In this monologue Dennis Prager revisits a 2005 Los Angeles Times column titled “When Young Jews Major in Anti‑Semitism,” highlighting how early he identified the rise of antisemitism on university campuses. He notes that the Jewish Community Center (JCC) invited him to lecture in Virginia Beach in 2005 on the topic, underscoring the significance of a mainstream, secular‑Jewish organization addressing campus hatred. Prager explains the deep cultural reverence Jews have for higher education—viewing universities as temples of learning, pathways to professional success, and secular institutions comparable to religious devotion. He argues that this reverence makes the emergence of anti‑Israel sentiment on campuses especially dangerous, describing universities as the primary breeding ground for hatred of Israel and equating anti‑Zionism with antisemitism. He also references his earlier, unpopular stance on COVID‑19 lockdowns to illustrate a pattern of being ahead of mainstream opinion. The overall narrative positions Prager as a prescient commentator warning that the academic environment has become a central source of anti‑Jewish sentiment.
Chapters
Here is the title of the article from October 9th, 2005. We're talking over 18 years ago. When Young Jews Major in Anti-Semitism. That is the title of the book, of the column. Which is two very important points here. How old— 3, how old this issue is, the antisemitism of the campuses. 2, how the Los Angeles Times has radically changed. And 3, how long ago I was right. And you'll say I'm blowing my horn or tooting my own horn. I don't care. That's fine. I have been saying things that are true and Never alone there. I've never claimed to be the only one saying these, but one of the only ones. When I said that the lockdowns were a catastrophe in April 2020, I was almost universally condemned. I'd like to make a list. Listen to this, again, 18 years ago. American Jewry is experiencing a cognitive dissonance the likes of which it has never known. To illustrate, consider my recent lecture in Virginia Beach, Virginia: Anti-Semitism at the Universities: What Can We Do About It?
I lectured in Virginia in 2005.
Anti-Semitism at the Universities. It is very significant that a mainstream—that is, largely secular and liberal—Jewish organization, the Jewish Community Center, would fly a speaker from across the country to speak on antisemitism at universities. To understand how significant, one must appreciate how much Jews revere the university. First, education has a religion-like status in both religious and secular Jewish life, and the university is romantically thought of as the temple of education. Second, the university is regarded as the key vehicle to professional success. Third, the university is the most secular of all major institutions, and many Jews believe in secularism as much as Orthodox Jews believe in Judaism.
Fourth, for many Jews, happiness is largely dependent on deriving pride and joy from their children, and nothing gives them more than being able to tell people that their child attends a prestigious university. Yet universities have become society's primary breeding ground for hatred of Israel. This is really important that I wrote it this long ago.
It would be important if anybody did.
Now I'm not the issue.
Universities have become society's primary breeding ground for hatred of Israel.
2005. This hatred is often so intense that the college campus has become a haven for people who use anti-Zionism to mask their anti-Semitism. That's my article, by the way. My column, my Tuesday column up today is, yes, anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. Talk about that in the third hour of the show. Moreover, anti-Zionism itself is a form of anti-Semitism, even if some Jews share it. Why? Because anti-Zionism is not simply criticism of Israel, which is as legitimate as criticism of any country. Anti-Zionism means that Israel as a Jewish state has no right to exist. And when a person argues that only one country in the world is unworthy of existence, And that happens to be the one Jewish country in the world one is engaged in antisemitism, whether personally antisemitic or not. And I then, I now, I remember this now, this anecdote I wrote about in the LA Times in 2005. Not long ago on my radio show, I invited a UCLA student who who, on the occasion of Israel's birthday, had written a hate-filled article about the Jewish state in the Bruin, the UCLA school newspaper. I asked her if she had always been anti-Israel. She said that as a Jewish girl growing up in Britain, she was actually a Zionist who had visited Israel a number of times on Jewish student trips there. "What changed you?" I asked. 'The university,' she responded. Wow. This I didn't remember either. Listen to this. That sort of transformation may be what inspired Harvard University's president Lawrence Summers to deliver a speech in which he identified the university as replacing the far right as a center of antisemitism. Wow, isn't that something? He was the only non-leftist president of Harvard almost in at least the last, I don't know, 25 more years or more years. Where anti-Semitism and views that are profoundly anti-Israeli have traditionally been the primary preserve of poorly educated right-wing populists Summers warned, profoundly anti-Israel views are increasingly finding support in progressive intellectual communities. Serious and thoughtful people are advocating and taking actions that are anti-Semitic in their effect, if not their intent. Okay, just thought I would share that with you. I have no idea how I discovered it. I wonder if that was the last time the Los Angeles Times printed me.
