The Jewish Student on the Campus

As a representative of the Jewish faith, Rabbi Morris S. Lazaron of Baltimore last year traveled from coast to coast on a good will tour with a Catholic and a Protestant representative. He was named as a joint winner with the latter two of the Gottheil Medal, awarded annually to the American who did most for Jewry during the preceding year.

At the request of Herbert E. Steiner, National President of the Zeta Beta Tau Fraternity. I am glad to lay before the Jewish students of the country some observations and impressions of the American campus. Nothing I say will be extraordinary or new. I hope only to stimulate some earnest thinking on the knotty problem of Jewish-Christian relations at our colleges and universities.

Mr. Steiner was present at a meeting in New York at the Hotel Pennsylvania in January, at which Father Ross, Rev. Mr. Clinchy, and I made a report on a coast-to-coast tour from which we had just returned. The tour was sponsored by the National Conference of Jews and Christians and was intended to promote a better understanding between the groups.

It might be of interest to college men to know that among the universities that we visited were the following: Ohio State, Ohio-Wesleyan, Antioch, Butler, Wisconsin, Drake, Kansas, Colorado, California, Texas, and Southern Methodist.

One of the most gratifying experiences was the very evident interest of university men in this subject. At Ohio State, for instance, an afternoon seminar arranged under the leadership of the head of the Department of Sociology, at which attendance was voluntary and which was scheduled to last an hour and a half, drew approximately four hundred students and extended so late into the afternoon that the janitor had to close the doors. We were told that if we could spend a week on the campus, classes would be opened for us and discussion opportunities arranged.

The technique employed in all of these meetings was that of frank discussion. Bringing latent prejudices into the open has therapeutic value. When once talk started, there was no difficulty in keeping it going. At first there were usually some abashment and hesitation, a real uncertainty as to whether anything might be accomplished. It was discovered, however, that it is a salutary proceeding to give public expression to prejudices and that very often misunderstandings melt away when brought to light. Indeed, the very necessity of putting one’s prejudices into words induces a certain self-criticism, a certain carefulness in phrasing ideas. The students who pleaded guilty of entertaining prejudices were not infrequently convinced by the very necessity to express them openly that their prejudices were not so deep as they had imagined. This was evident time and time again.

STUDENTS ARE LIBERALS

A word as to the nature of the prejudices. We found very little religious prejudice as such. The liberal movement among college men and women has gone so far that religious convictions are accepted as intimate and personal. Both Jews and Christians have moved so far to the left theologically that it is quite rare to find anyone particularly interested in whether a man worships in Hebrew, Latin, or English, or whether he says the Kedusha in the language of Isaiah, in the language of the Missa Solemnis, or in English. But we did find everywhere certain fixed attitudes, absorbed in the Sunday School, in the home, or by the social group with which one might be identified. For instance, we found everywhere a definite suspicion as to Catholic political ambition, a resentment against the dogmatism of the Catholic position with its implication of political power. So far as we ews are concerned, we found the belief, more or less general, that Jews dominate the United States financially, that the Jew is interested only in money. We found also in many places the belief that all Jews are radicals. And often these mutually contradictory opinions were held by the same person! These prejudices and misapprehensions, of course, go very deep. It is necessary, so far as possible, to mitigate them by setting forth the facts. And this we tried to do everywhere.

However, it would be more interesting to our Jewish college men and women to know some of the widespread indictments against them which rise out of the daily relationships on the campus. Perhaps if some of these alleged faults of the Jewish student could be somewhat mitigated, other suspicions might likewise be resolved.

Let me say first of all, I do not take the position that we Jews are always and invariably in the right. I do not feel that we must plead guilty to all of the counts in the Gentile indictment. But it does us no good to assert that the Gentiles are all wrong and that if any move is to be made it must be made by the Christian student. I believe that the Christian student has a longer way to go in rooting out prejudices than the Jewish student, but at the same time I believe there are some things that our Jewish college students can do and must do in order to put themselves in a more defensible position. In other words, while we resent Christian prejudices against us we must sweep before our own doors and begin the job at home.

FRATERNITY LIFE

I do not want to deal in generalities, though it would be simpler and easier. I would rather come to grips with the situation and perhaps suggest some practical steps that might be taken by our Jewish college students which might be helpful in promoting better relationships between them and their Christian fellow-students.

One aspect of the problem we met everywhere. It concerns the attitude of Jewish fraternity men. It will not be easy to speak of this without hurting some feelings; and, let, I shall try to discuss the theme as objectively as possible. We found that the Jewish fraternity man tends to become a type. He runs with a certain crowd. He identifies himself with that crowd. He usually divides Jews into the “we” group and the “they” group. “We” are all those who belong to fraternities. “They” are those Jews who do not belong to fraternities, and there is a wall between the two groups. Let us be frank. The average Jewish fraternity group is frequently inclined to softpedal its Jewishness. If there are any Jewish students who belong to the liberal group in the university or the radical group, the average Jewish fraternity student is apt to be apologetic for these Jewish students. I have heard again and again: “O. they are a different kind of Jews than we.” or “They are the cause of all the trouble.” There is an effort to imitate the Christian fraternity.

Now I am not arguing as to the worthwhileness of the Jewish fraternities. That is another problem. But I would like to point out here certain things in reference to this frequent attitude of Jewish fraternity students. I wonder if these Jewish students realize that they are starving their Jewish feelings to their own hurt. Such Jewish fraternity students drift from their Jewish moorings while they are never completely accepted by the Gentiles. They are pathetic figures for they have forsworn the inner strength which comes from accepting one’s heritage, while they are never completely accepted by the Christian students. They move in a sort of border-land inferno like lost souls. This applies just as much to the student who has thrown overboard all Jewish affiliation, who is aggressively vocal in his leadership of radical movements, and holds his Jewish heritage as somthing outmoded.

It is vain, I have observed, to believe that you will gain the respect of the non-Jewish students by drawing lines between Jews. The prejudiced mind makes no distinction between Jew and Jew. But there is a real danger for the Jewish student. It is an emotional one. Cutting one’s self loose from one’s fellow-Jews does something to your very soul. By some subtle working of the emotional life, feelings of difference move over into feelings of superiority. They, in turn, are likely to develop into sentiments of regret and, finally, of shame, and you have the beginning of a disintegration of the whole personality and a substantial emotional basis for a devastating inferiority complex. The Jewish student begins by feeling himself different from his fellow Jewish students. The harder he tries to distinguish himself from his brother Jews, the more he seeks to make headway in Christian fellowships, the more superior he feels to his fellow Jews. Then the law of psychic compensation comes in and he becomes ashamed. He has poisoned his being at its very source.

THE “JEW-NION”

It might be interesting to tell the story of the situation on the campus of one of the large midwestern universities. Although the details in this particular university are perhaps different, nevertheless the general situation might be duplicated almost anywhere. In–University, there is a students’ Union. Last fall, among the floats in a parade was a replica of the Union but it was spelt “Jew-nion.” This were merely an unpleasant expression of an undercurrent of feeling which had been growing over a number of years. The implication was that the Union was a Jewish hangout. The student officers of the Union, both Jewish and Christian, were unhappy about this campus situation but seemed perplexed as to how to meet it. Indeed, both Jews and Christians were beginning to accept the accusations that the Union was a Jewish hangout and to blame the Jewish students!

Desiring to get at the bottom of the matter, I suggested that we hold a small meeting to discuss the problem. At the meeting were the Christian student-president of the Union, as well as a number of Jewish and Christian students on the executive body of the Union, the two Christian executives of the Union, several members of the faculty (Christian), and the head of the Hillel Foundation. This “bull session” lasted long after midnight. A number of interesting points were brought out. In the first place, the head of the Hillel Founddation had never met the head of the Union, nor had he ever met the student-president of the Union. Again, a check on attendance did not seem to indicate that the building was used more by Jewish students than by Christian students. Furthermore, frank talk revealed that the prejudice was not based upon “left” opinions held by Jewish students but rather on their assumption of peculiarities in dress and conduct.

It was quite obvious at the end of this lengthy discussion that a latent Jewish prejudice was really at the bottom of the whole matter; but another factor of great importance of which the Christians were unconscious until the discussion revealed it, was the feeling of disappointment on the part of executives of the Union that large groups of fraternity and sorority members did not use the building. It was brought out that this was true also of Jewish fraternities; they ignored the Union just as the Christian fraternities; and the executives of the Union, in their desire to make the Union program appeal to the entire student body, admitted a certain unhappiness at their failure to enlist the interest of these groups. The root of the matter was the disinclination of the fraternity groups to mingle with the non-fraternity group; but the situation had taken an anti-Jewish form. All groups in the matter admitted this to be the fact. It was conceded that most of the trouble was loose talk, founded upon a latent anti-Semitism. It was determined by all concerned quietly to attempt to dissipate the accepted and groundless gossip that the Union is a Jewish hangout, not only because it was unjust toward the Jewish student but because it lessened the effectiveness of the Union’s work on the campus.

This is an indication of how campus problems grow up, where they have their root. It also suggests how frank discussion on the part of open-minded Jews and Christians can very often reveal the true facts in the situation and suggest a way out.