Elisha R. Baker

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Articles

Columbia Needs Countercultural Leadership | SAPIR Journal

Nov 18, 2024 | sapirjournal.org | Elisha R. Baker

Everyone asks me: What is it like to be a Jewish student at Columbia? My friends and I have answered this question in just about every conceivable forum, from television interviews to op-eds to informal Shabbat-meal conversations to closed-door meetings with community and university leaders.
Letter to the Editor: Spectator’s editorial biases are clear as day

Oct 20, 2024 | columbiaspectator.com | Elisha R. Baker |Tianqi Wang

Columbia University Apartheid Divest and Columbia’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine announced the construction of a “Liberation Sukkah” on October 16 at 4:57 p.m. on their respective Telegram channels. At 7:01 p.m., Spectator published an op-ed titled “ Join us in the Liberation Sukkah ” written by the organizers inviting the Columbia community to join them in the sukkah.
Silenced by the University Senate

Oct 1, 2024 | columbiaspectator.com | Elisha R. Baker

If I had been given the opportunity to participate, my message would have been simple: I came to Columbia to learn, engage with peers, and participate fully in the vast offerings of the University. But unfortunately, Columbia is failing miserably to ensure that Jewish and Israeli students are able to fully enjoy these privileges. I have personally experienced ostracism and harassment over the last year and can attest to its effects on my experience on Columbia’s campus.
Letter to the Editor: Accusing Israel of foreign interference at Columbia is disingenuous and ironic

Jul 19, 2024 | columbiaspectator.com | Elisha R. Baker

I have published op-eds in the Columbia Daily Spectator and worked closely with your editorial team on numerous occasions. It is in the context of my experience with the Spectator’s rigorous editing process that I am particularly unimpressed by one of your recently published op-eds. Layla Saliba’s “Why is a foreign government interfering at Columbia?” is based on an intellectually weak argument and an ironic premise. I’ll begin with the argument itself.
On tokenism and the denial of antisemitism

Jun 23, 2024 | tjvnews.com | Elisha R. Baker

By Elisha Baker – originally published in the Columbia Spectator.
On tokenism and the denial of antisemitism

Jun 22, 2024 | columbiaspectator.com | Elisha R. Baker

On June 11, as Jews across the world ushered in Shavuot—a holiday commemorating our ancestors receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai on their journey from slavery in Egypt to self-determination in the Land of Israel—Spectator published an op-ed authored by four “Jews against Zionism.” In the piece, the authors accuse Columbia’s Task Force on Antisemitism of existing “exclusively as part of a political project to stoke fear on campus by alleging antisemitism against anyone opposing Zionism.” By...
On bigotry in the classroom

Mar 19, 2024 | columbiaspectator.com | Elisha R. Baker

I must admit, however, I was stunned when my Contemporary Civilization class read Karl Marx’s On The Jewish Question. Outside of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf, this is the most overtly antisemitic manifesto that I have ever read. I am struggling to come up with how anyone could spin this in any other way. In fact, the closest comparison to this manifesto that I can think of is the racist theory trafficked in the United States in the 19th century which labeled Black people as inherently violent.
On the recent BDS referendum: We are not going anywhere

Mar 8, 2024 | columbiaspectator.com | Elisha R. Baker

In 1857, the United States Supreme Court dismissed the case of a Black man on procedural grounds. Dred Scott was an enslaved man in Missouri who sued for freedom after residing in a free northern territory. He was found to have no right to sue in federal court because he lacked citizenship. A Black man, the court ruled , “whose ancestors were imported into [the U.S.] and sold as slaves,” is not an American citizen. Dred Scott, therefore, did not exist in the eyes of the law.
Jewish College Students: Stay and Engage

Dec 12, 2023 | tabletmag.com | Elisha R. Baker

We are reading and hearing a lot about how Jewish students are experiencing the college campus these days. There are plenty of Jewish students who, in the past two months, have embraced their Judaism and Jewish communities like never before. These formerly Jewishly uninvolved students have started untucking their Magen David necklaces, showing up to communal Shabbat dinners, and wearing kippot around campus, among other things.