ONE FOR THE BOOKS

My father of blessed memory was on to something, when in a moment of despair in the late 1960’s he exclaimed: Back in the day, we sent a child to college to become a mentsch; today we send a child to college and the child comes out a Chaya (wild animal). If my father were alive today, he most likely would have amended his view. In all likelihood, my father would have said: Back in the day, we sent a child to college so that his mind would be molded with various disciplines such as science, medicine, law, literature or philosophy; today we send a child to college and he is brainwashed by the political rhetoric of a professor who has an ax to grind.
Oberlin College, a short drive from Cleveland Ohio is case in point. Joilynn Karega-Mason a.k.a. Joy Karega, assistant professor of Rhetoric and Composition has shared a series of posts claiming that Mossad (Israel’s national Intelligence agency) was the true mastermind of last year’s Charlie Hebdo massacre; Isis is the product of a CIA – Mossad collaboration; the IDF shot down the Malaysian airliner over Ukraine and that Jews were behind 9/11.
For those who parrot the mantra Freedom of Speech, consider the following: Why is it kosher to permit a faculty member to recklessly spew vile anti-Semitic diatribe, but totally verboten for a faculty member to recklessly spew anti-black diatribe? Add to the fact that Joy Karega is African American and that the president of Oberlin Marvin Krislov is a self- described practicing Jew and grandson of an Orthodox rabbi. If the unthinkable were to happen, where a Jewish professor of say, Economics were to share a series of posts blaming blacks for all the maladies in this world, and hold blacks accountable for all that is wrong with this country, can you imagine a black president of the college remaining silent?
J’accuse! Shame on local black leadership for not speaking out! Freedom of speech is one thing; freedom to incite and foment hatred is quite something else. Just as there is no room for racism in college campus, so too should there be no room for anti-Semitism on college campus. While no college leadership has a right to tell a professor what to think, so too does every college leadership have a responsibility to muzzle a professor whose views are harmful, incendiary, and totally preposterous.
Shame on the endowers of Oberlin College! Money talks! In fact, never before in the history of colleges and institutions, has money had such a loud voice! With a good many college presidents seeing themselves as little more than glorified fund-raisers, with endowment budgets in the mega millions, one would do well to ask a college president just how willing he or she would be to bring along a professor the caliber of Joy Karega the next time that college president is on a mission to schnorr money.
Shame on the Jews! Why is it that the same Jews of national notoriety in this country who would be all over a Jewish college professor who publicized racist (anti–black) rants, are ominously silent when that professor is black? If said Jews fear being branded as racist even when it comes to justified speaking out against someone who ought to be kept from speaking out, then why not resort to potent behind the scenes diplomacy which has been our claim to fame as a people?
It was enough a travesty that colleges permitted BDS as well as other political screed to fester and infect impressionable student minds on campus. For an institution to suffer a professor of such caliber is clearly one for the books.