Long before the Israeli armed forces moved into Gaza to destroy Hamas, in fact even while the Hamas murderers and rapists were still holding out in Israeli homes along the Gaza Envelope, top-tier American universities were the scenes of pro-Hamas protests, speeches, and encampments. Such deep-seated hostility toward Israel has caused many American Jews to ask: “Should Jews Abandon Ivy League Schools?” – as phrased in the headline of a Jerusalem Post interview of William Daroff, CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish American Organizations.
The fear that our most prestigious universities are hostile environments, not only for Israel, but for Jews in general, was reinforced by the disastrous congressional hearings last December, where the Presidents of Harvard, MIT, and Penn were unable to say whether calls for the genocide of Jews would violate their schools’ conduct policies.
Is it time for American Jews to abandon elite universities and to look elsewhere for educational opportunities? Several arguments have been advanced for doing just that.