Letter to the Editor: Richard Sherman

A new scientific survey conducted by the University of Arkansas and described in Tablet magazine (3/29/21) reveals that the long-held belief by liberals that education reduces antisemitism is false; in fact, education in America increases antisemitism. (“Are Educated People More Antisemitic?” by Jay P. Greene, distinguished professor of education policy at the University of Arkansas; Albert Cheng, assistant professor of education policy at the University of Arkansas; and Ian Kingsbury, who received his doctorate from the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas and is a fellow at the Empire Center for public policy in New York).

Clearly the antisemitism that has infected American higher education for decades has had its desired effect.

Professor Cary Nelson of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in his widely acclaimed treatise, “Israel Denial: Anti-Zionism, Anti-Semitism, & the Faculty Campaign Against the Jewish State” (2019) makes clear that on many campuses in America for a professor to fail to loudly and publicly condemn the existence of the only Jewish country in the world, Israel, is to strike the death knell to his or her career.

In January 1942 at least half the men sitting around the conference table at Wannsee, Germany planning Auschwitz and the rest of the Final Solution of the Jews had doctoral degrees. Does the Arkansas survey, which makes clear that one becomes more antisemitic as one becomes more educated in America, foreshadow a similar group of “educated” individuals making similar decisions for Jews in America’s future?

Richard Sherman, Margate, Fla.