As a Jewish alumnus of Columbia University (class of 1981), the latest news has been surreal.
The video scenes of the 116th Street gates do not drip with nostalgia. I now watch only with sadness.
Columbia is no stranger to student protest. However, when I was a student, the protests were against outside actors. The outside actors were South Africa or the United States government, and there was no distinction whether Democrats or Republicans were in power. Today, university students protest their fellow Jewish students as much as they do Israel.
Moreover, students who protest Israel, amazingly, are supporting Hamas, a terrorist organization that is currently holding American citizens hostage.
Support of an entity holding Americans hostage reveals a staggering difference between students of “my” era and those of today. I vividly recall the nights we spent at McSorley’s Old Ale House (New York’s oldest bar). Everyone drank and chanted epithets against the Ayatollah and Iran.
Supporting an entity holding fellow citizens hostage wasn’t even contemplated.
How the mighty have fallen.
Dr. Gene Klein, Deerfield Beach
I have no doubt that the great majority of students who are participating in campus protests over Gaza are ignorant dupes who are getting a rush from mob mentality and the youthful experience of defying authority.
The spread of protests from university to university is a clear case of “monkey see, monkey do.”
For those who are truly sincere in their political beliefs, it’s one thing to protest peacefully, but quite another to brazenly call for extermination of Israel and for another Holocaust.
David Shifrin, M.D., Boca Raton
There appears to be an organized effort by the far left in funding all the present campus protests, including organizing antisemitic hatred of Jewish students on Ivy League universities, and it seems the epicenter is Columbia University in New York.
Jewish students have been strongly advised to leave the campus for their own safety.
If this had been happening to African Americans or LGBTQ students, there would have been a tremendous outcry from President Joe Biden and the mainstream media. But now, with Jewish lives in danger, we hear only crickets. Only President Donald Trump stood up against antisemitism from his New York City courtroom at a hush money trial, where a Boston University legal scholar, as reported by New York Times, called his trial an embarrassment.
This series of pro-Palestinian demonstrations must be strongly condemned by all Americans. Columbia University’s president should be fired. Demonstrations of antisemitism and violence must end.
David G. Ellenberg, Pembroke Pines
It is getting monotonous reading a headline in the Sun Sentinel that has no bearing on reality.
The AP news article, “Trump’s minority outreach stalling,” is mostly disingenuous and was written to try and give hope to Joe Biden’s supporters that they will easily control the votes from minorities.
In this article, published April 29, you have to wade through five-and-a-half columns, almost to the end, to read this:
“Polls show that many Black and Hispanic adults are dissatisfied with Biden. According to polls by Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, Biden’s approval among Black adults has dropped from 94% when he started his term to 55% in March. Among Hispanic adults, it dropped from 70% to 32% in the same period.”
That averages out to around a 45% drop overall.
Bottom line: If Biden loses even 25% of those voters, he’s toast.
This is because Biden’s economic and immigration policies hurt these two groups more than most. The only subject Biden can win on out of the top 10 for these two groups is on abortion, and it’s at the bottom of the issues they care most about.
Mark Goldstein, Boca Raton
