Born in Slovakia, educated at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS), and ordained by leading Orthodox rabbis, Joseph H. Hertz served posts in Manhattan, upstate New York, and Johannesburg before becoming chief rabbi of the British Empire. A fierce critic both of both Reform Judaism and of an Orthodoxy closed off to the modern world, he was also an ardent and outspoken Zionist. Today, Hertz is known mainly for his edition of the Pentateuch, to which he also contributed a commentary. Benjamin Elton writes:

[Hertz’s] Pentateuch and Haftorahs was part of his wider project of promoting an intelligent, traditional Judaism. As well as being interesting and informative, it was profoundly polemical. Its primary target was biblical criticism. . . . Hertz held that “Judaism stands or falls with its belief in the historical actuality of the Revelation at Sinai,” and set about to demolish the claim that the Pentateuch was a composite, human work. . . . His Pentateuch also took aim at the idea that Greek and Roman civilization are to be admired, and that Christianity had made an important moral contribution to the world. . . . Anything positive in Christianity came, according to Hertz, from its Jewish roots.

[But] the Pentateuch is also important for its moderate stand on many issues. Hertz was unconcerned by the theory of evolution. . . . He happily quoted from non-Jewish as well as Jewish authors, declaring that “‘accept the truth from whatever source it comes’ is a sound rabbinic maxim.” This attitude is the counterpoint to Hertz’s anti-Christianity, because it reveals his respect for the spiritual and religious lives of non-Jews.

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.