Editor’s Note: On December 11, 2023, Clarity published “The One Simple Question That Determines Everything: Part I,” the first section of a two-part guest piece by Professor Andrew Pessin on October 7 and its reception across college campuses. In “‘One Simple Question’ Revisited,” Professor Pessin details the intellectual and personal costs of campus antisemitism that he has witnessed since.
Thank you Professor Pessin for your courage and for all that you have done in support of Israel and the Jewish people, in the face of such an antisemitic onslaught.
The West is so stupid. A friend (now deceased about 10 years) who grew up in Indonesia and moved to Australia, used to say what Islam was like. She kept telling me, we in the West are stupid.
Stupid indeed. Right under our noses, a caliphate is spreading like a cancer and we are willing partners.
From a Muslim viewpoint we are stupid. The West needs to wake up to the unhappy fact that the Muslim faith is growing more widespread and out of ignorance more persons are accepting it. With a bit more and a lot better education, Western minds can get superior knowledge and counter it, but the way to go about this is not through a similar set of somewhat opposing religious beliefs, but through what we know from science. Today the Israel Defense Force seems to be the only way that this Muslim trend is being stopped. Its disgustingly bloody and harmful to some of the poorest people, but the alternative will affect a lot more that the 2 million Gazians. If Iran (via Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthis) ever get a grasp of the muddle East, Europe and the US come next.
So extremely scary David. Americans are so stupid and ignorant about these extreme Muslim movements among our own communities and these atrocities happening on college campuses feel like Germany pre WWll. The IDF must succeed and we Americans must put our full support behind Israel the save out western civilization. Thank you Professor Pessin for your bravery!
Thank for your supporting words, Lulu. I live here in Israel and being too old to join in the combat, can only follow the news, which drives me and many other peace-seeking Israelis into a state of nervousness. We should be aware that it is also a psychological kind of warfare being played out by Hamas, and it is up to people like myself to oppose it through kind words, good comments and the determination of not letting it badly affect us. AM YISRAEL CHI. The people of Israel are alive!
What do you mean "there comes a time"? As soon as the warfare begins that time has already been passed. A nation that patiently allows itself to be repeatedly infiltrated by its enemy is avoiding the inevitable war and the fact that an infantry soldier must kill or be killed, (its an old army problem for new recruits).
Our best defense, and offense is to have confidence in our Judeo-Christian values. Back to basics. We either have freedom or we don't. Half measures spell Doom. Thankfully we have examples like the professor.
American academia is a cesspool that will require a wholesale restructuring precipitated by an external source. They will never reform themselves, and much like the fake-news Hamas media, they are utterly irredeemable.
One way to start would be to select 10 of the most egregious institutions and bulldoze them into oblivion.
Thank you for standing up and speaking out. And yes, the parallel with 1939 is disturbing and frightening. Where is our country headed? What can we do to support/help you?
I just noticed an additional irony. I looked up Connecticut College and saw that its motto, though in Latin, is actually from Psalm 1, “like a tree planted by the rivers of water…” So their motto is from the Hebrew Bible, but they hate Jews.
On October 7, the Hamas terrorists were armed, the Israelis massacred were defenseless. The unanswered question is why did Israel disarm its citizens most of whom are IDF veterans and leave them vulnerable to mass rape and murder by Hamas? An incredibly stupid decision and the Israeli government is clearly culpable. Every Jewish family in Israel (and the US) should have a 9 mm handgun, an AR15 rifle and plenty of ammunition for both. Every adult and teenage member of the family should be proficient in their use. Have anti-gun Jewish politicians in both countries learned nothing from the Holocaust and the latest slaughter? Isn't it time for the Jewish people to tell them to go fuck themselves?
These people genuinely think like Hitlerians: if Jews exist, they are a threat. Since "Jews invented conscience", in Adolf's view, the extermination of all Jews would have meant the much-desired elimination of conscience. Similarly, but with Nazism and WWII themselves factored in, Jewish existence to today's Jew-haters simply IS "Jewish supremacy", because for them Jews are now both the supreme victims (hence the "Nakba" as substitute Shoah) and supreme victors (not only do Jews continue to exist but have won out against overwhelming odds and thrive in their homeland/Holy Land).
Even "AsAJews", in their twisted way, testify to the victory of "Jewish values". That is, the myth of world Jewish conspiracy, while factually delusional, is true psychologically: the message of Sinai about justice and humanitarianism has indeed come to dominate, in our time, the language of social recognition. The problem is, of course, that this "hijacking of universal human values", as Irwin Cottler called it, can sanction the most extreme violation of just those values, because it represents the illegitimate occupation of the moral high ground and therefore can be used to legitimize the most immoral of acts.
If you want to dominate the world today, you can't just do it the old-fashioned way - honest colonialism, frank imperialism. You have to hide it (barely) behind the terminology of righteous humanism. If hypocrisy has long been an option for people, the inversion of good into evil and of peace into war that today's situation makes possible is Orwellian in a religiously-fueled sense George didn't ever imagine.
Say the anti-Jews: "If we can just convince enough of the world that we're the ultimate victims, that we are morally righteous, we will gain victory." And if that means victimizing their own people in the sure and certain knowledge that the nations, united, will blame it on the Jews, well, a little scorched earth and some human sacrifices are perfectly acceptable to them, given that they, like their Nazi heroes, are the very mirror-image of genuine righteousness.
I'm not religious myself (though not anti-religious, I always add), but understanding the authentically religious depth of this issue of "Jewish supremacy" couldn't be more important.
“It is a sad privilege to be chosen in order to perceive, … in the eternal return of the Jewish question, the return of metaphysical questions!” [Emmanuel Levinas, Difficult Freedom]
Bravo, Professor. Thank you for speaking up, fighting back, and sharing your story. Small lights in the darkness make a big difference.
Thank you Professor Pessin for your courage and for all that you have done in support of Israel and the Jewish people, in the face of such an antisemitic onslaught.
The West is so stupid. A friend (now deceased about 10 years) who grew up in Indonesia and moved to Australia, used to say what Islam was like. She kept telling me, we in the West are stupid.
Stupid indeed. Right under our noses, a caliphate is spreading like a cancer and we are willing partners.
From a Muslim viewpoint we are stupid. The West needs to wake up to the unhappy fact that the Muslim faith is growing more widespread and out of ignorance more persons are accepting it. With a bit more and a lot better education, Western minds can get superior knowledge and counter it, but the way to go about this is not through a similar set of somewhat opposing religious beliefs, but through what we know from science. Today the Israel Defense Force seems to be the only way that this Muslim trend is being stopped. Its disgustingly bloody and harmful to some of the poorest people, but the alternative will affect a lot more that the 2 million Gazians. If Iran (via Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthis) ever get a grasp of the muddle East, Europe and the US come next.
So extremely scary David. Americans are so stupid and ignorant about these extreme Muslim movements among our own communities and these atrocities happening on college campuses feel like Germany pre WWll. The IDF must succeed and we Americans must put our full support behind Israel the save out western civilization. Thank you Professor Pessin for your bravery!
Thank for your supporting words, Lulu. I live here in Israel and being too old to join in the combat, can only follow the news, which drives me and many other peace-seeking Israelis into a state of nervousness. We should be aware that it is also a psychological kind of warfare being played out by Hamas, and it is up to people like myself to oppose it through kind words, good comments and the determination of not letting it badly affect us. AM YISRAEL CHI. The people of Israel are alive!
That is their plan David.
You are correct David. War is ugly. However, there comes a time where it’s kill or be killed.
What do you mean "there comes a time"? As soon as the warfare begins that time has already been passed. A nation that patiently allows itself to be repeatedly infiltrated by its enemy is avoiding the inevitable war and the fact that an infantry soldier must kill or be killed, (its an old army problem for new recruits).
Non-Jew from the UK, I just want to offer my support and solidarity.
Our best defense, and offense is to have confidence in our Judeo-Christian values. Back to basics. We either have freedom or we don't. Half measures spell Doom. Thankfully we have examples like the professor.
Thank you for continuing to fight the good fight, Professor!
American academia is a cesspool that will require a wholesale restructuring precipitated by an external source. They will never reform themselves, and much like the fake-news Hamas media, they are utterly irredeemable.
One way to start would be to select 10 of the most egregious institutions and bulldoze them into oblivion.
"Pour encourager les autres."
Do not grow weary, my learned friend, we will hold your hands high in this evil battle.
They’re thugs and cowards.
Thank you for standing up and speaking out. And yes, the parallel with 1939 is disturbing and frightening. Where is our country headed? What can we do to support/help you?
I just noticed an additional irony. I looked up Connecticut College and saw that its motto, though in Latin, is actually from Psalm 1, “like a tree planted by the rivers of water…” So their motto is from the Hebrew Bible, but they hate Jews.
On October 7, the Hamas terrorists were armed, the Israelis massacred were defenseless. The unanswered question is why did Israel disarm its citizens most of whom are IDF veterans and leave them vulnerable to mass rape and murder by Hamas? An incredibly stupid decision and the Israeli government is clearly culpable. Every Jewish family in Israel (and the US) should have a 9 mm handgun, an AR15 rifle and plenty of ammunition for both. Every adult and teenage member of the family should be proficient in their use. Have anti-gun Jewish politicians in both countries learned nothing from the Holocaust and the latest slaughter? Isn't it time for the Jewish people to tell them to go fuck themselves?
Philosophy of Change
Change brings pain—again and again.
Pain brings suffering—uttering, muttering
Suffering brings tolerance—with much endurance.
Tolerance brings thinking—and good ideas linking.
Thinking brings knowledge—saves going to college.
Knowledge brings understanding—sensibility expanding.
Understanding brings wisdom—and where it comes from.
And wisdom makes life bearable—happily declarable!
These people genuinely think like Hitlerians: if Jews exist, they are a threat. Since "Jews invented conscience", in Adolf's view, the extermination of all Jews would have meant the much-desired elimination of conscience. Similarly, but with Nazism and WWII themselves factored in, Jewish existence to today's Jew-haters simply IS "Jewish supremacy", because for them Jews are now both the supreme victims (hence the "Nakba" as substitute Shoah) and supreme victors (not only do Jews continue to exist but have won out against overwhelming odds and thrive in their homeland/Holy Land).
Even "AsAJews", in their twisted way, testify to the victory of "Jewish values". That is, the myth of world Jewish conspiracy, while factually delusional, is true psychologically: the message of Sinai about justice and humanitarianism has indeed come to dominate, in our time, the language of social recognition. The problem is, of course, that this "hijacking of universal human values", as Irwin Cottler called it, can sanction the most extreme violation of just those values, because it represents the illegitimate occupation of the moral high ground and therefore can be used to legitimize the most immoral of acts.
If you want to dominate the world today, you can't just do it the old-fashioned way - honest colonialism, frank imperialism. You have to hide it (barely) behind the terminology of righteous humanism. If hypocrisy has long been an option for people, the inversion of good into evil and of peace into war that today's situation makes possible is Orwellian in a religiously-fueled sense George didn't ever imagine.
Say the anti-Jews: "If we can just convince enough of the world that we're the ultimate victims, that we are morally righteous, we will gain victory." And if that means victimizing their own people in the sure and certain knowledge that the nations, united, will blame it on the Jews, well, a little scorched earth and some human sacrifices are perfectly acceptable to them, given that they, like their Nazi heroes, are the very mirror-image of genuine righteousness.
I'm not religious myself (though not anti-religious, I always add), but understanding the authentically religious depth of this issue of "Jewish supremacy" couldn't be more important.
“It is a sad privilege to be chosen in order to perceive, … in the eternal return of the Jewish question, the return of metaphysical questions!” [Emmanuel Levinas, Difficult Freedom]
Thank you for all you do, Andrew Pessin.
Thanks for your courage and clarity!
Bravo-well done!