Billionaire Leon Cooperman, who wears his Polish-Jewish heritage as a badge of pride and has made giving away his billions to make the world a better place a major part of his life, is angry.
The 80-year-old estimates that he has given $50 million over the years to New York City’s Columbia University, where he earned a master’s degree in business administration in 1967. But he will give no more to the school due to the way some students and faculty celebrated the slaughter of Israeli civilians in the massacre of Oct. 7 that claimed more than 1,400 lives.
“These kids at the colleges have sh– for brains,” Cooperman told Fox Business host Claman last week.
“We have one reliable ally in the Middle East. That’s Israel,” Cooperman said. “We only have one democracy in the Middle East. That’s Israel. And we have one economy tolerant of different people, gays, lesbians, etc. That’s Israel. So they have no idea what these young kids are doing.
“Now, the real shame is, I’ve given to Columbia probably about $50 million over many years. And I’m going to suspend my giving. I’ll give my giving to other organizations,” he said.
He made similar statements to CNN.
“It’s not just because I’m a Jew. What Hamas did was brutal and over-the-top. These kids don’t have a clue what they’re talking about,” he said.
Joseph Massad, a Columbia professor, was a focus of Cooperman’s ire. In a column on The Electronic Intifada, a Chicago-based publication, Massad wrote, “the stunning victory of the Palestinian resistance over the Israeli military on the first day of fighting is a historic event.”
The biographical paragraph at the endof the column identifies Massad as a professor of “modern Arab politics and intellectual history.”
“I told [Columbia] that they should fire this professor that made the comments he made. I mean, war is hell. This war is not good for anybody,” Cooperman told Claman. “But to praise what Hamas did is disgraceful. Disgusting.”
“You shouldn’t support organizations that are detrimental or in opposition to your views,” he said.
CNN noted that a Columbia student was assaulted while putting up posters to support Israel.
Commentator Meghan McCain, who attended Columbia, also ripped the school, according to the New York Post, which noted that thousands of Columbia students signed petitions demanding action against Massad, leading in turn to other students and faculty announcing their support for him.
“The only thing I can say is, they will never get a dime from me. I will never do any speaking engagements with them. Columbia can go to hell as far as I’m concerned,” she said, according to the Post.
The culture at Columbia is such that an LGBTQ group at Columbia University wanted to exclude Jewish students from a movie night, according to the New York Post.
“It’s FREE PALESTINE over here. Zionists aren’t invited,” stated a notice promoting from organizer Lizzy George-Griffin.
“THE HOLOCAUST WASN’T SPECIAL.”
The school canceled the event, according to the Post.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.