In 1984, Israel’s then-President Chaim Herzog refused to meet with the newly seated parliamentarian Rabbi Meir Kahane, the leader of the now-outlawed Kakh party, despite meeting with the heads of every other party in the Knesset. The refusal no doubt owed to Kahane’s anti-Arab bigotry and sympathy for vigilante violence. Discovered in Herzog’s archives was what appeared to be a letter from the revered American rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik upbraiding him for his frostiness toward Kahane and stating that the latter was “despite his many, many errors, a God-fearing Jew who fights for the honor of Heaven and of the Jewish people.”

Mosheh Lichtenstein cites extensive textual evidence to argue that the letter is a forgery. Not only does it use numerous uncharacteristic turns of phrase, but the signature does not match Soloveitchik’s—either in the handwriting script or in the spelling of his own name. Lichtenstein adds:

I am not judging the letter based upon any presumed attitude of Rabbi Soloveitchik regarding Rabbi Kahane. However, the content of the letter is extremely problematic for . . . other reasons. [The] letter concludes with a clear admonition and rebuke to President Herzog in no uncertain terms regarding his own [lack of religious] observance. Not only does the writer allow himself to criticize Herzog’s standards of public observance, an obviously sensitive topic for someone raised as an observant Jew, he also doesn’t shy away from introducing the extremely sensitive and intensely personal issue of Herzog’s relationships with his parents and [his own] children.

The Soloveitchik that I knew . . . would never enter into such personal matters and grant unsolicited advice or pass judgment upon his correspondent’s personal life and relationships. For that matter, I cannot imagine that any rational individual who is requesting a favor from a person of stature would conclude his message by rebuking the person and making it clear that he is a disappointment to his parents. . . . Soloveitchik would not, and could not, have written such a text.

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.