Sunday April 27, 2025. breakfast in person: 9:15 am; presentation/Zoom: 10:00 am.
Isaiah Breakfast Speaker Series, sponsored by Brotherhood
Prof. Andrew Pessin - The State of the Campus for Jews
As the historian Gil Troy has put it, everyone has their own personal “Herzl moment,” the incident or episode or insight in which they suddenly perceive how serious the antisemitism is around them. My own came in 2015, when a Facebook post I’d written defending Israel during the earlier 2014 Hamas-Israel war led to an international, death-threat-generating defamation campaign against me. That was the moment I understood, I simply saw, that antizionism just is antisemitism: my defending the rights of Jews to defend themselves was violently condemned. Antizionism was therefore the position that Jews defending themselves from slaughter is immoral—and you can hardly get more antisemitic than that.
Fast forward to October 7, 2023 … when campuses across North America erupted—not in condemnation but in celebration, endorsement, and calls for more of that barbaric violence against Jews. The very afternoon the massacre was in progress several dozen Harvard student groups put out a statement justifying the slaughter. By the next day, with Hamas murderers still roaming the country, campuses everywhere were calling to bring the “resistance” (i.e. the violence) to campuses themselves—open calls for mass violence on campus, here, against Jews.
How, oh how, did this come to pass—in America, the Goldene Medina, the land of freedom and opportunity for the Jews?
In this talk I’ll document and analyze the disturbing trajectory that brought us to this fateful point, discussing the most recent campus incidents trying to make sense of what is happening, and offering a few thoughts on what the Jewish community should do moving forward.
Andrew Pessin is Professor of Philosophy at Connecticut College and Campus Bureau Editor for The Algemeiner. Author of many academic articles and books as well as works of philosophy for a general audience, his recent books include Israel Breathes, World Condemns (2 vols.); Refuting the Lies Told About Israel (monograph); Anti-Zionism on Campus: The University, Free Speech, and BDS; and Poisoning the Wells: Antisemitism in America. His articles address many aspects of the campus environment for Jews and for Israel supporters, including the question of whether anti-Zionism is antisemitism (the short answer is yes). He has also published four novels, including Nevergreen (2021), an academic satire about campus cancel culture and its harmful effects on the Jews which, unfortunately, proved prophetic when campuses exploded against Israel and the Jews after the October 7 massacre. His most recent novel, Bright College Years (2024), is about how colleges used to be before they all went crazy. He enjoyed some moments of fame portraying “The Genius” on the former Late Show with David Letterman.
For more information about him and his work, visit www.andrewpessin.com.
Join us onsite for a FULL BREAKFAST of bagels, smoked salmon, pickled herring, whitefish salad, tabbouleh, desserts and more. On-site attendance for this event is free for Brotherhood members(with Promo code emailed separately to members); $15 for guests. Attendance on Zoom is free to all for this event.
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