The American left has controlled the nation’s cultural institutions for half a century. Universities, media, and government agencies have long tilted the scales in favor of progressive ideology. Yet now, when conservatives dare to contest that monopoly, the critics cry authoritarianism. Yehuda Kurtzer’s essay, “Antisemitism and Authoritarianism,” is the latest example.
Kurtzer claims the Trump administration’s National Endowment for the Humanities grant to the Tikvah Fund proves conservatives cannot win in the marketplace of ideas and must resort to manipulation. He insists Jews are being “played” by right-wing power brokers who exploit post–October 7 fears. His concern is not democracy. His concern is the left’s fading hold on power.
Consider the fantasy he promotes: that Jews thrived in America under neutral institutions committed to fairness and pluralism. That vision may have once been true. It is not true today. Universities are not marketplaces of ideas. They are ideological monopolies. Yale drove out a professor for the heresy of questioning Halloween costume restrictions. MIT disinvited geophysicist Dorian Abbot for criticizing DEI orthodoxy. At CUNY’s law school commencement, administrators applauded an anti-Israel screed. Support Israel on campus and you are treated as a pariah. Neutrality is gone.
The hypocrisy is breathtaking. Federal dollars have been politicized for decades, mostly to advance progressive causes. The Obama administration funneled millions into “equity” initiatives designed to engineer outcomes. The NEH under Democratic control happily funded projects on “climate storytelling” and “environmental justice.” These were not neutral grants. They were ideological investments. Not a whisper of concern from Kurtzer then. But one grant to Tikvah, and suddenly democracy is on life support. This is not a principled defense of fairness. It is the defense of monopoly.
Most insulting is Kurtzer’s treatment of Jewish fear. He writes as if Jewish anxiety after October 7 is a trick conjured by conservatives. Tell that to the Jews attacked in Los Angeles in 2021 simply for wearing kippot. Tell it to the congregants in Brooklyn whose synagogue was vandalized with “Death to Israel.” Tell it to the Jewish students menaced in 2024 by pro-Hamas encampments openly chanting for intifada. The threats are not theoretical. They are lived reality.
And what of the institutions Kurtzer trusts to defend democracy? In late 2023, the presidents of Harvard, MIT, and Penn were asked in Congress whether calls for the genocide of Jews violated their codes of conduct. They could not bring themselves to say yes. That moment was a revelation. These were not conservative demagogues exposing Jews to danger. These were progressive elites, so paralyzed by ideology they could not state the obvious: that calling for Jewish extermination is wrong.
Kurtzer sneers that Tikvah will churn out “weaker, partisan ideas.” What he fears is competition. Tikvah has built fellowships, seminars, and schools that allow Jewish students to engage their tradition and Western civilization seriously, without submitting to progressive litmus tests. It is doing the work universities refuse to do. If the academy has become hostile ground, then alternative institutions are not luxuries. They are necessities.
The true authoritarian temptation today comes not from conservatives directing a grant to Tikvah. It comes from progressives who insist their cultural dominance is the only legitimate order. They rewrite language to enforce orthodoxy. They brand dissent as violence. At Stanford Law in 2023, students shouted down a federal judge while a DEI dean stood beside them, accusing him of causing “harm” by showing up. That was not democracy. That was mob rule in the service of progressive ideology.
Kurtzer calls for “responsible conservatives” to return to a fair fight. But the fight has not been fair for decades. The left tilted the scales, controlled the institutions, and declared dissent illegitimate. Now that conservatives are finally contesting the field, Kurtzer cries authoritarianism. This is not a defense of democracy. It is a demand to keep the monopoly intact.
The left survives on the illusion of its own tolerance. That illusion is crumbling. Kurtzer paints conservatives as dangerous while ignoring the authoritarian instincts of his allies. He warns Jews not to be fooled by conservative support while overlooking the left’s indulgence of antisemitism. He mourns the death of the marketplace of ideas while defending the monopoly that strangled it.
American Jews do not need lectures from those who excuse progressive assaults on their dignity. They need allies who will defend them. If that means funding institutions like Tikvah, so be it. That is not authoritarianism. That is survival.
