[The following, by Tom Mountain, appears in The Jewish Advocate.]

Yehuda Reinharz, the president of Brandeis University, did the university, the student body, the American Jewish community, the state of Israel, and Louis Brandeis- the man for whom the university was named -a great honor by inviting Israel's ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, to receive an honorary degree and address the Class of 2010 as its commencement speaker.

That Dr. Reinharz, a world renowned Jewish scholar and author of several books on Israel, would choose at this time to have Brandeis honor the foremost representative of Israel in the Western Hemisphere, is both appropriate and gratifying, if not genuinely touching. Because in so doing he is honoring Israel itself, as well as highlighting the American Jewish commitment to the Jewish state.

Perhaps as recently as a few decades ago inviting the Israeli Ambassador to give a commencement speech would have been an afterthought, hardly different from inviting the ambassador from Costa Rica or Denmark. But we have entered an era where the rage of anti-Semitism, thinly disguised as anti-Israel rhetoric, has raised its devious and vociferous voice to proclaim to the masses that Israel (i.e., Jews) is the cause for all that is wrong in the world. And nowhere is this more apparent that on the college campus, something which Ambassador Oren, or for that matter, anyone with Israeli credentials in the Diaspora, can attest to.

The vicious reception that the ambassador had to endure at the University of California-Irvine is but a reminder that the ghosts of the Dreyfus Affair can rear their heads at anytime, with the mob clamoring for the neck of the nearest top Jew. Given the chance, the Irvine haters would have lynched the Jewish ambassador and not looked back. Such is the hatred these days towards anyone personifying the Jewish state.

Yet with rare exception, the response has been muted from the American Jewish leadership, university presidents, and our own president in Washington. Few seem to care that Israel is constantly on the receiving end of an ongoing blood libel. The rest are too timid to take a public stand for the Jewish state. But one noble individual stands above the rest.

Yehuda Reinharz.

Timing is everything, and right now is the perfect time for an American Jewish leader to step forward, boldly and unapologetically, to pronounce to the world "We will not cower or stand aloof to the onslaught of anti-Israel venom in academia, or the world beyond the campus. We believe in the moral righteous of the Jewish state. We will stand with Israel, in good times and bad." Yehuda Reinharz did just that.

With characteristic modesty, Dr. Reinharz would surely downplay such accolades from this columnist or the many who have reached a similar conclusion on his leadership. No matter. By publically and unabashedly honoring Israel at the flagship Jewish university in America, Yehuda Reinharz has made us proud.

On the other hand, what to make of the editors of The Justice, the premier Brandeis University newspaper? Behold their recent editorial, "Oren is a divisive and inappropriate choice for keynote speaker at commencement, and we disapprove of the University's decision to grant someone of his polarity on this campus that honor." It went on, "For the administration, Mr. Oren's invitation constitutes at best naïveté and at worst disregard concerning the reality of the range of student political orientation on this campus."

Full disclosure, I wrote for The Justice as a Brandeis student, Class of 1985. Thus I can state without hesitation that there is something monumentally pathetic about Jewish student editors lecturing their Jewish university president for inviting the Jewish ambassador of the Jewish state to address the mostly Jewish audience at their Jewish university's commencement. And my only logical response to these Jewish-in-name-only student editors, who behave as if they're still mad at mommy and daddy for making them go to Hebrew School, fast on Yom Kippur, and burdening them with Jewish surnames, is to offer my condolences since they have obviously become so afflicted with the psychosis of Jewish self-hatred in their post-pubescent youth.

But in truth, I'd relish the opportunity to point my finger in the collective smug faces of these repulsive little urchins and tell them to just shut up and grow up.