{"id":1320,"date":"2016-09-26T22:32:33","date_gmt":"2016-09-27T04:32:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/?p=1320"},"modified":"2016-09-26T22:32:33","modified_gmt":"2016-09-27T04:32:33","slug":"how-college-safe-spaces-became-dangerous-for-jews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2016\/09\/how-college-safe-spaces-became-dangerous-for-jews\/","title":{"rendered":"How College Safe Spaces Became Dangerous for Jews"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/469928596\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 68.855219% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/469928596?et=W7vyP1EbTudFDlegYoLDQw&amp;viewMoreLink=on&amp;sig=2fj0ZA4x-cmQ_TwRmpCh6i1jaI2Z3KIpz1RmLge1BIM=&amp;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"409\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin: 0;\">\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>I write a lot about how college campuses have become bastions of progressive ideology, with ivory towers turning into Marxist dreamlands where \u201csafe spaces\u201d and \u201cmicroaggressions\u201d are used to thwart conservatism and freedom at every turn.<\/p>\n<p>This is all very true, but there\u2019s another looming threat on college campuses that isn\u2019t being discussed \u2013 one that is more ancient and more dangerous.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s the rise of anti-Semitism.<\/p>\n<p>As a conservative, freedom-loving American, this is disheartening. As a Jew, this is extremely troubling and personal.<\/p>\n<p>Writing about the rise of anti-Semitism on American college campuses in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/acts-of-faith\/wp\/2016\/09\/15\/in-the-safe-spaces-on-campus-no-jews-allowed\/?tid=ss_fb-bottom\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">the Washington Post, Anthony Berteaux details\u00a0<\/a>how safe spaces are extremely dangerous for Jewish people.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>When Arielle Mokhtarzadeh arrived at University of California, Berkeley, to attend the annual Students of Color Conference, she had no way of knowing that she would be leaving as a victim of anti-Semitism. \u2026<\/p>\n<p>For Mokhtarzadeh, an Iranian Jew at UCLA, her freshman year was punctuated by incidents of anti-Semitism that were both personal and met with national controversy. She was shocked during her first quarter in school, when students entered the Bruin Cafe to see the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/dailybruin.com\/2015\/09\/16\/submission-regents-must-condemn-anti-semitism-to-ensure-safety-of-jewish-identity\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">phrase<\/a>\u00a0\u201cHitler did nothing wrong\u201d etched into a table. Months later, Mokhtarzadeh\u2019s friend Rachel Beyda was temporarily\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2015\/03\/10\/opinions\/kosmin-anti-semitism-campus\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">denied<\/a>\u00a0a student government leadership position based solely on her Jewish identity, an event that made news nationwide.<\/p>\n<p>The campus was supposed to be her new home, her new safe space \u2014 so why didn\u2019t she feel that way? She went to the conference hoping for some answers.<\/p>\n<p>But on the first day there, she was horrified when the discussion became an attack on Israel\u00a0\u2014 and soon devolved into attacks on the Jews.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOver the course of what was probably no longer than an hour, my history was denied, the murder of my people was justified, and a movement whose sole purpose is the destruction of the Jewish homeland was glorified. Statements were made justifying the ruthless murder of innocent Israeli civilians, blatantly denying Jewish indigeneity in the land, and denying the Holocaust in which six\u00a0million Jews were murdered,\u201d she said. \u201cWhy anyone in their right mind would accept these slanders as truths baffles me. But they did. These statements, and others, were met with endless snaps and cheers. I was taken aback.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mokhtarzadeh walked out on the verge of tears. \u201cIt was in that moment, during that conference, that I realized that every identity and every intersection of identity was to be welcomed and championed in progressive spaces \u2014 except mine.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>She\u2019s not alone though \u2013 because safe spaces aren\u2019t safe for anyone except whiny children and whiny professors who don\u2019t want to confront any ideas different from their own. They\u2019d rather deal in straw man arguments and logical fallacies that compete in a truly free marketplace of ideas.<\/p>\n<p>The FBI knows the danger here for American Jews:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The ramifications of ignoring the normalization of anti-Semitism cannot be understated: The most recent FBI hate crime\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.fbi.gov\/about-us\/cjis\/ucr\/hate-crime\/2014\/topic-pages\/incidentsandoffenses_final\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">report<\/a>\u00a0found that 58.2 percent of hate crimes motivated by religious bias were targeted at Jews. Jews make up\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/fact-tank\/2013\/10\/02\/how-many-jews-are-there-in-the-united-states\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">2.2 percent<\/a>\u00a0of the American population, so the FBI\u2019s statistics make it clear that Jews are the most disproportionately attacked religious group in America. It should be troubling to everyone that an SJP member at Temple University\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/articles.philly.com\/2014-08-27\/news\/53248644_1_university-campus-student-government-theobald\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">physically assaulted<\/a>\u00a0a pro-Israel Jewish student two years ago, calling him a \u201cZionist baby killer.\u201d But it should be far more troubling that the SJP chapter at Temple (like all SJP chapters)\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/m.facebook.com\/temple.sjp.3\/?_ft_=top_level_post_id.1082151968473827%3Atl_objid.1082151968473827%3Athid.827413177281042%3A306061129499414%3A3%3A0%3A1454313599%3A-2740318410740158039&amp;__tn__=C\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">promotes itself<\/a>\u00a0as a progressive organization, claiming solidarity with movements such as Black Lives Matter.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It\u2019s time to wake up to what is really happening in our progressive circles. Acceptance and peace isn\u2019t the name of the game \u2013 instead, these militant organizations are seeking to demonize those minorities who have faced the most deadly persecution in the last century.<\/p>\n<p>Turns out, progressives don\u2019t want to stick up for the actual persecuted after all.<\/p>\n<p>Those of us who have been paying attention aren\u2019t surprised.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Turns out, progressives don&#8217;t want to stick up for the actual persecuted after all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2673,"featured_media":1321,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - 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