I watched a recent interview with Yeshiva University president Rabbi Ari Berman with growing disbelief.

For nearly an hour, viewers were treated to a conversation about ethics, leadership, faith, Zionism, values, courage, influence, and Jewish responsibility — yet not once did the interview address the most serious moral controversy surrounding the institution Berman leads: the university’s years-long legal battle against sexual abuse plaintiffs and the devastating human toll attached to it.

This was not a controversy the interviewer could plausibly claim unfamiliarity with. Exactly one year earlier, he had overseen publication of a major interview with a survivor in the case who accused the university’s leadership and legal team of conducting an “assault on dignity,” including efforts to obtain the mental health records of Holocaust survivor parents.

That omission was not incidental. It defined the interview.

Instead, the conversation became a prolonged display of prestige, access, and elite association:

Trump’s inauguration. Elon Musk. Javier Milei. Elise Stefanik. Douglas........

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