Columbia University’s Hebrew-Language Commencement Speech about Jewish History

The intense anti-Israel agitation at Columbia University, and the increasing hostility faced by its Jewish students, has garnered much national attention, reminding some of the early-20th-century era of quotas aimed at keeping Jews out. But there were better times in the more distant past. Michael Hoberman describes the commencement address delivered by a Jewish Columbia student named Sampson Simson in 1800—in Hebrew—about the history of the Jews of New York City:

Simson had not written the speech himself, and the Hebrew words probably did not roll off his tongue. Gershom Mendes Seixas, his Hebrew teacher since boyhood and the hazan of Shearith Israel, the city’s only synagogue at that time, had prepared his script. The graduate probably understood enough Hebrew to appreciate the gist and comprehend the import of what he was saying.

The ultimate import of Sampson Simson’s oration was that it equated the establishment of a Jewish community in New York with the birth of the American nation. In the biblically allusive words of the oration’s stirring conclusion, “notwithstanding that the Jews came here one by one within the space of 150 years yet through the greatness of divine mercy, [they had] multiplied in the land, so as to be numbered among the citizens of America.” For Seixas and his pupil, New York, like the entire continent of North America, had been a launching point for a new era, both from a Jewish perspective and in the annals of world history.

Read more at Tablet

More about: American Jewish History, Columbia University, Hebrew, New York City

Expand Gaza into Sinai

Feb. 11 2025

Calling the proposal to depopulate Gaza completely (if temporarily) “unworkable,” Peter Berkowitz makes the case for a similar, but more feasible, plan:

The United States along with Saudi Arabia and the UAE should persuade Egypt by means of generous financial inducements to open the sparsely populated ten-to-fifteen miles of Sinai adjacent to Gaza to Palestinians seeking a fresh start and better life. Egypt would not absorb Gazans and make them citizens but rather move Gaza’s border . . . westward into Sinai. Fences would be erected along the new border. The Israel Defense Force would maintain border security on the Gaza-extension side, Egyptian forces on the other. Egypt might lease the land to the Palestinians for 75 years.

The Sinai option does not involve forced transfer of civilian populations, which the international laws of war bar. As the United States, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and other partners build temporary dwellings and then apartment buildings and towns, they would provide bus service to the Gaza-extension. Palestinian families that choose to make the short trip would receive a key to a new residence and, say, $10,000.

The Sinai option is flawed. . . . Then again, all conventional options for rehabilitating and governing Gaza are terrible.

Read more at RealClear Politics

More about: Donald Trump, Egypt, Gaza Strip, Sinai Peninsula