By MICHAEL VANYUKOV
Having fled the Soviet Union because of institutional antisemitism, I read these antisemitism-related statements published in the University Times on Aug. 3 with revolting déjà vu.
Many of my colleagues did not live under a regime where antisemitism had simply been renamed “anti-Zionism.” I did. Soviet anti-Zionism was not criticism of Israeli policy — nor is the AAUP’s or that of Faculty & Staff for Justice in Palestine.
It was the state’s preferred vocabulary for institutional Jew-hatred, and so is the U.S. antisemitic organizations’ wordplay, turning Zionism — support for the Jewish national home — into a swear word. That history should make anyone skeptical when the same language is elevated as moral orthodoxy on an American campus.
I also recognize another familiar Soviet habit: inventing ideological labels that pathologize legitimate criticism. Just as “Russophobia” was used to delegitimize criticism of Russian fascism by attributing it to irrational prejudice rather than reasoned judgment, “Islamophobia” is used in much the same way — to portray criticism of Islamic doctrine as a psychological defect rather than an intellectual or moral position.
Every individual deserves equal protection from discrimination, but no religion or political ideology deserves immunity from criticism.
There is also a familiar pattern in the insistence that antisemitism cannot be addressed on its own but must always be subsumed under broader struggles against “racism” and other injustices. That is precisely how Soviet ideology worked: Jewish concerns were never allowed to stand on their own merits but were dismissed as distractions from supposedly greater causes. Jews were expected to subordinate their identity and security to the approved political narrative.
The repeated invocation of “academic freedom” rings hollow when it is accompanied by categorical assertions that Israel is guilty of “genocide,” “apartheid,” and “ethnic cleansing” — claims presented not as subjects for inquiry but as unquestionable dogma. This is ideological conformity with calumnies, turning blood-libel accusations into verdicts.
Most troubling is the attempt to portray Jewish organizations that take antisemitism seriously as somehow illegitimate, while elevating fringe Jewish groups whose principal function is to reassure others that anti-Zionism has nothing to do with antisemitism. The Soviet Union likewise promoted “acceptable Jews” who validated official ideology while marginalizing those who objected to state-sponsored antisemitism. The "Soviet Anti-Zionist Committee" was formed by the KGB from communist establishment Jewish figures.
Those of us who escaped Soviet antisemitism recognize this pattern because we lived through it. We know what it looks like when hostility to Jews is recast as opposition to “Zionists,” when Jewish institutions are portrayed as uniquely suspect, when Jewish fears are dismissed as political manipulation, and when those raising concerns are accused of threatening free speech. I came to America hoping never to encounter that again. It is devastating to see it reemerge at the university I have called home for over 35 years — and in society at large.
Michael Vanyukov is a professor of pharmaceutical sciences, psychiatry and human genetics.