OPINION

The Nazis’ attempts to march in Skokie, Ill., in 1977, and their eventual march in Chicago, outraged decent Americans.

Their exercise of their First Amendment rights deeply offended those who fought the Third Reich and spat on the graves of American servicemembers who gave their lives battling Nazi Germany and its genocidal ideology.

As local Holocaust survivors watched men in full Nazi regalia march near their homes they wondered, will there be a Holocaust 2.0 in America?

Fast forward to 2024. “Holocaust 2.0” was found graffitied on my former college campus, University of Maryland, College Park (UMD), next to a call for “Palestinian liberation.”

How did we get here?

Four decades after Skokie, political winds had shifted by the time neo-Nazis marched in Charlottesville, Virginia — but not all that much.

At the time, this writer was the director of Jewish community safety and security for the Jewish Community Federation of Richmond, Virginia.

Our community and law enforcement partners prepared in horror for the largest antisemitic, white-supremist gathering in America, in decades.

Again, all in the name of First Amendment rights.

On Aug. 11, 2017, torch carrying men of alt-right ilk marched through the University of Virginia chanting, “Jews will not replace us.”

The boastfully antisemitic cry, combined with the intelligence we received, led us to evacuate not only the people from the sole synagogue in the city, but its Torah scrolls as well.

There was a real possibility that pogrom would raze the synagogue.

Those days, which marked a tipping point of normalizing antisemitism and making Jew-hatred acceptable, will be remembered as some of the darkest days in American history.

They led to subsequent shootings at synagogues and targeting of Jewish houses of worship, schools, and neighborhoods — and Jews — across North America.

When will we realize that fighting words — and words that call for violence against a specific group of people — have dire consequences?

Flash to today. On Oct. 7, 2023, Israel was invaded, and 1,200 Israelis were murdered in cold blood.

Many more were raped, mutilated, and tortured.

It was the deadliest day in Jewish history since the Holocaust.

More than 250 Israelis were taken into Gaza, and 101 remain in Hamas’ death dungeons.

Israel launched Operation Swords of Iron with the goal of returning the hostages and eliminating Hamas, a barbarous terrorist group that has repeatedly promised to perpetrate additional attacks just like the one of Oct. 7, 2023. 

During this war, I fought to defend Israel — and my family — as part of the IDF Phoenix armored unit.

We lost brothers in combat.

So, imagine my dismay when my alma mater, UMD, granted permission to a rabidly antisemitic and anti-Israel group, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), to hold a rally on campus on Oct. 7, the one-year anniversary of the Hamas attacks in Israel.

SJP and its allies claim that Israel has murdered upwards of 150,000 people in Gaza.

This number is nearly four times what even Hamas claims.

For SJP this has never been about facts. It’s about normalizing and promoting Jew-hatred.

Subsequently, UMD President Darryll Pines shifted positions.

He announced that “only university-sponsored events that promote reflection” would be sanctioned that day.

He noted other events (such as SJP’s) would be permitted before and after Oct. 7.

This inadequately addresses the promotion of hate on campus. In fact, Florida’s public university system and some private universities have even banned the group.

UMD used to be a hub of American-Jewish campus life.

I fondly remember how Jewish life was celebrated campus-wide, and year-round.

Today, disappointingly, UMD has fallen prey to the nationwide rise of antisemitism.

This past school year, the cry, “There is only one solution, intifada revolution!” resonated across the UMD.

The call for an intifada is overt incitement to a violent uprising — both against Israelis and Jews. Don’t take my word for it.

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal last month exhorted, “We should unleash all forms of resistance, and first and foremost, the martyrdom operations. . . .

“In a few days, the academic year will start again at the universities worldwide. . .  I call upon the student leaders in our Arab and Islamic countries, as well as in the East and the West, to renew the student movement in the broadest scope. . .

“You should be proud of yourselves.”

Translation: Meshaal, who faces U.S. Justice Department terrorism and murder charges, is calling for suicide attacks and murder on American campuses. SJP play right into his call.

The Jerusalem College of Technology (JCT), where I serve in the administration, is watching this surge of antisemitism on American campuses with tremendous concern.

We are rapidly expanding our offerings for religious Jewish students and faculty members seeking to live and learn in a safe environment, away from hotbeds of Jew-hatred.

President Pines would be well-served taking a cue from Maryland’s motto, “Strong deeds, gentle words.”

This moment calls for strong deeds, not just gentle words.

Until the university’s leadership displays the moral courage to disallow events promoting violence, disavow antisemitism, and dismantle Jew-hating groups on campus, I welcome UMD students to apply to JCT.

Daniel Fogel is Vice President of the Jerusalem College of Technology.

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