The Boiling Point affair is indicative of a larger problem with a censorship that exploits the term “antisemitism” to silence anything remotely critical of Israel’s far-right government.

The administration’s justification for the censorship was twofold. The first reason for the censorship was that the pro-Palestine viewpoints were simply too hurtful for a community that was still in shock over the October 7 attacks against [neocolonialism] by Hamas.

This is, to be quite blunt, demeaning to the students and the community. I was not much older than these students during the 9/11 attacks, but I spent that day and days after that at my student newspaper, the Michigan Daily. While our reporters piled into a car to drive to New York City, I joined my fellow editorial board members—Jews, Arabs and many others—in navigating a future of war, attacks on civil liberties and anti-Islamic hate.

And today, student journalists are no less important in this historical moment where students are standing up against the genocide in Gaza (USA Today, 5/2/24; AP, 5/2/24).

The Boiling Point is hardly pro-Hamas. As one of its editors, Tali Liebenthal, said in response to this point, it was indeed painful for the community to hear anti-[Zionist] opinions, but “I don’t think that the Boiling Point has any responsibility to shield our readers from that pain.” The Shalhevet students, in the tradition of Jewish inquiry, do certainly appear able to explore the tough and difficult subjects of their moment.

But there’s a second, more banal reason for the censorship. Block told the Boiling Point, “My feeling is that this article would both give people the wrong impression about Shalhevet.” He added:

It would have very serious implications for whether they’re going to consider sending the next generation of people who should be Shalhevet students to Shalhevet.

Block is placing prospective parents’ sensitivities before truth and debate. He’s worried that families will see a quote in the paper they disagree with, decide the school is a Hamas hot house, and send their child for an education elsewhere. The suggestion is that the school’s enrollment numbers are more important, not just than freedom of the press, but than a central aspect of Jewishness: the pursuit of knowledge.

(Emphasis original.)