No Major Holidays Till Spring: Professor Must Wait To Screw Over Jewish Students With Scheduling Conflicts

In some years Rosh HaShanah coincides with Saturday and Sunday, depriving Masoud of an occasion to impose that crucial didactic choice on Jewish students.

New York, October 27 –  A faculty member at Columbia University who proudly asserts his courses in Middle East Studies promote an “anti-colonialist” and “anti-racist” ethos, and who demands any Jewish students absorb his abuse of them as proxies for Israel, also insists he abhors antisemitism, and that he regrets that the recent end of the Jewish holiday season means he can only force those students to choose between their own religious traditions and sitting for his exams will in faraway April, when Passover presents the net opportunity.

Yusuf Masoud shared his lament Thursday with colleagues in the Middle East and Islamic Studies Department, several of whom nodded and murmured their empathy. “This method for fostering the right political consciousness in young minds will have to wait, unfortunately,” he mused with a shake of a head, to general agreement among four other lecturers. “I know we all did what we could over the last month or so, but so early in the term it’s hard to contrive credible assignments or classroom events with critical weight in the student’s grade, to coincide with Jewish observances that preclude classroom participation.”

This year Rosh HaShanah, the two-day Jewish new year observance, occurred on a Monday and Tuesday, as did the first and last days of the Sukkot festival. In between, Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement and the most solemn day on the Jewish calendar, occurred on a Wednesday. Each of those, in particular Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur, involve lengthy synagogue services and, among the more stringently observant, avoidance of regular weekday activities such as writing and the active use of electricity. Those restrictions provided ample weekday occasions this past month to stick it to Jews suspected as Zionists until they demonstrate sufficient contrition on behalf of their coreligionists. In some years, however, Rosh HaShanah and both ends of Sukkot coincide with Saturday and Sunday, depriving Masoud and his like-minded warriors for justice of every occasion that season except Yom Kippur to impose that crucial didactic choice on Jewish students.

“It’s confusing that calendar of theirs,” he complained. “I have to look it up each year if I want to schedule things the right way. But I do it, because I have to ensure my students break themselves of the poisonous culture they may have absorbed before they came to my classroom. Anti-racism demands tough decisions, as they will learn. I’m not antisemitic; I just know Jews need that lesson more than anyone else because Israel.”

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