A fundamental tenet in many Jewish-Americans homes has been our aspiration for higher education. That meant college at a minimum. Grad school, too. Ivy League acceptance letters were treasured.
My brilliant sister, Nancy, earned her veterinary degree at prestigious Cornell. This atrocious past month (with civilian suffering in Gaza and Israel), how low can that once-great college go? Why all its instantaneous venerations and capitulations to Jew-hating Hamas?
It’s not just the professors; it’s the weak reactions of administrators. It’s the university rallies featuring chants of, “From the River to the Sea.” That means violent Jewish removal from the land of King David.
Hamas’ well-documented geo-political approach is to eliminate Jews from that predominantly Muslim region. Hamas propaganda parrots deadly Russian-invented conspiracy theories, which was then borrowed by Hitler. Hamas terrorists sacrifice their lives for the perverted pleasure, and prestige, of slaughtering Jewish families.
October 7 demonstrated that the terrorists view Jews as subhuman. Hamas made movies of their grotesque massacres. They want all Jews to exit Israel.
Hundreds more humans, including many Americans, were taken hostage.
On Sunday, concerned Coloradans assembled, and then walked around Washington Park near the University of Denver campus, advocating for their safe release. Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser spoke powerfully.
DU Chancellor Jeremy Haefner wasn’t present, but he did speak for DU on Oct. 17, declaring, “The university as an institution must remain neutral on geopolitical issues.”
That’s (not) funny, Chancellor Haefner. Aren’t you the administrator who recently took a strong (correct) stand against Russia’s barbaric attack on Ukraine, claiming DU “stands in support of those defending democracy.”
Strong colleges exist in Colorado. My parents would’ve loved it if we’d gotten into Harvard, but Colorado College was fine for my smarter brother, Bill, and me. The same for CU Law.
Harvard and the Ivy League are dead to me now. A toxic culture of antisemitism exists on too many college campuses. When you merge TikTok with Harvard’s warped progressivism, our Jewish world is rocked.
What kind of person or institution celebrates, or equivocates, regarding barbarism? Who would actually praise Hamas for its October 7 atrocities?
The University of Colorado Department of Ethnic Studies raised its ugly hand, declaring the Hamas attack wasn’t “terrorism,” concluding that the United States only assigns the terrorism label “to justify the Israeli state killing machine.”
Showing leadership, CU president Todd Saliman soon posted that the Ethnic Studies Department statement “was appalling and does not represent CU.” Saliman correctly directed his wrath at Hamas, declaring, “The evil they exhibited has no place on earth.”
Meanwhile, departing Chancellor Philip DiStefano’s “minimalist” statement regarding Hamas’ culpability was panned by agitated Jewish leaders and organizations connected to CU.
Long ago, on my AM radio afternoon drivetime radio show, I second-guessed Interim Chancellor DiStefano’s handling of the whole radical CU Professor Ward Churchill mess. Revelations that CU’s Ethnic Studies tenured professor praised Al Qaeda for making “chickens come home to roost ” on 9/11, became a national controversy. Churchill claimed World Trade Center victims were “little Eichmans.”
Before launching into Churchill on air, I researched the man and discovered he was masquerading as a Native American, even though he was a Caucasian from Elmwood, Illinois.
When I observed Churchill’s office on the CU Boulder campus, it had on its door a famous picture of the Warsaw Ghetto boy, but this poster said “Support Palestinian Rights.”
Comparisons of Israelis to Nazis are designed to provoke, and are antisemitic. Our radio show proudly advocated Churchill’s removal from CU, and broadcast from the raucous CU regents’ meeting that was part of that process.
Relentlessly, we played sound of Churchill encouraging deadly violence. Regarding 9/11, he asked adoring students why it took “Arabs to do what people here should have done a long time ago.”
In a Seattle speech, a man asked how to launch an attack “so they don’t see us coming.” Churchill told him to shave his beard, cut his hair and wear a suit. “You carry the weapon. That’s how they don’t see it coming.”
Churchill advocated violence at many colleges, profiting every step of the way, selling his overpriced books, some of which contained plagiarism and defamation.
In Denver District Court, there was a 2009 trial for this “big fraud” who sued CU when he got fired. The Denver jury awarded Churchill a whopping $1, which meant a Buffs’ victory. Some credited CU’s winning 2009 courtroom strategies partially to me. Wow.
Last week, I returned to that same second floor courtroom in Denver’s City and County Building. I’ve got my own civil case pending in front of Judge Sarah Wallace, who last week separately presided over the building’s first-ever presidential insurrection trial.
America is trying to sort out who might be our next president. Will it be another “big fraud” who advocates violence? I sure hope not.
There are many legitimate causes around which to rally, such as politics, ceasefires, voting rights, independent judiciaries, civil rights, violent over-reactions, and bye-bye to Bibi Netanyahu.
Hamas is the opposite of legitimate. Hamas is a hate group that specifically targets Jews. October 7 has been highly educational regarding true friends of the Jewish people. Too many American colleges have failing marks.
Craig Silverman is a former Denver chief deputy DA. Craig is columnist at large for The Colorado Sun and an active Colorado trial lawyer with Craig Silverman Law, LLC.
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