The Point(less): UMass Boston's #AsAJew Squad
Our best and brightest Jews For Hamas go all out to distance themselves from Antisemitism in favor of 'Antisemitism'
In this world of chaos and uncertainty, one thing remains constant: when there's a crisis, you can always count on the kooky minds of Wokedemia to not only miss the point entirely, but also write a peer-reviewed paper about it.
And out of all the kooky heads, none are kookier than the mystical tribe of AsAJews. You know the type: keffiyeh-sporting, BDS-chanting, identity-flexing Jewish or Jew-ish intellectuals who proudly post things like: “#AsAJew, I denounce Zionism and the apartheid, settler-colonial, white European project in Palestine.”
Bless their hearts. They’re not new, but ever since October 7, 2023, these folks have crawled out of their activist rat-holes like it’s the academic Hunger Games. And wouldn’t you know it, our very own illustrious institution is crawling with the best and brightest of them. Let's take a quick tour:
Comrade and Comrade Jr.: The Daddy-Daughter Dismantle Duo
Behold Union Comrade Jeff Melnick, our local AsAJew-in-Chief. But wait, there’s more! He’s not just the spiritual father of all AsAJews, he’s the actual father of at least one of them: Meet Comrade Jr., Jessie Rubin, PhD candidate at Columbia (because of course she is).
Together, this dynamic duo penned a snoozefest in The Guardian titled “How antisemitism avoided the fate of antiracism” - a bold choice considering their piece has all the warmth and clarity of a VCR manual in Esperanto.
Jessie’s academic profile reads like the syllabus for “Advanced Identity Performance Studies 502”:
Her dissertation research explores how contemporary Palestinian and Irish musicians forge an “acoustemological relatedness,” which she defines as shared musical approaches and structures of feeling audible (and visible) in political and musical collaborations. She is currently conducting multi-sited fieldwork for this project. Rubin similarly explored articulations of hybridity and themes of sonic circulation in her Masters’ thesis, “Places We Could Find Ourselves In”: Affective Networks of Queer MENA Party Life in NYC which examines queer New York-based reformulations of MENA (Middle East/North African) cultural practices within an electronic dance party network.
We swear we didn’t make up a single syllable of that.
In their article, the Melnick-Rubins inform us that “campus antisemitism” is basically a myth invented by Trumpists, who apparently don’t appreciate Jessie’s right to drop bass in a post-colonial framework. They bemoan “free speech (except Palestine)” and “DEI-free zones (except Zionism)”, completely unironically, while insisting DEI is just about “equal opportunity.” Adorable.
Oh, they also express disdain towards the big bad Zionists who control every aspect of life, the universe and everything. Yawn.
Max Herschman: Lenin’s Little Helper
Meanwhile, in the pages of Hamass Media (our student paper and proud union mouthpiece), we find another #AsAJew - Max Herschman, our Lenin-fanboy and part-time performance artist who doubles as the Jewish liaison for Students in Justice for Palestine. Yeah, it’s a thing. The article featuring Herschman was titled “Trump cracks down on ‘antisemitism’”, quotes and all, because apparently antisemitism now comes with air quotes. A bold literary move. We’re inspired to start quoting all your statements too, Herschman. Especially the ones that aren’t real. So, all of them.
Quoting Max:
“This is a top organizer at Columbia who has been arrested and threatened with deportation just for using free speech.”
Yes, Max really loves Lenin but also free speech. Or is it ‘free speech’? Because Nothing screams ‘free speech’ like blocking campuses, harassing Jewish students who dare to support Israel’s right to exist, and weaponizing your ‘Jewish’ identity to ‘demand’ the end of Israel and pretend to seek ‘justice’ for ‘Palestine’.
Meredith Reiches: PhD in Obfuscation
Just as we were about to hit publish, yet another #AsAJew burst onto the scene, this time via the union’s weekly email blast, The Point(less), brought to you by Meredith Reiches.
Meredith’s hot take? “Weaponizing antisemitism won’t protect any of us.” Translation: Stop noticing antisemitism on campus, you paranoid Zionists!
She throws shade at Harvard’s interim president Alan Garber for daring to suggest antisemitism is real, then immediately assures us she totally believes his personal experience right before doubting his personal experience, implying he only feels that way because he’s rich and powerful. Because nothing says solidarity quite like recycling antisemitic tropes in the middle of denying antisemitism.
She briefly acknowledge Garber’s standing up to Trump and his list of demands, but only in a short paragraph towards the end, because it ruins her pretty little narrative about the evil Zionist Jews being the ones behind Trump’s list of demands.
Oh, and she also really loves free speech.
According to her faculty page (as before, we did not make up a single word):
My research lies at the intersection of biocultural anthropology and feminist science and technology studies. At the core of my research program are two imperatives. The first is to investigate how tenacious, received ideas about sex and gender shape reconstructions of human origins and understandings of contemporary human bodies. The second is to conduct studies of human biology, particularly adolescence, informed by this process of critical evaluation.
Don’t worry if you don’t understand it. It’s not you. It’s the fact that her PhD is from Harvard.
Final Thoughts
How did these gems evade our radar for so long? Maybe because we were too distracted by their acoustemological relatedness, or maybe we just assumed satire wasn’t supposed to be this easy. Either way, rest assured: the #AsAJew industrial complex is alive, well, and tweeting from an overfunded fellowship near you.
Hamastitutes are rife.
Hamassholes one and all.
Pathetic.