This week, a stark study of two types of young people, the ones with true grit, and the ones who are full of shit.
Columbia has been commandeered by entitled fools who, by brazenly defying the University’s rules, have turned an institution, that when I attended was brimming with intellect and respect, into a laughingstock.
It’s a place that can’t even get through the waning days of a semester. It has been shut down by a cohort of cowards who believe their campus campout conveys courage and conviction.
All it conveys is a monumental conceit that all the other students at the university must suffer for their insufferable behavior.
Contrast those punks with the paragons I met in Israel.
I met a young man who I’ll call Natan. He’s 25 years old and he’s as solid as a block of granite. His family moved to Israel years ago and they live a very comfortable life in a suburb of Tel Aviv.
If Natan lived in the United States, he’d probably be on the fast track at an investment bank or a hedge fund, pulling in a six-figure salary, lounging at Casa Cipriani, figuring out if he should spend his hefty bonus on a Tribeca loft or a new Porsche.
Instead, Natan just got back from five months of war, of not only fighting Hamas in Gaza, but also battling Hezbollah in Lebanon.
When Natan was first on the scene at Kibbutz Be’eri on October 7th, he saw things no person, let alone a 25 year old, should ever see.
He went on missions so sensitive and so dangerous, he isn’t allowed to talk about them. He’s had shrapnel from a terrorist’s RPG, a rocket propelled grenade, plucked from his arm.
Natan has seen his close friends fall in battle.
I would put my life in Natan’s iron hands without a second of hesitation or trepidation.
Then there’s the petite, mid-twenties young woman from Long Island I met at a restaurant on a pleasant night in Tel Aviv. I’ll call her Ashley.
Her life in America was a typical upper middle class suburban upbringing. But as she told me, she moved to Israel five years ago to be with her people.
Ashley made aliyah as it’s called, she didn’t have to enlist in the army. She could have just hung out with the tons of other twenty-something Tel Avivians. Instead, she joined the IDF and qualified for a specialized combat unit.
Ashley hasn’t yet been called up to fight in the wars with Hamas and Hezbollah, so I asked her if she was relieved she hasn’t had to put her life on the line, yet.
You know what she said? No way. Ashley, the young woman from North Woodmere, Long Island, said, if her commander called her right at that instant, she would drop everything and would do whatever was asked of her.
Finally, there’s the 19-year old I met, who I’ll call Corey. Corey’s from Canada. So boyish looking, he doesn’t even need to shave. If he were back home, he’d be finishing up his freshman year at college, looking forward to his summer internship and making career contacts.
Instead, Corey has enlisted as a lone soldier, someone who serves in the IDF but has no family living in Israel. He didn’t have to. He wanted to. He’s put his life on hold to help defend his ancestral homeland and its citizens.
Many other young Israelis, unflinchingly risk everything defending Israel and the Jewish people.
Contrast Corey, Ashley and Natan with the privileged protestors at Columbia and the other messed-up America colleges, who have the gall to call these three and the many others like them, oppressors, colonists and genociders (if there is such a word).
These gutless goons that hide their faces during their repugnant protests, spewing hate-filled, anti-Jewish slogans. They cry like babies and hurl hate like Hitler when police gently put them in zip ties and bus them off. They despise their country, while feeding at the trough of its most prestigious institutions of higher learning, underwritten with taxpayer dollars.
They make me sick. Natan, Ashley and Corey make me proud. I wish I had one-tenth of their courage.
Because I must tell you, the coward in me crept out on that early Sunday morning in Israel, when the murderous mullahs of Iran launched hundreds of drones and missiles at Israel.
I floated the idea of catching the next flight home until I was shot down, (pardon the bad pun), by my commanding officer (my wife).
In the end, I was glad I stayed despite not knowing if we’d be spending our time in Israel in and out of bomb shelters, during a hot war with Iran.
The young Israeli men and women I met gave me the strength to stick it out. Their bravery washed out the wuss in me. If they are willing to die for Israel, the very least I could do was to stay. They earn our respect and gratitude every single day.
Not so for the indulged idiots on Morningside Heights.
It is inexcusable that these delinquents, glamping on the campus’ south lawn in their matching tents, munching on Pret A Manger sandwiches, and no doubt sipping matcha from their YETI tumblers through their aluminum straws, have brought Columbia to its knees.
The university administration has coddled these spoiled imbeciles the same way they’ve been placated from pre-school to prep school to Ivy League.
University president Minouche Shafik will eventually take the fall for the fiasco that has taken place at her university, but Columbia’s descent has been decades in the making.
Columbia and the other feeble US universities should be glorifying, cultivating and uplifting young men and women like Natan, Ashley, Corey. Instead, they are pandering to punks.
Here’s one last pair of people to compare. New York’s two US senators and what they’ve said about Columbia. Take a look.
Chuck Schumer:
“College campuses must be places of learning and discussion. Every American has a right to protest, but when protests shift to antisemitism, verbal abuse, intimidation, or glorification of Oct. 7 violence against Jewish people, that crosses the line. Campuses must remain safe for all students.”
Kirsten Gillibrand:
“I am appalled at the virulent antisemitism being displayed on Columbia University’s campus. Threats of violence against Jewish students and the Jewish community are horrible, despicable and wholly unacceptable. Using the rhetoric of terrorists has no place in New York, where we pride ourselves on tolerance and the right of every group to practice their religion in peace.”
So, tell me again, who’s the shomer?