The Brandeis University Commencement

The Real Issue at Brandeis University
By Sherwin Pomerantz

In the discussion of the suitability of inviting Israel’s Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren to be the commencement speaker at Brandeis University later this month, graduating senior Tara Meital is quoted in the Post as opposing the invitation, given that it “will make some in the audience feel uncomfortable, such as the Palestinian graduates.”

And there you have it. Once again the essence of the discomfort among some Jews is not really that the speaker is controversial, but that inviting the official representative of the State of Israel to speak at a university founded by the American Jewish Community in the name of the first Jewish Supreme Court justice, will make non-Jews who chose to attend that university uncomfortable.

The situation takes me back to the late 1970s when I was very active as a national officer of my college fraternity, Alpha Epsilon Pi. The fraternity was founded in 1913 by a group of Jewish college students at New York University given that, at the time, Jews were generally excluded from membership in the Waspish Greek letter student societies on US campuses. The fraternity/sorority system remained segregated by race and religion until after the end of World War II when America became much more sensitive to such issues. Slowly but surely the system opened up and Jewish fraternities began to accept non-Jews while the Christian groups accepted some Jews as well. Racial integration took a few more years to become accepted.

At an annual convention held that year at the Playboy Club in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, I, as the resident traditional Jew on the National Board, was asked to conduct the memorial service for those members of the fraternity who had passed on during the previous year. The service was, of course, in English but my tradition was to close the service with the recitation of Kaddish, the prayer traditionally recited at such times and, of course, it was in Hebrew.

After the service a few of the Jewish undergraduates came up to me and voiced their displeasure over the fact that I had used Hebrew as part of the ritual. Their logic was that now that we had non-Jewish members in the organization it might be offensive to them for us to use Hebrew in any rituals of the organization. At the same convention a resolution was then drafted and passed prohibiting the further use of Hebrew in any ritual of the organization. (It was at that point in time, by the way, that I left the active service of the fraternity and decided to devote my time to causes that were more proudly Jewish.)

So there we were. A fraternity who voluntarily accepted members who were not Jewish, but all of whose members swore allegiance to its goals and objectives which were personified by its coat of arms which bearing, until today, both a Star of David and a Menorah, the historical symbols of the Jewish people for over 2,000 years, now deciding to change its policies for fear of offending “them.” In the case of the fraternity the “them” was the small cadre of non-Jews who, themselves, chose to affiliate with an organization that was identifiably Jewish. And, as always, it was not “them” that raised the objections but “us.”

Fast forward 40 years and we stand today in the very same place. Brandeis University, founded as the outward symbol of the success of the Jewish experience in the USA, with a student body, some of whom, themselves the beneficiaries of the American Jewish experience, concerned that inviting the appointed diplomatic representative of the State of Israel to the U.S. might make the Palestinian students uncomfortable.

I fly with some regularity on Royal Jordanian Airlines and every flight begins with a public reading, in Arabic, of the prayer for a safe journey. No one ever seems concerned that I might be offended by that, nor do I expect them to be. It is forbidden to enter Saudi Arabia with any non-Muslim symbols, Christian or Jewish prayer books and the like, and no one seems to be concerned that I might be offended by that. But we, of course, always seem to be ready to bend over backwards to accommodate others, even if (a) it is not in our best interests and (b) we know that the people for whom we are making the accommodation given the opportunity would not return the favor.

The University is to be commended for having stood its ground while the students who objected hopefully will never have to thank their lucky stars that there is an Israel ready to welcome them home should their native country ever cease to be the welcoming place that it is today.


Sherwin Pomerantz, a 26 year resident of Israel, is President of Atid EDI Ltd., a Jerusalem-based economic development consulting firm.