Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, speaking at an event sponsored by the South Florida Jewish Federation, addressed the “problem” of intermarriage and assimilation. Her remarks were met with criticism by segments of the Jewish press offended that a prominent Jewish politician objected to intermarriage, and she later retreated from her comments. The episode, writes Jonathan Tobin, is symptomatic of a growing trend within Jewish institutions:

[Conservative and Reform] leaders as well as the heads of major Jewish organizations have decided that it is no longer possible to advocate in-marriage or steps that are aimed at encouraging Jews to marry other Jews. . . .

The reason for this shortsighted decision is obvious. Intermarriage is so prevalent that the intermarried and their loved ones are now so ubiquitous throughout Jewish life that they form a powerful interest group. Since many if not most of them have now come to regard advocacy of endogamy as an insult, it has become next to impossible for communal organizations, especially those umbrella groups like federations that revolve around fundraising, to broach the issue. Instead, they prefer to speak of [intermarriage] as an opportunity rather than a dilemma, a foolish position that ignores the stark statistical evidence . . . that shows the children of intermarriage are far less likely to get a Jewish education or raise a Jewish family than those who marry other Jews.

Commenting on the wave of anti-Hamas demonstrations in the Gaza Strip, Seth Mandel writes:

Gazans have not have been fully honest in public. There’s a reason for that. To take just one example, Amin Abed was nearly beaten to death with hammers for criticizing Hamas. Abed was saved by bystanders, so presumably the intention was to finish him off. During the cease-fire, Hamas members bragged about executing “collaborators” and filmed themselves shooting civilians.

Which is what makes yesterday’s protests all the more significant. To protest Hamas in public is to take one’s life in one’s hands. That is especially true because the protests were bound to be filmed, in order to get the message out to the world. The reason the world needs to hear that message is that Westerners have been Hamas’s willing propaganda tools. The protests on campus are not “pro-Palestinian,” they are pro-Hamas—and the people of Gaza are Hamas’s victims.