From 1751 to 1764, European Jewry was riven by a very public dispute between two of the most revered talmudic scholars of the day: Jacob Emden and Jonathan Eybeschütz. It began when the former accused the latter of being a secret follower of the 17th-century messianic pretender Shabbetai Tsvi—and therefore, a heretic. Shnayer Leiman comments on this and also on the oft-forgotten role of another esteemed rabbi, Jacob Joshua Falk:

Emden’s animosity toward Eybeschütz . . . could easily be explained away on grounds that are not necessarily bound up with an accusation of heresy. . . . In his autobiography, and certainly in his polemical works, Emden often emerges as a misanthropic, tempestuous, cantankerous, chronically ill, and incessantly whining social misfit and rabbinic genius who did not suffer either fools or [other] rabbinic scholars gladly.

Emden, whose father and grandfather had served as chief rabbis of [the triple community of] Altona, Hamburg, and Wandsbek surely felt that he should have been appointed to succeed them. That he had to live in Altona for some fifteen years [while Eybeschütz held this position] was simply more than he could bear.

It is far more difficult to explain away Jacob Joshua Falk’s animosity toward Eybeschütz on grounds other than the accusation of heresy. . . . [D]uring the key early years of the controversy, from 1751 until 1756, the campaign against Eybeschütz was directed primarily by Falk, then serving as chief rabbi of Frankfurt-am-Main; virtually everyone agreed that no other rabbi in the mid-18th century was in a better position to resolve the controversy.

Yet there are reports that Falk was blind. If so, he would not have been able to examine the amulets bearing kabbalistic incantations composed by Eybeschütz, which were the original basis for the accusations. Leiman, in a thorough investigation of the evidence, shows that it is unlikely Falk was blind when the controversy began—and notes, tellingly, that the earliest source stating that he was can be found in a letter written by Eybeschütz’s son.

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.