Can I start with a digression? I just want to let you know that this is my 900th consecutive daily blog post. You wonder how I figured that out? I counted. I started with the first one, which was November 15, 2022 and counted. Now, I will admit that I may have miscounted (there is a reason I did not become a CPA – in fact, there are many), and if you want to check up on me, feel free. But do me a favor, and if you discover I am wrong and this is not my 900th consecutive post, keep it to yourself.

Okay, and a digression to the digression. If you look up “900” on Wikipedia, you get this: “900 (none hundred) is the natural number following 899 and preceding 901.” This may be helpful to some of you who suffer from dyscalculia. (Did you know that is how you spell dyscalculia?)

I do want to mention two important things that are on my mind on this sultry, hot Washington spring day. They relate to the relationship between Fascism and antisemitism.

Fascism always involves defining an in-crowd and an out-crowd. Hitler obviously defined Jews as the ultimate out-crowd, a group seeking to control the ethos of Germany and displace true Aryan, or Germanic, values. He then went on to add the Romani to the list of ethnic undesirables, and added homosexuals and the mentally ill (I guess he mixed them together). But the overriding enemies of Germany were the Jews, and because there turned out to be no other way to deal with them adequately, they had to be exterminated, and about 6 million of them were.

Because of this, Fascism and Judaism became identified with each other. But you do not have to be antisemitic to be a Fascist. Let’s take the most obvious example, Benito Mussolini, who was the first Fascist, becoming leader of Italy a decade before Hitler took over Germany. Mussolini did not show any strong antisemitic tendencies. In fact, there were many Italian Jews who were members of, supporters of, and active in the Italian Fascist party. It wasn’t until Hitler, as a quid pro quo of giving Italy Germany’s support, required Mussolini to adopt racial exclusionary laws in late 1938 that antisemitism played a significant part in Italian Fascist society.

So let’s turn to Donald Trump and let’s assume today, for the sake of argument, that he talks like a Fascist, acts like a Fascist and hobnobs with Fascists. Just for the sake of argument.

Just because Trump may not show any overt signs of blatant antisemitism, and just because among Trump’s inner circle there are a number of Jewish advisors, that does not meant that Trump isn’t a Fascist. You can clearly be a Fascist without being antisemitic.

It’s all a question of who you put in your in-group and who you put in your out-group. Mussolini did not need to put Jews in his out-group. His out-group was not ethnically based; he concentrated on socialists, and intellectuals, and unionists, and Communists. Trump does not need to target Jews, either. He is targeting leftists and liberals and Muslims and most of all black and brown skinned immigrants and asylum seekers. These are Trump’s out-group. The only Jews in his out-group are those who are liberal or leftist, and he does not have to (and does not) attack them because they are Jewish, but because they are leftist or socialist.

In fact, Jews sort of become favored in the Trump world. Living for 70 years in the real estate development world of New York City, Trump has dealt with Jewish competitors and allies his entire life. He has a Jewish son-in-law, of whom he seems to be fond, and (by conversion) a Jewish daughter. He has Jewish grandchildren. Years ago he has said “The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys who wear yarmulkes every day.” He is a strong supporter of Bibi Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, and of Israel in general. (You can wonder why this is. Is it because they are fighting Muslims, Arabs, brown people? Is it because he needs to show that support to his fundamentalist Christian base? Is is something else?) I think it is hard to call Trump antisemitic, although I understand that some would like to, focusing on some dumb things he has said from time to time.

Now, you can list all the things that Trump does that align with typical Fascist policies (the most recent being his plan for a big military parade on June 14), but the one that I want to end today with is his attacks on elite American universities, and in particular on Harvard, where I went for my undergraduate degree so many years ago. His attack on Harvard is premised, or so he says, on Harvard’s failure to protect its Jewish students from antisemitic attacks and general fear.

Trump has given Harvard an extraordinary ultimatum as to how faculty and students should be selected, what subjects should and should not be taught, and so forth. He has withheld billions of dollars of federal funds, and he has threatened their tax exempt status. None of this is likely legal or constitutional, but no matter….

Let’s look a little broader (and I know this is getting long). Harvard had some serious problems, particularly during the 2023-2024 academic year, following the October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and Israel’s response, with conflict between students and faculty members favoring one side or another. And, as a result of this, Jewish students were sometimes kept from classes or were afraid to speak out during classes, Jewish students were sometimes barred from certain university activities and so forth. Fear was clearly in the air. At the same time, Muslim students also had their complaints, generally mirroring those of the Jewish students. We don’t have to look at the merits of those complaints here.

Harvard established two task forces (I wrote about this a few days ago) to look into the grievances of Jewish and Muslim students, and the two task force reports (totalling about 500 pages) were released this week. Harvard’s relatively new president, Alan Garber, has promised certain actions in light of the task forces’ findings and recommendations.

Harvard Hillel had a program on Zoom Thursday night to discuss the findings. You can see the program (about 90 minutes) on YouTube, and if you have any interest in the subject, I suggest that you do. I am not going to outline the specific findings of the reports here, but just will say this: don’t belittle the degree of conflict that existed at Harvard last year, and the difficulties and feelings of isolation that Jewish (and perhaps also Arab) students were facing. The stories are credible and riveting.

And the one thing that I had only thought of slightly and now will think of as much more important than I thought, as I try to understand what has been going on, is how different the Harvard of 2024 is from the Harvard of 1964 when I was there. When I was at Harvard, and the undergraduate student body was about 1/3 Jewish, the word antisemitism was never mentioned. And there was no reason it should have been, because it was not visible in any way that I saw. There certainly was no exclusion of Jewish students (except to some of the eating clubs, perhaps, but who cared?), there was no need for a Hillel as a refuge (Hillel existed, but more as a social club), and there were plenty of course offerings to satisfy those who wanted Jewish studies (religious, linguistic, historic, philosophical) to be part of their college curriculum.

Today, none of this is apparently true. There are 1/3 or so the number of Jewish students, Hillel is definitely a refuge and center of the college life of some (maybe many) of them, and the number of courses offered on Jewish topics is many fewer than was the case 60 years ago, or apparently even 20 or 30 years ago. You add this to a diversified student body with many more non-Jewish students of middle eastern ethnicities, many more courses on Arab and middle eastern studies, and a slant towards the “progressive” approach to recent history (oppressor/oppressed; colonial regime/indigenous regime), and add in the Gaza War and the century of conflict between Jew and Arab in today’s Israel, and you do get the perfect storm.

Harvard, and similarly situated universities, do have a lot to deal with, to be sure. The Fascist move of the Trump administration to take over control of universities and stomp on their freedom to solve their own problems and continue their great traditions (and their ways to benefit broader society) will (1) only make everything much worse, and (2) constitute one element of many which are creating not the danger of a Fascist regime in this country, but the consolidation and strengthening of the Fascist regime we already find ourselves under.