Reporting from the city of Mariupol in southeastern Ukraine, not far from advancing Russian forces, Dovid Margolin describes the state of the local Jewish community, which lives with the constant sound of artillery fire in the background:

Just as the city continues to function, so, too, have Jewish communal activities continued, even strengthened. Mariupol’s Jewish preschool and day school haven’t skipped a day. . . . In the last few weeks, Mariupol has seen two circumcisions: one of a newborn boy [performed by the local rabbi]; and the other of a fifty-five-year-old man who over the last decade has become an active synagogue member after a life without participation in the Jewish community. The latter bris was performed by Rabbi Yaacov Gaissinovitch, formerly of separatist-occupied Donetsk, who today lives in Kiev and serves as the country’s leading mohel. . . .

Having been made cynical by the ongoing war of attrition, [Mariupol’s Jews] do not believe the background noise of heavy artillery will go away soon, much as they hope [it will]. . . . While the boom of rockets can be heard throughout the day, the main show . . . begins like clockwork at 4:45 pm.

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.