The Wrong Approach

Last week the Jewish Insider carried an article about a bipartisan group of Congressional lawmakers calling for additional funding to combat antisemitism.  Here are the key components:

The letter specifically calls for funding in excess of the administration’s $360 million request for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program, which funds security improvements at religious institutions, and in excess of its $178 million request for the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, which helps enforce protections for Jewish students on campus.

The lawmakers also offered support for funding for K-12 Holocaust and antisemitism education programs, Department of Justice hate crimes grants and the offices of the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism and the Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues at the Department of State.

Comments on the specifics and then on the problem with the overall approach:

I support security improvements at religious institutions, but how, and to whom, will those funds be controlled and distributed?

The Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights is a disgrace and should be defunded.  It is fully captured by DEI and will give the minimum lip service to antisemitism needed to keep Congress off its back.

Before more funding for K-12 Holocaust and antisemitism education programs, shouldn't we first do a review of what's apparently gone wrong with decades of Holocaust education in our schools?   Throwing more money to support something that has failed is not a solution.

The real issue is that this particular coalition will never recognize the underlying problem - DEI in all its guises.  Antisemitism is integral to the ideology of DEI, but because DEI is also an assault on whiteness it is untouchable for many politicians.  Until that is recognized any monies thrown towards the educational establishment and the federal bureaucrats supporting it will be wasted or, even worse, used to support DEI (never underestimate the wiliness of bureaucrats).(1)  This proposal is the type of thinking that Otter in Animal House called "a really futile and stupid gesture".

For more on this topic read Equality Or Equity: Which Side Are You On?

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(1) I continue to be surprised at the lack of curiosity by the elite institutions and large municipalities where we've seen the worst eruptions of support for Hamas about what might have prompted this or, as old-fashioned liberal Michael Schermer recently wrote,  "Why are the BLM supporters, climate extremists, academic feminists, and trans activists so quick to side with Hamas? Why are those who champion women’s reproductive rights so quick to align themselves with a Hamas-controlled Gaza where women lack the right to drive, let alone get an abortion?"