Recently the Boston chapter of the Workmen’s Circle, a venerable left-wing American Jewish organization primarily dedicated to the preservation of Yiddish culture, signed a petition sponsored by the virulently anti-Israel Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) in support of boycotts of the Jewish state. In response, the Boston Jewish Community Relations Council—a nondenominational umbrella group—has begun the process of expelling the Workmen’s Circle. Jonathan Tobin defends this decision:

Inclusion has become the watchword in Jewish life because . . . traditional institutions like synagogues and umbrella philanthropies like federations have been in rapid decline. As surveys have shown, a population that is increasingly assimilated and intermarried has no use for the old paradigms of Jewish life. . . . [Y]oung Jews are also turned off by groups operating under the assumptions of past generations, as well as by the false perception that support for Israel is incompatible with being a modern progressive. Add to that a popular culture in which all expressions of parochial identity (except those identified with select minority groups)—let alone an ideology like Zionism that is demonized by the far-left—are presumed to be racist.

Under these circumstances, finding ways to include Jews who are on the margins is a must. Drawing lines that will exclude or alienate people is not unreasonably seen as exacerbating a problem that stems from a demographic implosion among the non-Orthodox.

And yet, drawing some lines isn’t so much an option as a necessity. . . . A Jewish community that prizes inclusion above all other values may have a big tent, but one that treats allies of anti-Semites as accepted members is one that will ultimately stand for nothing. And a community that stands for nothing cannot survive. It might turn off those who have no interest in Jewish peoplehood, but it’s high time for all Jewish organizations to make it clear that those who are bent on aiding Israel’s enemies have no place inside our big tents.

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.