Having recently taught an intensive two-day seminar on the idea of freedom in modern Western thought to a group of male Israeli Ḥaredim—most of whom had had little or no secular education—Peter Berkowitz reflects on the experience:

The students were particularly intrigued by the limits on the exercise of individual rights that John Locke grounded in God’s sovereignty, the priority that the U.S. Constitution gives to the protection of religious freedom, and Alexis de Tocqueville’s insistence that religion makes a surpassing contribution to political stability in America by remaining separate from politics.

Passions flared when we turned to John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty. Students readily appreciated the importance of a public sphere—newspapers, broadcast media, and parliament—in which the condition of their freedom of speech was the freedom of speech of all others. After all, the ultra-Orthodox, too, have interests to advance through the political process. At the same time, they immediately grasped the danger to their way of life posed by the vigorous promotion within the private sphere, embracing their families and communities, of Mill’s core conviction—indeed the conviction at the core of all moral and political education worthy of the name—that “he who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that.” Exposing their sons and daughters to Mill’s case for the sovereign individual, they justly feared, might weaken their children’s attachment to the stringent ultra-Orthodox interpretation of God’s commandments. . . .

Ultimately, both the ultra-Orthodox and broader Israeli society stand to profit from rapprochement. The ultra-Orthodox can acquaint themselves with the pleasures and the pride that stem from developing skills valued by the workplace, providing for one’s family, and contributing to the national defense. And Israel’s secular majority, who—like America’s—tenaciously seek fame and fortune, rigorously choreograph leisure, and restlessly chase after quiet time, can enliven their imagination and deepen their understanding of human diversity by acquainting themselves with those devoted to fulfilling God’s law.

While it is commendable that administrators of several universities finally called upon police to crack down on violent and disruptive anti-Israel protests, the actions they have taken may be insufficient. At Columbia, demonstrators reestablished their encampment on the main quad after it had been cleared by the police, and the university seems reluctant to use force again. The school also decided to hold classes remotely until the end of the semester. Such moves, whatever their merits, do nothing to fix the factors that allowed campuses to become hotbeds of pro-Hamas activism in the first place. The editors of National Review examine how things go to this point:

Since the 10/7 massacre, Columbia’s Jewish students have been forced to endure routine calls for their execution. It shouldn’t have taken the slaughter, rape, and brutalization of Israeli Jews to expose chants like “Globalize the intifada” and “Death to the Zionist state” as calls for violence, but the university refused to intervene on behalf of its besieged students. When an Israeli student was beaten with a stick outside Columbia’s library, it occasioned little soul-searching from faculty. Indeed, it served only as the impetus to establish an “Anti-Semitism Task Force,” which subsequently expressed “serious concerns” about the university’s commitment to enforcing its codes of conduct against anti-Semitic violators.

But little was done. Indeed, as late as last month the school served as host to speakers who praised the 10/7 attacks and even “hijacking airplanes” as “important tactics that the Palestinian resistance have engaged in.”

The school’s lackadaisical approach created a permission structure to menace and harass Jewish students, and that’s what happened. . . . Now is the time finally to do something about this kind of harassment and associated acts of trespass and disorder. Yale did the right thing when police cleared out an encampment [on Monday]. But Columbia remains a daily reminder of what happens when freaks and haters are allowed to impose their will on campus.