Following the Money: Charles Asher Small

I'm Rabbi Ammi Hirsch of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York, and this is In These Times The sun had barely set on October 7th when American universities erupted in protest against Israel. I couldn't wrap my head around how American students could be so vehemently opposed to the Jewish state's response before Israel had even pushed back the terrorists inside its own borders and retaken its towns.

My guest today, Dr. Charles Asher Small, wasn't surprised. The founding director of ISGAP, the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, he's been following the more than $100 billion of dark money flowing into American universities from foreign actors, including the Qatari government, Muslim Brotherhood finance foundations, and terror-linked entities since 2012.

The question isn't whether that foreign influence is real, but rather what has it bought? Dr. Small, welcome, uh, to In These Times. It's good to see you again. I'm honored to be here, Rabbi Hirsch. Thank you for having me. You're doing, uh, such important work. Uh, I'm not sure that everybody who is listening, um, knows about the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy which we in the Jewish community lovingly call ISGAP.

Um, so tell us what that is and why the work is important. Thank you. So ISGAP is a… We call ourselves a high-caliber research center. We have an academic side and a policy side. So the goal is to get some of the best minds to sort of map and decode and then combat antisemitism. So we have a small research center at the University of Cambridge in the UK, where we have postdocs and graduate students focusing on the interdisciplinary study of antisemitism.

We have a summer institute there we've been running since 2014, training scholars on helping them to create curriculum on contemporary antisemitism studies. So we have about 700 graduates from over 35 countries that are teaching f- courses for credit in their home university. So we take all this scholarship, and we wanna make it actionable, so we also work in policy.

We have an amazing team in Washington, D.C. that's brought our work to Congress, to the Senate. We've testified in Congress and the Senate. Uh, we work with the State Department, the Treasury Department. One of our projects is Follow the Money, where we're exposing a lot of the foreign influence from Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood in higher, higher education.

So we've had some policy impact in the United States, and we're doing this in Canada and the UK as well, as well as Israel. Um, we have entities in the United States, where our head office is in New York. We're active in Canada, the UK, Italy, and Israel. And we have about 80 research fellows associated with us around the world, so we're, we're active.

And when was ISGAP established? So we established it in 2003. I was the founding director, and I had the really the privilege and honor uh, to establish this with Professor Elie Wiesel. He was our first honorary president, and ISGAP really emerged out of, um, an, an international conference that Elie Wiesel organized with Kofi Annan at the United Nations.

And at that event, there was a small group of scholars that I think we sort of saw the social and economic and global conditions were becoming ripe for the rise of antisemitism. And from that conference, we started ISGAP So th- the main thrust was the rise of antisemitism. In recent years, is it fair to say that you've focused particularly on, on what's happening on university campuses?

Or is it… Uh, are you still broadly focused on the phenomenon of antisemitism? So we're, we're still-- We're an interdisciplinary research center, so scholars look at antisemitism at a global level from different, I guess, ideological, but also at different academic disciplinary traditions. So we have different voices and different perspectives.

And I think one of the main projects, one our, our most successful project was called Follow the Money, which actually started by mistake in 2012, uh, where we stumbled into some Muslim Brotherhood money going to Yale University, and the project grew. In 2019, we presented at a summit in Washington in front of a, I guess, a top, top 100 civil servants in DC.

We presented our work, um, in front of the head of Homeland Security, the head of FBI, the, um, d- director of the Department of Education, the attorney general. It was a major event, and at that time, we found $3 billion in undocumented money coming from the Muslim Brotherhood to American universities.

Um, the first Trump administration then launched an investigation. They found $18 billion in a few months, and then the investigation was eventually called off. And because of our success, our research has grown, and now we've-- we estimate that we've discovered up to $100 billion in undocumented money coming to American universities.

So we've been focusing in higher education, but our research is expanding to other s-spheres of our society. When you say you stumbled upon, I think you said $100 billion, were you looking for it, or did you- No … just happen to stumble on it? I literally stumbled on it. My background is social theory, and I was at Stanford University one night, and I was late, um, delivering a manuscript.

I'm always a bit behind schedule, and I spent about three weeks pulling all-nighters and not sleeping or eating well, and I finally submitted the manuscript late at night one evening, and I couldn't sleep. I was sort of wired, and I started surfing the internet, and I came across an email from a vice president at Yale University, where I started the first research center dealing with antisemitism at a North American university.

And this vice president was very hostile to what we were doing. He was a roommate of Rashid Khalili when they were both students at Yale, and he was very antagonistic. I came across this email late at night and I googled him for the first time, and it turned out that he worked for a pharmaceutical company in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and I googled that company.

It turned out it was owned by a Saudi businessman. I googled the family's name. It was a-- the family was Ben Mahfouz. So Ben Mahfouz's chemical factory in Sudan was bombed by the Clinton administration. So I started googling, and in about an hour or so, I found what I thought was a network of Muslim Brotherhood and terror finance entities, banks, and foundations that was giving money to Yale and Harvard.

And I didn't know if I was-- this was my imagination or I kind of stumbled into a tip of an iceberg. So I gave my preliminary findings to experts on counterterrorism and radical Islam, and it turned out that I, by mistake, stumbled into this network of, uh, of people donating and influencing our higher education.

And what year was that? 2012. In all the research that you've done, w- can you estimate how much money comes not only-- not from foreign sources, 'cause some of those sources, I imagine, are legitimate and- Sure reasonable sources. But, uh, how much money is coming from enemies of Western civilization and enemies of the United States and, of course, enemies of Jews?

So it's a very important question, and I don't, I don't have the definitive answer to, to be honest. But what I know is in terms of Qatar, Qatar is a tiny country of about 350,000 citizens, and the regime has a baya. The leaders of Qatar follow the-- all of the religious edicts, rulings, and fatwas of the Muslim Brotherhood.

And for your listeners, the Muslim Brotherhood is a, is, um, a very narrow, reactionary interpretation of the great religion of Islam. It takes the protocols of the elders of Zion and even Nazism and fuses it with this perversion of Islam. And the raison d'être of the Muslim Brotherhood, even though it sounds like a fraternal organization, is really the destruction not only of the state of Israel, but of the Jewish people.

Yusuf Qaradawi, the spiritual head of the Muslim Brotherhood, always preached that the true believer is obligated to complete the work of Hitler. So this is what the Qatari regime adheres to, and they're using-- They're, they're one of the wealthiest countries, if not the wealthiest country per capita in the world, and they're using their wealth as soft power to influence the West with this Muslim Brotherhood-inspired agenda.

And our experts estimate that the Qataris are playing with a trillion dollars in assets to invest in the West, in the United States and other Western democratic countries, to influence us. So they're investing in higher education, in cultural institutions, in the media, public relations firms. So this-- And they're investing in often taking financial losses, but they're benefiting in terms of their soft power.

And you think the Qatari government has been involved? There's a big American, uh, military base in Qatar. Presumably, according to the speculation, the Israeli government before October 7th was facilitating transferring Qatari money. They were presumably playing a positive role, both to-- a mixed role, but a positive role also, um, for the Israeli government and the American government.

Do you consider the Qatari government a enemy of the West? I do. I think it's very important to understand the ideological worldview and the strategic goals that come out of this ideology. And I think very often in the West, we ignore ideology, and we're more focused on, I guess, the practical side of economic and political relations.

So the Qataris are playing both sides of the aisle, as they say. And on the one hand, they've invested into the Israeli economy, into European and North American economies. They're close to the Trump administration. They're close to elements in the Democratic Party. And I think it's important for us to understand that, um, I consider them-- You know, the Muslim Brotherhood ideology is definitely, in my view, an enemy of Western democratic values.

They're clear that they want to destroy Israel and murder Jews. They believe in subjugating women, of murdering gay people, and destroying democratic society. They want to replace it with Islamic law. So-- And I think, in my humble opinion, that democracy is worth, uh, defending and protecting, and this is a regime that their ideology is contradictory and it opposes our democratic values.

So say what you want about the politics of the Trump administration or the Netanyahu administration. There's some very smart people in these administrations and some very smart people on campus who are receiving this money gladly, this support. Do they not see what you see, or is the allure of money just completely overwhelming?

So I think in some cases there is not awareness. Um, but as I said, money could be blinding. When I say we found $100 billion, I can give you, you know, just one example. We found $1.3 billion that the Qatari gave to Texas A&M, and Texas A&M had a campus in Qatar, in Doha. It's a place called Education City, where there's several American universities that have campuses there.

And we fought for years to get access to the contract. We finally gained access to the contract, and we saw there were 503 research projects that the Qataris funded at Texas A&M. We flagged 56 projects as having dual use for military purposes, and 13 projects had dual use military research for nuclear, uh, military implications.

We did two reports. After our second report, Texas A&M decided to close down their campus. And what we found in the contract is that Texas A&M gave all the intellectual property rights to the Qatari regime for this research. So this is very, you know, sensitive issues. The fact that there's research that's being shared with the Qatari regime that houses to this day the leadership of Hamas, that has good relations with the Taliban in Afghanistan and other nefarious actors in the region and globally should be alarming.

And I, I believe it's incompatible with our political and our security needs in the West and in the United States. Is it primarily Qatar or only Qatar or, or are they joined by other forces? So I think Qatar is really the financial power in this sort of axis, you know, promoting this Muslim Brotherhood ideology.

Um, Turkey has really become emerged as command and control, and London has become a center of laundering money for this axis. Aside from the obvious, when universities, uh, receive this kind-- these amounts- Yeah … of money that I guess is, uh, increasingly important to them, uh, do they get something else out of it?

It, it-- What, what's in it for the universities? They're the bastion of Western civilization. They are. And, uh, so we found $10 billion, with a B, in undocumented money coming from the Qataris to Cornell University. They built a, a medical school in, in Qatar where about $8 billion of the $10 billion was invested, and about $2 billion went to their campus in, in New York State, in the United States.

And I met with the vice president, one of the vice presidents of Cornell, and he said, "Yes, we took this money, and with this money, we're doing research in medicine and cancer research, and we're bringing democracy to the region, and this is a wonderful thing." But, you know, we also have to realize that soft power goes both ways.

So for example, we have this small research center at Cambridge University, and our budget there is roughly… It's grown now to about $500,000 a year. And our center deals with antisemitism, and we have wonderful relations there. And I think it's clear that if the university insisted that they would hire a professor to be in our center that calls for the destruction of the State of Israel, we wouldn't accept it.

We would walk away. And, you know, this investment of a half a million dollars is good for Cambridge, and it's wonderful for us, and it's a, it's a beneficial relationship, I hope, for both institutions. Could you imagine if I came with $1.3 billion or $10 billion to Cambridge, what influence I'd have there?

It would be staggering. And what we are now seeing, there's a wonderful case that I think, uh, your viewers, your listeners should, uh, pay attention to. Carnegie Mellon has received a lot of money from Qatar. And thanks to the bravery of a young woman, her name is Yael Canaan, she's an American born to Israeli parents here in the United States.

She went to Carnegie Mellon. She claims in her case that she was discriminated against because, you know, because of antisemitism, and she sued Carnegie Mellon. They offered her a, you know, out of court settlement. Her lawyers and her parents insisted that, you know, were telling her to take the settlement and get on with your life.

She refused. She brought the case to discovery. She's now received discovery, and we will see now the unraveling of this Qatari masquerade, if you will, in, in, in higher education. We now know, for example, that the provost at Carnegie Mellon, thanks to Yael Canaan's bravery, was paid directly by the Qataris.

So her-- The salary of the pr- provost was paid in full by the Qatari regime. The influence in the internal workings of Carnegie Mellon and other universities, I think, will increasingly become apparent in the coming months and years Are the universities tr- even trying to hide it? I mean, you, you said you spoke with, uh, somebody from- From Cornell from- Yeah … from Cornell.

Y- And, uh, and they didn't, they didn't deny it. They said, "Yeah, we took the money. We're doing good with it." D- Are the universities a- adopting basically that approach, or are they trying to hide something? They're definitely trying to hide things, and we're calling for transparency, and there's one of the policies that we're trying to change and we're pushing is called the Deterrent Act, which will have more stringent oversight in foreign investment in higher education.

And we're just calling for transparency. It's time for the universities to, to, to be above board, to share the contractual ar- arrangements that they're making with foreign countries and, and to be open. You think they're not open, some of them- No … aren't open because they haven't been challenged on it, or they don't think it's good PR for them?

They haven't been challenged. So according to American law, any donation of $250,000 or over has to be reported to the government. Any contract agreement that, that universities have with foreign entities should be reported to the government and should be, you know, accessible to the public. The law is not being adhered to, and the law hasn't been enforced.

Is it making a difference? Can you document-- Uh, I mean, the whole, the whole reason for exercising soft power and financial influence is eventually to produce better outcomes from the perspective of the funder. Can you attribute some of what happened on university campuses after October 7th to this?

So in one of our reports, we, we show that American universities receiving funding from the Qataris have 300% more instances of antisemitism compared to American universities that are not taking foreign funding. So there is some correlation. And I think if we also take a step back, the fact that anti-American, antisemitic entities have been funding American universities now for about 40 years, it has an impact.

The fact that, you know, young progressive Americans on October the 8th, after, you know, attending some of the finest universities in our country, in Canada, in, in Western Europe, in the Oxbridges, in the Sorbonnes, in the Ivy Leagues, that after October the 8th, where there's a pogrom that has been carried out in the most brutal fashion, and that this has been carried out by an entity that is not only antisemitic or anti-Zionist or anti-Israel, but they believe in subjugating women, of murdering gay people, and destroying democracy, that young progressive kids can come out of the classrooms of these finest institutions and protest in support of this not only barbarism, but this anti-democratic,

sexist, homophobic social movement. And this, to me, points to decades of foreign funding from these entities and its influence, the discourse in the classroom to the encampment, to into our society, into our streets, and into our institutions. Did it surprise you what we saw on campus? I mean, they were already instigating against, uh, Israel before the sun set on October 7th, even before Israel responded.

I understand the casualty count, and one can always, of course, uh, debate strategy, military strategy, and so forth. But much of this, uh, animus was already unleashed before Israel even had a chance to respond. Did that surprise you? So I've been dealing with these issues that, you know, we started ISGAP in 2003, and I was alarmed at the rise of antisemitism in scholarly discourse for, for many years.

And I think we've seen the, the increase of antisemitism. I understood that it was going to increase, and I-- from a scholarly perspective, I was analyzing this, and I understood there was gonna be an increase. But I think what surprised me and what was incorrect in our assessment is that the antisemitism was growing exponentially.

It wasn't a linear increase, but it was an exponential increase. And I think it goes back to the scholarly discourse that has, you know, entered into the academy in the 1980s and '90s and now, you know, in its second generation, in which Israel and Zionism and the Jewish people have been demonized. And in a very intellectual environment, this demonization is normalized, and it becomes, I would say, even morally required.

We're at the point where the anti-Zionism is morally required because if Israel is an apartheid, racist, colonial occupying entity, and this is what Edward Said and the Columbia University from Middle East studies to the social sciences have been inculcating students for decades, you know, the logical extension of this is that i-if it's true, then we are-- from a liberal human rights perspective, we become morally required to dismantle it, and anybody who defends it becomes an enemy of anything that is good and decent So that's with respect to the faculty.

Uh, the administration and the presidents, many of them are Jewish, um, and, you know, they don't have that philosophy. W- why did they allow this to happen? Was it, was it cowardice? Was it some implicit sympathy with, uh, you know, the anti-Israel, uh, perspective? Was it money? Was it… You know, presidents have-- I guess they consider one of their central responsibilities to preserve the reputation and the good name of the university itself, and to continue to raise money for the university.

Were they fearful about damage to that? What was going on there? I think that's, you know, it's maybe like peeling an onion. That's one part of it, the financial, political considerations. But I think also if we go back and, you know, Edward Said famously said in 1983 in New York City at Columbia University that he was the last remaining Jewish intellectual.

And he said that Jewish scholars have become sort of, he said it, "fat scribes in the suburbs," and that he was the last Jewish intellectual, and that he was the inheritor of the Frankfurt School of thought. The Frankfurt School of thought was an important philosophical movement created mainly by Jewish Holocaust survivors, who in the aftermath of the Shoah were trying to grapple with antisemitism, totalitarianism.

They were trying to kind of unpack what had just transpired in Europe. And Said said that he's the last remaining Jewish intellectual, that the Jews were not worthy of this, and that the Palestinians were Jews, and the Israelis were the Nazis. And when he said this in 1983, people thought he had a bad day or he was disconnected from reality.

But this tragically became the, the discourse at the best universities in the Western world, and this is where future professors, journalists, leaders of industry have been inculcated. And I think that the mistake we made was that, you know, our liberalism, our bigness was to say that, you know, Edward Said and all these people have different opinions, and this is what a liberal education ought to be about, that all kinds of opinions and views should be heard and critiqued, and students should be, you know, should hear all of this and, and learn how to discern what's correct or incorrect.

But I think this normalized A, a form of Jew-hatred that is inherently genocidal. It's inherently genocidal. Antisemitism is a hatred that is, uh, unlike other forms of hate, which as, as destructive as they may be, there's something about antisemitism, according to the scholars of antisemitism, um, that is inherently genocidal.

And I think we've entered into this phase where, you know, Jewish self-determination, Zionism, our connection to our land, um, has become perceived in academia as a, as a serious, uh, problem, as a form of occupation, of white supremacy. You know, Jews in the sort of postmodern intellectual environment have been labeled and defined as white supremacists and apartheid supporters.

So the, the, the intellectuals in Europe in the 1800s and 1900s were defining Jews as not white, and that we were poisoning the purity of the white Aryan race. These ideas came out of the best universities in Central Europe and was normalized in, in, in society, and those ideas led to, in many ways, racist antisemitism and the Shoah.

Several generations later, the intellectuals are saying that we're white, but it's not that we're white, welcome to the club, and we're so sorry for what happened to you. But now we, we, we've become, you know, white and apartheid supporters and racist in less than two generations, and then once again being defined by our enemies, labeled by our enemies as, um, something evil, something opposed to human rights and equality and, and citizenship.

How do we counter this? Uh, first of all , Jews have a 2,000-year tradition of high intellectualism and logic and reason, and I still believe that most Americans are good people and are patriotic and believe in the West, believe in the United States. What is the way to counter this, and why aren't we doing a better job?

I also agree that the, there's good in the United States, and I think, uh, the United States is a very powerful, strong democracy, and I believe it will stand, and people will begin to understand the threat that, as Elie Wiesel always taught us, that antisemitism may begin with the Jews, but it doesn't end with the Jews.

And this is an early warning system, in a way, of this anti-democratic movement that's attacking our democratic institutions and way of life. Um, I think transparency, understanding the sort of global insurgency, if you will, of the, of radical Islam and the radical left, and increasingly, unfortunately, the radical right attacking the democratic center.

Um, I think raising awareness, uh, among policymakers, among scholars is very important. And I also think, you know, what you're doing is amazing, in my humble opinion. Your message within the community is vital, that I think, um, the normalization of antisemitism, the most pernicious form of hatred i- is, in a sense, when it's internalized.

And I think what you're doing is beginning to give the space for Jewish people in the United States to have their own voice. The protests of the first year seems, seem to have died down to a dramatic degree. Do you think that means anything, or are there just more stringent oversight on the part of administrations?

It's good, um, but I'm, I'm-- I don't wanna sound too negative, but I'm quite alarmed about the normalization of antisemitism, and that if, if Israel is an occupying apartheid racist state. If countries like Britain and Canada and, and other democratic countries are now beginning to have sanctions against Israel, um, and are sort of perceived as standing against Israel in some ways, this is also empowering the extreme left and extreme Islamists in a sense.

And I think we're in a situation where the normalization of antisemitism in scholarly discourse is pervasive. It's entering into our politics and into our, you know, kind of cultural dimensions, if you will, and it's also increasingly on the streets. The violence, the normalization of violence is alarming.

It's good that the protests are dying down, but I think there's been such a shift on this eighth front since October the 7th, 2023, that, um, there's a, there's a str- I think a structural shift that our community needs to become aware of, and I think our, our leaders need to be aware of, that this is really a thr- a threat to our democracy.

Do you think that that structural shift has begun to happen yet or not yet? I think it's happening, yeah. I think we're living in a time… I don't wanna get too esoteric or too scholarly, but one of the works that we've done is this looking at the crisis of modernity There's a global crisis, a global economic, social, cultural, political crisis.

The cr- the world order that emerged after the Second World War is weakening. States are failing. There's a migration crisis. This migration crisis is putting pressure on North America, Europe, sort of the core developed countries. Our institutions are, are becoming weak, and in this crisis of modernity, if you will, I think antisemitism becomes the early warning system of these deep changes, and I think these changes are with us and, um, are threatening our stability.

We have a lot of, uh, Jewish parents who watch and listen to the podcast. It's noticeable. I don't know how, how, how broad or widespread this phenomenon is, but, uh, we've noticed it even here in our synagogue that some of the, uh, high school seniors who would have otherwise applied and been accepted to the Ivy League schools prefer to go elsewhere.

They prefer to go, uh, where they perceive the universities are more sympathetic to Jewish life on campus. Parents are very involved in that. If you've seen that, do you think that's a real phenomenon, and would you encourage Jewish parents to continue to look at that? So it's definitely a phenomenon.

I just spoke to a rabbi at Yale University a few days ago, and I was shocked at how, um, Jewish enrollment has dropped over the years. Do we insist on sending our kids to top universities even though they're hostile, or do we find other institutions that are more welcoming? I think that we should as a community, um, not tolerate this form of hatred.

I don't think anybody in our community would say to an African American family, you know, "Go send your child to a good school that's racist and that they're gonna be protesting against his or her presence." We wouldn't wish that on our, on our African American brothers and sisters. Why would we tolerate it for our own children?

So I would argue that there are great universities, um, in the United States that are welcoming to not only the Jewish community, but different political and ideological perspectives. They, they're pushing for, uh, diversity in thought, and they-- not only diversity in their ethnic composition of, of their faculty and students, but they're welcoming of ideas and debate, and they're teaching young people, you know, critical thinking.

And I think those are the institutions that will emerge and gain strength. And I think we should embrace the shift and empower the institutions that are dealing with the challenges of our, of our time. Do you think that the Trump administration has overreached in its efforts to try and, uh, address the problem of anti-Semitism on campus?

Or do you think it's, it's about right? And even if they have overreached, do you think that some of the changes that have occurred on universities would have happened on their own, or it was only the result of administration pressure? Look, uh, there's many issues of the Trump administration that I don't agree with, but I think on this issue, I, I agree strongly with it.

I, I, I'm, I'm happy to say. The amazing thing about the United States of America, there's a civil rights act and a civil rights legislation. It's illegal in this country to discriminate against groups of people. If we found out that there was a construction company in Mississippi or in Alabama that didn't hire African Americans, we would be outraged.

We wouldn't tolerate the Trump administration giving those companies contracts to do business because they're violating the law. If universities have problems of anti-Semitism on their campus, they're violating civil rights laws. It's against the law for the federal government to fund private or public entities that are dis- discriminating against groups of people, in this case, Jewish people.

And I think that if there were problems of racism or sexism that were so apparent where women or, or African Americans couldn't walk across campus safely, they couldn't go to their classes safely, it would be outrageous. And I, I, so I, I applaud the Trump administration. I don't think we should be able-- we should ever tolerate this intolerance anywhere in society, but especially in higher education of all places Do you think that, uh, to the extent that universities have tightened up their systems and that the situation is better on campus now than two years ago, do you think that would've happened on its own or do you think that is the result of administration pressure?

No, I think it's definitely in part, uh, of, as a result of the administration having hearings and, and, and opening investigations. You know, the famous hearing that I-- got billions of views around the world where the university presidents were not only incapable of speaking clearly against antisemitism, but they were reflecting the zeitgeist of these institutions where speaking out against antisemitism was perceived as a problem.

Because if the Jews are white, if we support the occupation of an apartheid Ziono genocidal entity, we are the enemy of all that is good and decent in, in these university liberals, you know, postmodern spaces. So I think the fact that the university presidents couldn't articulate, um, strongly against antisemitism was indicative of a problem, and I think these hearings shining light on this problem has started to help the problem.

Even in the United Kingdom where we have the center, I think the levels of antisemitism have become so outrageous that, um There's, there's more awareness, you know, places like Cambridge, for example, that I don't think would ever have been supportive of, um, a research center dealing with contemporary antisemitism.

There's all sorts of allies kind of emerging, kind of supporting the work that we're doing because people are beginning to realize some good and decent people after October the 7th, that things have just gone a little bit too far. So I think the Trump administration has been really good on these issues, and it's also sent a signal internationally that we need, we need to address this.

It's not just a parochial problem for the Jews or for the Zionists or for the Israelis, but this hatred is really a problem for society and a problem for institutions that are, you know, the raison d'être, their, their mission is open and fair inquiry and inclusiveness, that this is really a threat to, to basic liberal democratic education.

My last question to you, Dr. Small, is so, uh, you have a, uh, Jewish student who arrives on campus, and w- what do you-- From a Jewish perspective, what do you recommend that they should pay attention to beyond, of course, their studies and so on? What, from a Jewish perspective, should they be looking out for, and how should they respond when they see inappropriate behavior?

So first of all, I think it's so important for young Jewish people and students to really spend some time acquainting themselves, learning, delving into this, this amazing wisdom that we, we have as a people, and to do it with a sense of humility, not sort of nationalism and z- you know, jingoism, but really with a sense of humility, and to learn the wisdom that we, that we have.

That's number one. And spend time learning. Uh, sit with a rabbi, sit with your colleagues, and explore it. It-- Once you get into it, it's an extraordinary universe of ideas and thought. Number two, yes, as a good liberal critical thinker, we cannot tolerate hatred of any kind against any group of people, against African Americans, against women, against gay people, and ourselves.

And I think when we see hatred or, or disrespect of any kind, in the best of our tradition, we pursue justice and we speak and never to be silent. And I'm sure in, even in the most difficult of times and the most difficult campuses, there are incredible allies. Take a step back, find some friends, find some professors, find your rabbi, and work with friends and colleagues, but take a stand.

And by taking a stand and going through this process, it's actually quite empowering. Cowering and sitting, you know, sitting alone and, and, and not standing up is demoralizing and weakening. Stand up and, and go into this process of activism, and it will be empowering Yeah, I completely agree. Uh, by repairing, uh, the institution, you find that you're in the process of self-repair as well.

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And I'll, I'll just share just, you know, I've been involved in fighting antisemitism and other forms of violation of human rights, and, and people often ask me like, "How do you do it?" And it's in a one-- at one level, it's the most rewarding and empowering part of my life. I meet incredible people.

I listen to incredible ideas. And you're right, the struggle against antisemitism is also not only repir- repairing for me, but I think, I don't know, empowering. I learn. And we have no choice. We have to stand up. Dr. Small, what an inspiration you are, and, uh, the work that you're doing is critical.

Thank you on behalf of the Jewish community, and keep, keep doing what you're doing. You're kind, and really, your voice is so important in, in the community. And, uh, I'll just end with one statement. What you're doing is so essential, and I remember in the struggle for Soviet Jews, rabbis played such a key role.

The voice of the rabbis in our community at that time was essential, and I think what you're doing reminds me of that time, and I hope more of the rabbis join your wisdom and your voice and really will empower the community. It's so essential what you're doing. You're the, you're the foundation of our community.

Thank you so much. Coming from you, that's high praise and high honor. Dr. Charles Small is performing an extraordinarily important task, not only for the Jewish community, but for the United States and the West. He has investigated and exposed the colossal sums, hundreds of billions of dollars pouring into universities and key cultural institutions by those who seek to undermine the pillars of Western civilization.

His investigations are thoroughly researched, supported by evidence, and true to his vocation, academically rigorous. Jewish sages teach, "Fire does not ignite in a lone stick of wood, but in a pile of kindling." American campuses have been drying up for a long time, the tinder piling up year after year.

Their purpose to be the gathering point of a great society's exploration of knowledge and truth has been compromised and undermined. Our liberal heritage withers. Simplistic binary categorizations of entire groups of people prevail over intellectual and communal pluralism. Oppressors and oppressed, racists and anti-racists, colonialists and anti-colonialists, whiteness and color, privilege and repression The verdant vitality of the American campus is undergoing a kind of climate change that, if not reversed, will result in a catastrophic collapse of the ecosystems that feed vigor and vitality into the American soil.

Some saw the early signs and warned we must change our ways. They cautioned that the environment was becoming toxic. But how do you persuade people of the coming climate catastrophe if the changes are slow and incremental? It just gets a little warmer, a little drier, a little harsher every year, and not necessarily even in my neighborhood.

But at some point, even a random spark will set the kindling ablaze. Today's wildfires are the result of years of neglect. As Hemingway described going bankrupt, gradually, then suddenly. It is late, but it is not too late to reverse this campus climate catastrophe. It goes much deeper than this or that president of a university, this or that board of governors or administration, which is why even brilliant university leaders have had such difficulties explaining their positions, let alone instilling a climate of learning, diversity, respect, and tolerance, values that they say they and their institutions are committed to, and without which none of their other objectives can be achieved.

As is so often the case, the leaders of these institutions seem to have a kind of blind spot when it comes to the Jews. Of course, free speech issues are relevant. American Jews have always been at the forefront of the cause of free speech. We still are. American freedoms protect all of us, including Jews.

But can you imagine what would happen to students were they to chant anti-Black slogans, anti-Asian, anti-gay slogans on campus? Why was go back to Poland tolerated at Columbia? And by the way, what they mean by go back to Poland is not the modern country that is a member of the European Union. They mean Auschwitz.

A student who even whispered to an African-American student go back to Africa would explode in the minds of university administrators with perfect clarity. They would not complicate us with it depends on the context excuses. The uneven and inconsistent application of their own rules is a window into the mindset of university administrators, DEI functionaries, and faculty members.

My message to the Jewish community and all Americans of good faith, we need to fight back as hard as we can. Every little action helps. Letters to administrators, pressure on radical faculty, withholding alumni contributions, pursuing legal remedies to enforce the rights of our children to a safe environment.

Be active. These are critical years. And support organizations like ISCAP that are exposing what is really going on. Until next time, this is In These Times.

Following the Money: Charles Asher Small

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