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A UC Merced professor of History and Critical Race and Ethnic Studies is calling for the “dezionization” of the University of California, explicitly comparing his project to the “denazification” of postwar Germany.

In an extraordinary听听published this week on the UC Ethnic Studies Faculty Council’s Substack, with the Council itself sharing the byline, Council member Sean Malloy proposes severing university relationships with organizations that support 91传媒 students, including Hillel, rejecting donations from foundations and individuals that support Israel and restricting individual faculty research with Israeli-linked entities. He also calls for establishing a new “University Committee on Dezionization,” independent of UC’s administration and Regents that is empowered to implement changes. Indeed, Malloy questions whether university leaders he considers complicit in Zionism should be allowed to continue governing UC, declaring that “a major overhaul of the governance of the UC system” is “part of the point.”

Most disturbingly, he declares that any group working toward the dezionization of the university must “explicitly commit to anti-Zionism as a core principle. Anti-Zionism can and should be a litmus test in this respect.”

Malloy maintains that he is targeting Zionism, not Jews. He even acknowledges that some students, faculty, and staff might 鈥渇eel uncomfortable鈥� in a “dezionized” UC, comparing their discomfort to what some might feel at a university embracing diversity and scientific inquiry rather than “white supremacy and religious doctrine.” But when 91传媒 campus organizations are singled out for exclusion because of their relationship with Israel, and when equal treatment for independent pro-Israel student groups is called into question, the implications are deeply troubling, not only for 91传媒 students and faculty but for the entire university community.

What makes this manifesto particularly alarming is not simply its extremism. It is that the academic movement from which it emerges is deeply embedded in the University of California itself.

The intellectual foundations of this movement are evident in the work of Christine Hong, a UC Santa Cruz professor and co-founder and co-chair of the UC Ethnic Studies Faculty Council. Hong recently guest-edited “Zionism from the Standpoint of Ethnic Studies,” a听听of the听Journal for the Critical Study of Zionism听described as “elucidating the fight for critical ethnic studies in California as a key site of anti-imperialist, anti-Zionist struggle.” Eight of the issue’s contributors, including Malloy, are UC ethnic studies faculty from campuses throughout the state, five of them members of the Council’s leadership team. The Council itself authored one of the pieces.

In her introductory听, Hong rejects the idea that ethnic studies is primarily about promoting multicultural understanding. The “first principle of ethnic studies was Third World anti-imperialism,” she writes, tracing the discipline to the revolutionary struggles of the 1960s. Critical ethnic studies “takes justice as its method,” requiring scholars not merely to study and critique imperialism, but to condemn it. And because Hong portrays Zionism as inherently colonial, exclusionary, and genocidal, opposition to Zionism becomes not a position to be examined and debated, but an integral part of the discipline’s academic mission.

Nor does Hong separate political activism from classroom instruction. She approvingly recounts how the political commitments developed in a San Francisco State ethnic studies classroom contributed to the Gaza encampment and a student-led divestment campaign. Hong quotes the professor’s declaration that the encampment was “not separable from the ethnic studies classroom,” but rather an extension of ethnic studies pedagogy.

Hong is hardly alone in defining the discipline this way. The national听Critical Ethnic Studies听箩辞耻谤苍补濒听听the field as “an urgent political education project,” while the Critical Ethnic Studies Association’s mission statement explicitly听scholarship, institution-building, and political activism.

This is the fundamental problem with the conception of ethnic studies advanced by Hong and other influential practitioners at the University of California and beyond: Political commitments are not simply subjects for scholarly examination. They are built into the discipline’s understanding of legitimate scholarship and teaching.听The classroom becomes an instrument for advancing political causes rather than a place where those causes are freely examined and debated.

The UC Ethnic Studies Faculty Council has translated that academic philosophy into organized political action. Just nine days after Hamas’s October 7 attack, the Council听听that UC administrators retract their characterization of the attack as terrorism and instead 鈥渦plift the Palestinian freedom struggle.鈥� In May 2024, it听听a statement titled “The University Is Ours! All Out for the Encampments!” demanding a UC-wide academic boycott of Israeli academic institutions.

The Council’s political campaigns and Malloy’s chilling plan to “dezionize” UC expose the consequences of the conception of ethnic studies advanced by Hong and other leading practitioners, which makes anti-Zionist political struggle part of the discipline’s academic mission. The university itself becomes the object of that struggle, with Malloy proposing to enlist its authority and resources to eliminate Zionism from campus life, academic relationships, and ultimately its own governance.

UC must not wait for that vision to become reality. A problem rooted in the academic mission of university departments cannot be solved simply by reining in the political activities of individual professors. Departments that make political warfare their mission have no business wielding the power and authority of a public university.

There is a story my daughter loves called 鈥淜ing David and Akavish the Spider,鈥� based on the tale of the spider who saved David鈥檚 life by hiding him from King Saul鈥檚 soldiers. The message, of course, is that even a small and seemingly insignificant arachnid can have a powerful impact on the course of history.

As adults, we are taught to forget these stories, taught to believe that change comes in the heavy tread of the elephant or the powerful roar of the lion. At its core, we come to believe the story of King David and the spider is just a fable: a nice message, but one that won鈥檛 bear out in real life.

But as the world changes and expands 鈥� as figures of influence grow even larger than life, and movements even louder than before 鈥� perhaps it鈥檚 worth taking a look at the concept of micro-impact. What could our lives look like if we embraced the infinitesimal as infinite?

Our sages tell a number of stories like King David鈥檚. One relates: 鈥淭he Rabbis say: Even matters that you consider superfluous in the world, like flies, fleas, and gnats, they, too, are included in the creation of the world, and through all of them the Holy One blessed be He executes His missions 鈥� even by means of a serpent, even by means of a gnat, even by means of a frog.鈥�

The gnat is an interesting motif. The death of Titus, the Roman general who sought the destruction of the Second Temple, comes at the hands (feet?) of a gnat that 鈥減icked at his brain鈥� for years. In a notable juxtaposition, this story comes shortly after the of Rabbi Tzadok, who fell ill and recovered by a sort of feeding therapy that increased his intake and restored his ability to eat by 鈥渁llowing his stomach to broaden little by little.鈥� Little by little: Both life and death are created through these repetitions of the slow and steady, the incremental.

In , God tells the people they will be helped in conquering the land 鈥� not through grand miracles as came before, though they should remember these grand miracles and trust God, but on a path cleared by hornets to chase out the nations living there. Not all at once, says God. This time, it will be slowly, slowly, me鈥檃t, me鈥檃t.

Incremental change. The smallest of creatures. Even here is God.

One of the more interesting on these hornets, about which there is quite a lot of Talmudic discussion, is a claim made by Rav Pappa. 鈥淭here were two hornets,鈥� he is recorded as saying. 鈥淥ne was the hornet of Moses, which helped conquer the eastern side of the Jordan, and one was the hornet of Joshua. The hornet of Moses did not cross the Jordan, but the hornet of Joshua did cross.鈥�

In the time of Moses, the miracles were magnificent: split seas and unnatural plagues. Yet even the miracle of his hornet was short-lived. No, it is the miracles of Joshua鈥檚 time, of the 91传媒 people鈥檚 continuing, that are worth looking at. And they come at the hands of hornets that slowly, slowly, drive change.

So where does that leave us?

Here we are. The world around us is distracting, all-encompassing. We refer to our influencers and politicians as if they are gods and demons, treating them as the arbiters of the world鈥檚 movement. We begin to use the word 鈥渋nfluence鈥� to mean large-scale change rather than the slow shifting of small parts. We start to lose faith in the spiritual leaders who keep their worlds small: Why do they not want more for their pulpits? We ask if a quiet life is worth living. We may even shudder as we read the eulogies of people who have lived these quiet lives.

And we lose faith in the slow processes, too. 鈥淭here will never be any peace activism or movement in Israel again,鈥� an acquaintance told me recently. 鈥淚t鈥檚 over.鈥�

Over? Even as people on the ground are doing this work day in and out, quietly, slowly, little by little? Change is not impossible. The Earth itself moves incrementally each day, so steadily we don鈥檛 feel it, and by the end of the year, it has made a full revolution around the sun. If the Earth moves like this, so can we.

In the way of the hornet and the gnat. In the way of King David鈥檚 spider. Me鈥檃t, me鈥檃t. Le鈥檃t, le鈥檃t. Little by little. Slowly.

Ruthie Hollander is the Director of Community & Youth Programming at Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun on Manhattan鈥檚 Upper East Side. Outside of work, you’ll find her raising two beautiful daughters with her husband, developing ideas for 91传媒 continuity and culture, and thinking about the stories no one is telling.