It was no coincidence that many of the top physicists in the world in the 1930s were German (many were Jewish as well). German universities excelled and were desirable places to learn and advance educationally.
Then came the Nazis. Already in the mid-1930s they were chasing Jews out of prominent positions in German society. Einstein was traveling and speaking in the States when the Nazis froze his assets, forcing him to remain abroad as early as 1933. Lise Meitner, and who knows how many other Jewish geniuses, was also forced into exile around the same time.
Eventually the universities, either out of fear of being shut down or because they were Nazi sympathizers (some professors claimed they thought the Nazi movement was a messianic one), were no longer purely educational. They became tools of the Nazi regime to help shape the minds of the future leaders of Third Reich. The world had changed, and so had German institutions of education.
At first it was hard to accept. How could a symbol of higher education and social freedom become a hotbed for the opposite? There was a natural cognitive dissonance that set in because if you brought down the universities, where else could one go to further their knowledge on a high level?
By the time the world realized the truth, it was way down the road and impossible to stop or even slow down. Universities had become extensions of the Nazi empire, and the war made the consequences seem irrelevant. Who knows how long it took to regain some kind of moral compass, if German universities ever really did?
After World War II set society back, and the Allies put a stop to German fascism, the educational focus once again became a little more altruistic. The world’s focus was on recovering and rebuilding, and that made personal opinion second to societal opinion. It was not a time to be selfish or to impose warped views on your fellow man.
That lasted for a couple of decades until WWII and the Holocaust became only historic events for most of the world. The damage had been repaired, and new generations grew up without seeing the signs of a war that killed 72 million in general, and 6,000,000 Jews specifically.
Technology helped a lot with that, especially as families grew in size. Money was being made which helped fund additional technology. The world always has its rogue nations and problems, but at least the West was enjoying life once again as more people made more money.
As people focused more on the future, they lost track of the present and forgot about the past. More children were being born with silver spoons in their mouths. Selflessness became out of style as people focused more on what they personally wanted out of life, not what the world ought to be like.
This resulted in another growth spurt of liberalism, as it always does (as in the 1920s), especially as religion was being phased out of mainstream society. For a period, science seemed to dismiss many of the tenets of religion, and people banked on it. By the time it became clearer than science does not contradict all religions, especially Torah, it was too late to scratch it from the record.
Colleges and universities are magnets for the smartest and more talented people. You have to be ambitious to get in and ambitious to stay in. They’re supposed to be the fertile intellectual soil in which tomorrow’s leaders are supposed to be planted. They are such a symbol of hope for a better future, for those who attend them and even for those who do not.
But even the best and most secure computers can be vulnerable to viruses that can bring them down. Likewise, if the wrong ideas make it onto a college campus, especially if through the faculty that teaches there, then brilliance and talent can become corrupt and very dangerous. It’s one thing for people to do evil and know it. It is far worse when people do evil and think they are doing good.
Clearly this has happened to colleges and universities around North America, and the world for that matter. The fact that some people feel a sense of outrage over campus anti-Semitism and the like just shows how cognitive dissonance is once more our second greatest enemy. The perpetrators of the evil, even if it is “only” intellectual confusion are the first.
Wake up. Defend as much as you want. Fight as much as you can. Complain to whomever will listen. It’s not going to go back to the way it once was when a Jew could walk across a campus and feel completely safe. Those days are gone, as are the days of uncorrupted knowledge. The mandate has been decided and implemented by the people in charge, and no one is in a position to right the wrongs. The sooner we wake up to the fact the sooner we will be able to adjust our lives accordingly.
Besides, it’s a different world today, and colleges and universities are a part of that difference. They just don’t know how or why. Oh, they have their own logic and reasons for what they do, but that was just to get them involved in a bigger plan they don’t even know about.
But we know about it. Well, at least we’re supposed to know about it. Our attending Western universities was always only meant to be a temporary thing, just like our stay in exile itself. It was to help us rebuild after the Holocaust and to build the structure for the final redemption. We were never meant to stay in Europe forever, and we are not meant to stay in America forever either, or any other country in the Diaspora.
That is the message we are getting loud and clear today, and some people, a few, are hearing and acting upon it. But if you lived your life with the belief that life outside of Israel could go on for just slightly less than forever, then you will deflect God’s warnings as long as you can. Unfortunately, as we learn from the past, that is usually longer than God intended.
It’s a different world today. You have to be a different person too.