For What it’s Worth: Warren Hecht

It was not too long ago that CUNY Law School was the outlier when it came to anti-Israel and antisemitic rhetoric by its students. Unfortunately, it is becoming mainstream.

One would have expected that if the price of gas and a barrel of oil had increased more than 40% and the Strait of Hormuz were closed to shipping, the stock market would dive. Yet the market is at an all-time high. This is due to Trump masterfully playing the market. Trump has repeatedly made claims that the war will be over and that Iran has agreed to various proposals, none of which have yet come to fruition. Yet every time Trump does it, the market goes up. Last Friday was a perfect example. He declared that Iran had agreed to U.S. demands to get rid of nuclear material and not to build a nuclear bomb, as well as to have peace talks. Also, Iran agreed to open the Strait of Hormuz without any conditions and to do so while the U.S. would keep the blockade. None of that has happened.

This past Sunday was the Five Boro Bike Tour. I was nervous about whether I would be able to ride after I finished my volunteer work for the event, due to my lack of riding this spring and gaining weight this past year. It was a little cold and windy, especially on the Queensboro and the Verrazzano Bridges.

Breaking a routine makes it incredibly difficult to find your way back. I am currently feeling that friction with my writing; due to the Pesach break, I haven’t penned a column in two weeks. Now, the task is to find my rhythm again.

Antisemitism is a plague that has affected the Jewish people for thousands of years: Only the methods, justifications, and locations have changed across different eras and locales. Today’s version is antisemitism under the guise of anti-Zionism, and it is no longer on the fringes but has made it into the mainstream. In America, as bad as the situation is, it is only going to get worse: Opinion polls show that across all political parties and Independents, the younger a person is, the more anti-Israel they tend to be. Although not everyone who is unsupportive of Israel is antisemitic, a significant portion are. When these younger individuals grow older and attain powerful positions, they will have the opportunity to enforce their antisemitic views.

In the Haggadah, we read about Yaakov going down to Egypt and the subsequent mistreatment of the B’nei Yisrael by the Egyptians. The Haggadah then mentions Pharaoh’s statement, which is the first public antisemitic comment by the leader of another nation: “Come, let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply and it come to pass that when a war occurs, they might join our enemies.”