I am taking a four part Zoom course titled “Ideological Antisemitism and Progressive Politics” taught by David Bernstein of the Jewish Institute for Liberal Values. The course is sponsored by the Institute for the Study of Governmental Antisemitism Policies. I had heard of neither of these two groups until last week.

The first segment was yesterday afternoon. Its title was Radical Roots: How an Extreme Ideology Took Roots in Institutions. I thought it extremely worth while – it built on what I have been thinking about and concluding, and added – of course- much I did not know.

I took notes. Let’s see if I can make sense of them.

We started with a video of a young blond, blue-eyed woman, hair covered, a student (apparently) at the School of Social Work at Columbia University, talking about a pro-Palestinian “die-in” her school’s main building. In this brief video, among other things, she spoke of the need to “decolonize” social work. This then took us to the website of the School itself, which explained the Columbia approach to social work: intellectual decolonization, understanding social work as working towards the elimination of societal systems of oppression as viewed by the oppressed, as implementing Radical Social Justice. This is a paraphrase – even more than a paraphrase. And you thought social work was making sure low income people were able to secure their governmental benefits.

Bernstein stated (probably should be obvious) that you can look at any area of study this way, not only social work. Any could center on the relationship of the oppressed to the oppressors.

He then discussed the concept of “post-modernism”, which he described first as “going beyond what we now have”. He said it is an ideology that denies that there are “truths” and “knowledge”, which it describes as only the creation of the powerful, privileged classes.

In other words, post-modernism tells us that we (not being post-modernists) look at things not objectively, but through the view points of the elite. The white. The privileged.

And that our looking at things from the biased way, makes it very hard for us to talk with post-modernists, because not only our perspectives but even our choice of words and language betray our lack of understanding. Therefore, we can say things that we might feel as neutral (or even as something to discuss or debate), but which in fact are not neutral, but betray our “white” mentality. And, we Jews, we are considered by post-modernists to be white and privileged, so we obviously lack understanding of the world.

He traces this ideology back to the 1950s and 1960s, and the writings of three men: Foucault, Marcuse and Derrida. Two Frenchmen and a German? Perhaps, but three Jews, of course.

But these three talked about post-modernism as an intellectual activity, a philosophical activity, an alternative way to see the world. They had their followers, however, who took it a step further – and decided to combine their philosophies with activism. And they took a still additional step and said that those who are the “oppressed classes” were the only ones who had a true understanding of their position in society and of the workings of society. The privileged classes were blinded by their privileges. In other words, only Blacks understand the position of Blacks; only the disabled understand the disabled. (But you don’t have to say that only Jews understand Jews, because Jews are white and are privileged, so this generalization does not apply to them).

Professor Edward Said, who also taught at Columbia, carried this forward with his students, claiming – all this is according to Bernstein – that to understand the world, you had to learn to decolonize your mind.

And of course all this related to the colonization of other races, and other locations, by the privileged whites, and that can make the United States, and certainly Israel, as States which continue to exist as exemplars of this phenomenon. Another example is Australia, of course.

What if you disagree with this entire theory of looking at the world? Tell this to a post-modernist, and he will give you his answer. That means you are a racist. And he (I am not making this post gender neutral, I know – and that does not make me a member of the patriarchy) will tell you that you are not “woke” (i.e., you have not awakened to this important concept) and have no understanding of the study of Critical Social Justice.

He then turned to San Francisco State College (now University), which became in the late 1960s, the center of these studies, with the creation of an ethics department dominated by post-modernists. The chancellor at the time was S.I. Hayakawa, who later became a one term U.S. Senator. He was against the creation of this department, but gave in to continual pressure, by activists such as Stokely Carmichael.

Bernstein says that the ethics department was not a normal academic department – it was not built on a basis of intellectual neutrality to be a place of research and debate. It was a department built on the basis of a particular ideology, with answers given and with research limited to studies which would support the predetermined ideological conclusions of the department’s ideology. Neutral research and debate were rejected, he says, as simply a cover for white privilege and supremacy.

Since then, Bernstein continues, post-modern department after department in certain study areas have proliferated. And in some places, post-modern curricula have been developed, and are being implemented, in K-12 schools.

Bernstein finds all of this very dangerous, of course. He finds it uncomfortable that Jews are considered white and privileged, with no credence paid to their history of being the victim.

In the next session, we are going to begin to hone in on the relationship to this antisemitism. Bernstein ended by suggesting that, if you are looking for societies where Jews do well, you have to look at liberal, open societies, where debate is encouraged. And that this is just the opposite of post-modern (and I guess woke?) societies, where debate is looked upon as a tool of the enemy.