting and fact-based series of one-hour classes on the Jewish Underground liberation movement (Irgun, Lechi, and Haganah) and the Rise of Modern Israel can be found here. In it, he uses historic video clips of Irgun, Lechi, and Haganah actions, decades of past Arab terrorist atrocities, as well as stirring musical selections from the Underground and video’d interviews of participants, to augment data, statistics, maps, and additional historical records to create a fascinating, often gripping, and scholarly enriching educational experience about issues that remain deeply relevant today as Israel engages in an existential war in Gaza against Hamas terrorism. His latest deeply moving weekly series of informational and inspirational programs on the Hamas Gaza war may be found here. His 40-part Bible Study series covering all of I Samuel (First Samuel) intensively with Talmudic and Midrashic commentaries, and now into II Samuel is now up here. ++++ |
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