The issuance of a new round of subpoenas comes just days before Columbia begins classes for its fall semester

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People rally on the campus of Columbia University which is occupied by pro-Palestinian protesters in New York on April 22, 2024.
The House Committee on Education and the Workforce issued six subpoenas to Columbia University officials on Wednesday for documents related to the committee’s investigation into campus antisemitism.
This is the second round of subpoenas issued by the committee in its antisemitism investigation, coming just days before Columbia begins classes for its fall semester, and as the campus prepares for renewed anti-Israel protests.
The committee chair, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), threatened such a move on Aug. 1, accusing the school of failing to provide documents the committee had requested in spite of repeated warnings.
The subpoena demands that Columbia provide, by noon on Sept. 4, all communications between the school’s leaders about antisemitism and the anti-Israel encampment since Oct. 7, all records of Board of Trustees meetings since April 17, all records of Board of Trustees meetings since Oct. 7 relating to antisemitism or Israel and any documents relating to allegations of antisemitism on Columbia’s campus since Oct. 7.
In a letter to Dr. Katrina Armstrong, Columbia’s interim president, Foxx said the subpoenas were issued because “Columbia has failed to produce numerous priority items requested by the Committee, despite having months to comply and receiving repeated follow-up requests by the Committee.”
Foxx’s letter also instructs Columbia to preserve all documents created or held by former Columbia President Minouche Shafik, who abruptly resigned last week, that relate to the antisemitism investigation.
A recent report by the committee, based on some documents provided by Columbia, revealed that most students involved in the occupation of Hamilton Hall in late April had not been disciplined, despite Columbia’s public threats of expulsion.
“Columbia should be a partner in our efforts to ensure Jewish students have a safe learning environment on its campus, but instead, university administrators have slow rolled the investigation, repeatedly failing to turn over necessary documents,” Foxx said in a statement. “The information we have obtained points to a continued pattern of negligence towards antisemitism and a refusal to stand up to the radical students and faculty responsible for it.”
The committee has, to date, not publicly taken action to implement or enforce its first subpoena, to Harvard University.
Judge Richard Stearns ruled that Harvard failed to take disciplinary measures against offending students and faculty

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Harvard University graduate student Shabbos Kestenbaum testifies during a House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government hearing on antisemitism on college campuses at the Rayburn House Office Building on May 15, 2024 in Washington, DC. He is the only named plaintiff in the suit against Harvard.
Less than a week after throwing out a lawsuit filed by Jewish students at MIT alleging that the school didn’t do enough to curb antisemitism on campus, U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns ruled on Tuesday that a similar suit against Harvard will go to trial.
The suit against Harvard was filed in federal court by six Jewish Harvard students who allege the school has not protected them from “severe and pervasive” campus antisemitism. Both cases allege violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; Stearns ruled that the MIT students hadn’t shown that their civil rights were violated, but that the Harvard students had.
Shabbos Kestenbaum, a recent Harvard Divinity School graduate, was the only named plaintiff in the lawsuit. “Today’s decision affirms that Jewish students are well within their right to hold their universities accountable,” Kestenbaum told Jewish Insider.
In the 25-page ruling, Stearns, a federal judge in Massachusetts, wrote that “in many instances” Harvard did not respond to “an eruption of antisemitism” on campus, citing its failure to take disciplinary measures against “offending students and faculty.”
“In other words, the facts as pled show that Harvard failed its Jewish students,” Stearns wrote.
Lawrence Summers, the former president of Harvard, noted the significance of Stearns’ Harvard ruling. “Very significant that a highly respected progressive federal judge… who dismissed the anti Semitism lawsuit against MIT has allowed the case against Harvard to proceed saying that ‘the facts as pled show that Harvard failed its Jewish students,’” Summers wrote on X.
Summers said that it remains to be seen how the Harvard Corporation, the university’s main governing body, will respond. “The challenge is before Harvard President Alan Garber. I hope, trust and expect he will move beyond the tepid and inadequate preliminary task force report,” he said of a six-page set of preliminary recommendations released in June by a university task force focused on combating antisemitism at the school. Several Jewish leaders told JI at the time that they were disappointed by the suggestions.
The lawsuit comes on the heels of a separate case, filed in January, that alleged Harvard violated Title VI. In May, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Right Under Law filed a federal lawsuit stating that since the Title VI complaint, “things have only gotten worse.”
Stearns wrote in Tuesday’s decision that the plaintiffs “plausibly establish that Harvard’s response failed Title VI’s commands.”
Kestenbaum expects there to be a deposition ahead of trial — as long as the university does not settle — and told JI that a date had not yet been set.
“People have often asked me, when looking at antisemitism on college campuses, if the golden age of American Jewry is over,” he said. “My answer is simple: not without a fight.”
Jewish leaders expressed skepticism that university officials will enforce the new rules

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Tents and signs fill Harvard Yard in the pro-Palestinian encampment at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on May 5, 2024.
Following months in which anti-Israel protests overwhelmed Harvard University’s campus, the school’s administration has drafted a new set of rules that would prohibit daytime and overnight camping, excessive noise, unapproved signage and chalk or paint displays on campus property, the elite college announced earlier this week in a draft document first obtained by the Harvard Crimson.
The six-page document, which was approved by Harvard’s Office of General Counsel and the Working Group on Campus Space, comes months after illegal anti-Israel student encampments overtook the campus for several weeks in the spring. Most of the policies outlined in the new document draw on existing Harvard policies that went largely unenforced last semester.
“Not only were most of these new policies not actually new, but have been repeatedly violated by students in an effort to harass Jews,” Shabbos Kestenbaum, a recent Harvard graduate who is suing the university over its handling of campus antisemitism, told Jewish Insider.
“These rules mean little when there is neither enforcement nor discipline for those breaking them,” said Kestenbaum, who spoke last month at the Republican National Convention about his experience with antisemitism on Harvard’s campus.
Former Harvard President Lawrence Summers, in a statement, echoed Kestenbaum’s skepticism that the school will enforce the new policies.
“These policies, like many that have been promulgated, are fine and reasonable,” Summers said. “The issue is that the university, over the last year, has consistently failed to act and impose sanctions when policies are violated and has been slow to implement policies on behalf of Jewish student groups. That is why it is subject to multiple federal government investigations and civil suits.”
The draft document, a copy of which has been obtained by JI, has not been finalized or broadly shared with the Harvard community. Jason Newton, a university spokesperson, emphasized to the Crimson that the university is still finishing writing the policies and the document is subject to change. “Once the document is finalized, it will be shared with the Harvard community,” he said.
The initial document says that it is designed to “foster the well-being of community members and to preserve these resources for future generations” and warns that violations of the policy could result in punishment.
According to the draft policy, students or groups that fail to comply with the campus use guidelines “may be held financially responsible for any resulting costs incurred and may be subject to other consequences for noncompliance, including referral for discipline.”
Shabbos Kestenbaum is suing Harvard over antisemitism on campus. 'The Democratic Party abandoned me," he says

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Harvard University graduate student Shabbos Kestenbaum testifies during a House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government hearing on antisemitism on college campuses at the Rayburn House Office Building on May 15, 2024 in Washington, DC. He is the only named plaintiff in the suit against Harvard.
MILWAUKEE — Four years ago, Shabbos Kestenbaum, a recent Harvard graduate who is suing the university over its handling of campus antisemitism, was a self-described progressive Democrat who voted for Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) and backed Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) for president.
Now, the 25-year-old is poised to take the stage tonight at the Republican National Convention here in Milwaukee, where he will recount the experiences of Jewish students at Harvard amid a sharp rise in antisemitic activity sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel and its war in Gaza, among other issues.
It’s a striking evolution for Kestenbaum, an Orthodox Jew from the Bronx neighborhood of Riverdale who graduated from Harvard Divinity School in May and has been outspoken in recent months against his alma mater as well as what he has criticized as his own party’s failure to counter antisemitism and maintain strong support for Israel.
But the decision to accept an invitation to speak at the RNC, he insisted, is more a reflection of what he has described as his alienation from a party he once viewed as a political home — rather than an explicit endorsement of former President Donald Trump’s GOP.
“As Ronald Reagan said, ‘I didn’t abandon the Democratic Party — the Democratic Party abandoned me,’” Kestenbaum told Jewish Insider on Wednesday in an interview outside the Fiserv Forum, the main convention hall, hours before his speech.
Kestenbaum explained that he still believes in “progressive policy,” referencing his support for a $15 minimum wage and universal health care. “But Israel’s a progressive issue,” he said. “It’s a bastion of liberalism in an unstable region, and I cannot understand why my party — the one I registered to vote with the day I turned 18 — has turned its back on this important ally.”
“Unfortunately, electoral politics is binary — one person will win and one person will lose,” he added. “But there should be some nuance, and there should be recognition from Republicans and Democrats alike that we need to work together to instill basic common-sense policies. Combating antisemitism is one of them.”
Kestenbaum declined to confirm which party he would support in November, even as the Trump campaign said in announcing his speech last week that he “will be voting for” the former president “for the first time this year.”
Instead, he told JI, “I will be supporting Donald Trump’s policies to tax university endowments, to expel students who violate our foreign visa policies and to instill patriotism in our school systems yet again,” using language from the newly approved GOP platform.
He also voiced approval of Trump’s handling of anti-Jewish discrimination while in office, saying his federal lawsuit against Harvard — filed with five other Jewish students — had been made possible thanks to the former president’s executive order calling on government departments enforcing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism.
“It’s because of his classification of Title VI that we’re able to proceed,” Kestenbaum said, noting that he next will be in court on July 24 for a hearing to address Harvard’s motion to dismiss the case.
During his time in Milwaukee, Kestenbaum said he has felt a “very strong connection with Jews and non-Jews alike, good, everyday Americans who’ve come up to me in the last day and a half I’ve been here and said, ‘We stand with the Jewish people — we’re praying for you guys.’ That’s incredible.”
“There was a remark last night that if someone were to mention the State of Israel at the RNC, there would be an applause,” he recalled of a speech by Matt Brooks, the CEO of the Republican Jewish Coalition. “If you mentioned the State of Israel at the DNC, there would probably be heckles and boos. That’s a very damning indictment on the state of my party.”
But even as he spoke positively of his experience at the convention, Kestenbaum — among a handful of current and former Jewish students addressing the crowd this week — expressed strong reservations about the GOP’s decision to give prominent placement to several speakers who have espoused antisemitic rhetoric, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Tucker Carlson.
“I think it’s important to have a big tent, but not a tent so big whereby it includes bigots, antisemites and those who sow division,” he said, arguing that Greene and Carlson, among others, “represent the worst aspects of our politics. They should have no place in the Republican Party, and they should have no place at the Republican Convention.”
For his part, Kestenbaum said he has faced severe criticism in recent days over his upcoming speech, including from within the Jewish community. “It’s very difficult,” he said. “I think people are assuming my politics. They’re saying things that I never said.”
His response: “If they want to criticize, fine,” he told JI. “But more importantly, join me in the fight to combat antisemitism on our college campuses.”
At the @GOPconvention, @ShabbosK: "Too often students at @Harvard are taught not how to think, but what to think. I found myself immersed in a culture that is anti-western, that is anti-American, and is antisemitic."
— Jewish Insider (@J_Insider) July 18, 2024
Read more: https://t.co/eHdudetyRq pic.twitter.com/CIvZs2RGZu
Led by Reps. Tim Walberg and Elise Stefanik, House members said they have ‘serious concerns regarding the inadequacy’ of the task force’s recommendations

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People walk through Harvard Yard at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts on December 12, 2023.
In a new letter to interim Harvard President Alan Garber sent on Monday, 28 Republican House members, led by Reps. Tim Walberg (R-MI) and Elise Stefanik (R-NY), said that the Harvard antisemitism task force’s recent preliminary recommendations on responding to campus antisemitism don’t go nearly far enough to address the situation on the campus.
The lawmakers said they have “serious concerns regarding the inadequacy” of the recommendations, which are “weaker, less detailed, and less comprehensive” than those presented by a previous task force in December 2023. Harvard Jewish leaders and alumni have said they’re disappointed by the recommendations, released in late June.
“Instead of offering a tangible plan to address antisemitism at Harvard, the task force’s most specific and actionable recommendations are to organize public talks on respectful dialogue and religious relations, increase the availability of hot kosher meals, and to circulate guidance about accommodating Jewish religious observance and a calendar of Jewish holidays,” the letter reads.
It calls the recommendations “particularly alarming given that Harvard’s leaders had already received a strong, detailed, and comprehensive set of recommendations” from the previous task force, arguing that the current group should have built on that framework.
The lawmakers said that Garber needs to “publicly address” criticisms of the task force from Jewish community members, adopt and begin to implement the recommendations from both task forces before the next semester and sever Harvard’s relationship with Birzeit University in the West Bank, whose student government and administration have expressed support for Hamas.
The letter states that the task force was correct to support disciplinary action and condemnation in response to the “serious problem with antisemitism” on Harvard’s campus but did not “offer real solutions for doing so.” It also accuses the task force of giving “insufficient attention” to Harvard’s “failures in imposing discipline for antisemitic misconduct.”
The lawmakers said that the task force “left numerous other significant issues wholly unaddressed,” such as academic programs that have seen significant issues with anti-Israel and antisemitic sentiment, student groups’ violations of Harvard rules, failures by Harvard’s Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging office to address antisemitism, falling Jewish enrollment, a lack of viewpoint diversity among faculty on the Middle East, masked protests and possible foreign influence.
They further said that the university “has a consistent practice of balancing statements and efforts regarding antisemitism with similar ones regarding Islamophobia and anti-Arab bias.”
“While hatred and discrimination against Muslims and Arabs is deplorable and must be addressed, there is simply no comparison between the explosion of pervasive antisemitism on Harvard’s campus and instances of Islamophobia or anti-Arab bias,” the Republicans continued. “These constant attempts at balancing serve to trivialize antisemitism and distract from the urgency and severity of the problem.”
Other signatories to the letter include Reps. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND), Jim Banks (R-IN), Aaron Bean (R-FL), Gus Bilirakis (R-FL), Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-OR), Anthony D’Esposito (D-NY), Randy Feenstra (R-IA), Russell Fry (R-SC), Lance Gooden (R-TX), Michael Guest (R-MS), Erin Houchin (R-IN), Ronny Jackson (R-TX), Nick LaLota (R-NY), Nick Langworthy (R-NY), Mike Lawler (R-NY), Mariannete Miller-Meeks (R-IA), Burgess Owens (R-UT), Keith Self (R-TX), Pete Sessions (R-TX), Jason Smith (R-MO), Lloyd Smucker (R-PA), Michelle Steel (R-CA), Claudia Tenney (R-NY), Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ), Randy Weber (R-TX) and Rudy Yakym (R-IN).
The Ivy League school diluted the punishment for anti-Israel activists who broke campus rules

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Tents and signs fill Harvard Yard in the pro-Palestinian encampment at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on May 5, 2024.
Harvard’s decision on Tuesday to reverse the suspensions of five students for participating in the illegal anti-Israel encampments earlier this year on the Cambridge, Mass., campus was met with “disappointment” by two leaders of Harvard’s Jewish community.
“I’m disappointed in this action. I’ve heard the phrase ‘no good deed goes unpunished’ but it seems in this case that no good deed goes unreversed,” Rabbi David Wolpe, a visiting scholar at Harvard’s Divinity School who stepped down from Harvard’s antisemitism advisory committee after a short stint, told Jewish Insider. “Punishment is a lesson — reversing it is a permission.”
Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi, who leads Chabad on Harvard’s campus, said the reversal was “revealing and deeply disturbing.” Zarchi added that it’s “sadly clear” the move will embolden anti-Israel demonstrators.
That may have already taken place, judging by a joint Instagram post from the Palestine Solidarity Committee, Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine and the African and African American Resistance Organization. “After sustained student and faculty organizing, Harvard has caved in, showing that student intifada will always prevail,” the groups wrote on Wednesday.
The suspensions and other disciplinary charges — which included the withholding of degrees for 13 seniors because of their involvement in the encampment — were initially announced in late May ahead of graduation. Hundreds of students and faculty members walked out of Harvard’s commencement ceremony in solidarity with the punished students.
According to the Harvard Crimson, the university informed students on Tuesday of their updated disciplinary charges, which saw the suspensions downgraded to probations of varying lengths and came as a result of the Faculty Council’s criticism of how the Harvard College Administrative Board dealt with the cases.
The most severe probation charge will last for just one semester, a drastic change from the initial punishments that required at least one student to withdraw from Harvard for three semesters. Some students who were initially placed on probation in May also had the length of their probations shortened.
A Harvard spokesperson told JI that the university does not comment on individual disciplinary cases. According to the policy outlined in the Harvard College Student Handbook, students in the disciplinary process who seek to challenge the outcome have two options: “reconsideration,” which is adjudicated by the administrative board and is for new and relevant information that was not initially made available; or “appeals,” which is adjudicated by the Faculty Council.
According to the handbook, “appeals” is for situations where the Administrative Board or Honor Council made a procedural error that may impact the disciplinary decision or when the punishment was determined to be inconsistent or inappropriate compared to past sanctions.
Wolpe, along with other Harvard Jewish leaders and alumni, expressed disappointment to JI last month as well, when a six-page set of preliminary recommendations released by the university task force focused on combating antisemitism at the school fell short of their expectations.
At the Aspen Ideas Festival, Summers pins blame for current antisemitism on the 'ideology' of the 'intersectional left'

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Former Harvard President Larry Summers, right, speaking on Thursday with Andrew Ross Sorkin at the Aspen Ideas Festival.
Between mini-lectures on monetary policy and the disruptive potential of artificial intelligence in a Thursday talk at the Aspen Ideas Festival, Larry Summers, the former Harvard president and Treasury secretary, offered a sweeping denunciation of higher education’s failure to take moral stances, particularly as antisemitism on American campuses has become widespread.
Summers offered this rebuke amid a monologue about the role of universities in taking positions on controversial issues, arguing that academics should be allowed to say what they want — even “offensively antisemitic things” — but that university leaders and their boards similarly have an obligation to respond, making clear that they reject such extreme views.
“Being brilliant is different from being wise,” Summers said, earning cheers from the audience. “I look at the dialogues that take place on many of these campuses, I see things like the virulent antisemitism professed by people who are really eminent scholars. I don’t agree with the Bill Ackman world that tends to think that because they’ve said some offensively antisemitic things they shouldn’t get to be great scholars. But I sure think universities should make clear that it, as an institution, doesn’t approve of what they’re saying, and it certainly isn’t going to allow them to speak for it.”
Instead, Summers added, he has seen the opposite. “I think there’s been an abdication of responsibility pretty universally on the part of university trustees to meet this responsibility, and I think ultimately they are the ultimate fiduciaries of these institutions, and I think for the most part they have failed,” said Summers.
He did not specifically name Harvard in those remarks, although he has at times sharply criticized the university’s handling of the campus climate after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in Israel that sparked a wave of antisemitism and fervent protests.
Summers’ comments came a day after Harvard released an interim report from its campus antisemitism committee with an early set of recommendations about how to improve the situation on campus. The report faced criticism from some in the Jewish community, including Harvard Chabad Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi, who said the document was “glaringly missing what is exposed and visible for all to see.”
Now an economics professor at Harvard, Summers agreed: “I did not object to anything that was in the antisemitism task force report,” he said. But he pointed out several items that he thought were conspicuously absent.
“I couldn’t help but notice that a component of Harvard has entered into a partnership with a West Bank university that supports terrorism and that was not referred to; that another component of Harvard has come pretty close to calling Israel war criminals on behalf to the university and that was not referenced in the task force; that fairly obvious inadequacies of discipline were not referenced in the task force,” said Summers, who said he would “measure my words” in discussing the report. “This was an interim report, and we have to hope that the return — that the performance will be much better on the final than it was on the midterm.”
New York Times columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin, who moderated the conversation with Summers, asked him why he thinks antisemitism has become so common on many campuses. Summers started with an acknowledgment that antisemitism is not a new phenomenon for universities — “there’s been 3,000 years of history of antisemitism, and antisemitism is an important part of the history of great universities in the United States” — but ultimately pointed the blame at leftist ideologies.
“I think in terms of understanding the current antisemitism, it is basically that whatever your intersectionality left ideology is, brown versus white, rich versus poor, European versus non-European, whatever it is, Israel has become the focus of it,” said Summers. “Those ideologies have come to have immense attractiveness on the left and on college campuses.”
Summers then suggested a point of introspection for those who “really and honestly think that human rights for Palestinians and opportunities for Palestinians are the central challenge of our time, so that they should be the defining thing of what’s happening at universities.”
“If you are a person who discourses at great length on that topic, and never mentions — never — either the injustices that are happening to other peoples, or the sins of others besides the Israelis with respect to the Palestinians,” said Summers, “I have to say that your motives are deeply, deeply suspect and that is a comment on many, many people on our college campuses, including some who lead them.”
The role of great institutions of higher education, Summers argued, is to create space for big conversations and future leaders, rather than setting the agenda for them.
“It is enough to provide the intellectual frameworks for all the people who are gonna lead society, and to be a major source of ideas and concepts going forward on everything from gender roles to radioactivity. We should do that and not try to argue about, This is more socially just than the other thing,” Summers said. He avoided mentioning other campuses directly, but he took an indirect jab at Maurie McInnis, the newly appointed president of Yale, and an email she sent to the Yale community after her appointment was announced in May.
“One of America’s great universities just appointed a new president who, in an opening statement, said something about how we should all be the change we want to see to bring about a better world,” Summers said. “I thought it was a fundamental misapprehension of the purpose of a great university.”
The preliminary suggestions were divided into six areas: clarify Harvard’s values; act against discrimination, bullying, harassment and hate; improve disciplinary processes; implement education and training; foster constructive dialogue; and support Jewish life on campus

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People walk through Harvard Yard at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts on December 12, 2023.
A six-page set of preliminary recommendations released on Wednesday by a Harvard University task force focused on combating antisemitism at the school falls short of expectations set by Jewish faculty, alumni and a member of the school’s previous antisemitism advisory group who spoke to Jewish Insider shortly after the document’s release.
The recommendations in Wednesday’s report included ones that could immediately be put into action, such as marking pork products in dining facilities and creating a webpage on the school’s site to provide information on Jewish holidays for university community members. The report also urged the implementation of two long-term actions: “the administration should institute anti-harassment training for all students” and for teaching fellows, “antisemitism and anti-Israeli bias need to be included in training for these essential employees.”
The suggestions, which interim President Alan Garber is expected to review, were divided into six areas: clarify Harvard’s values; act against discrimination, bullying, harassment and hate; improve disciplinary processes; implement education and training; foster constructive dialogue; and support Jewish life on campus.
The document lacks “comments about hiring faculty, interim and full-time, about rethinking DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] and ensuring sanctions against those who have called for violence,” Rabbi David Wolpe, a former member of a separate antisemitism advisory group that the elite university formed last year amid an academic year marked by strife for Jewish students, told JI.
Wolpe added that the recommendations are missing “[affirmation that Zionism is a] legitimate and even praiseworthy ideal.”
Harvard Jewish leaders and alumni echoed Wolpe’s dissatisfaction with the preliminary recommendations.
“None of this addresses the pervasive and systemic nature of antisemitism … I’m incredibly disappointed and frustrated,” Shabbos Kestenbaum, who graduated in the spring with a master’s degree from Harvard Divinity School, told JI. Kestenbaum called the report “a slap in the face.”
“There’s nothing in here about the hiring and firing of faculty members, nothing in here about examining the pernicious and dangerous role that diversity, equity and inclusion has played in antisemitism, there are no recommendations or even a mention of security at Harvard Chabad and Hillel,” Kestenbaum, who in March spoke to a roundtable organized by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce about the antisemitism he experienced on Harvard’s campus, said. “Of the more concrete policy recommendations, those were just obvious and had been stated months ago by students themselves and by Congress,” he said.
Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi, who leads Harvard Chabad, said that the recommendations are “glaringly missing what is exposed and visible for all to see.”
On X, Zarchi cited several examples, noting that the school “still employs deans and faculty who brazenly and defiantly violate university code of conduct and incite students to do the same” and “Harvard maintains an official academic relationship with Birzeit University. Besides the fact that I don’t believe there’s a university in Israel that Harvard has a similar relationship with, this particular institution’s student government (among other entities there) supports Hamas. This makes the relationship not only immoral but likely illegal.”
The list of recommendations, which resulted from dozens of listening sessions, according to the task force, primarily featured suggestions that focus on short-term actionable items rather than long-term structural changes. The group said it would release a list of long-term measures in the fall, which could include “a detailed analysis of how Harvard got into its current crisis of community and lay out proposals to transform our University culture for the better over the medium- and long-term.”
Kestenbaum emphasized that the antisemitism task force “was not elected and does not speak for Jewish students.” The task force came under scrutiny immediately after it was formed in January for naming professor Derek Penslar, a historian and the director of Harvard’s Center for Jewish Studies, as co-chair. Penslar’s appointment drew the ire of Jewish communal leaders and prominent figures at Harvard over comments he made earlier this year minimizing concerns over antisemitism at Harvard, and for past statements he has made about Israel, including signing a letter in August that accused Israel of ethnic cleansing and of implementing “a regime of apartheid” against Palestinians. Penslar stepped down as co-chair in February.
The task force — aimed at cracking down on the antisemitism that has dramatically increased on the Ivy League campus since the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks in Israel — was established on the heels of an antisemitism advisory group created by then-President Claudine Gay in November. The advisory group featured prominent outside members, including writer Dara Horn and Wolpe, who stepped down after Gay’s widely criticized Capitol Hill testimony in December.
Also on Wednesday, the committee formed to support Harvard’s Muslim, Arab and Palestinian communities released a nine-page set of preliminary recommendations to combat Islamophobia on campus.
Israeli students who spent the year on U.S. campuses describe it as toxic, warning future Israeli academic fellows, doctoral and postdoctoral students to stay home

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Students at Columbia University have a demonstration near Gaza Solidarity Encampment on April 25, 2024 in New York City.
It was meant to be the most exciting year of her life, but for Amit, an Israeli student now wrapping up a yearlong fellowship at Columbia University, it was an experience that she described as “toxic” and one that she would not recommend to future applicants from her country.
“We were supposed to be these very prestigious students that the university is happy to have, they even gave me a big scholarship and so theoretically my program should have been very proud to have me,” Amit, who asked that her real name not be used for fear of retribution from the department and faculty assessing her final research paper, told Jewish Insider. “But it has not been a good experience at all, and if another Israeli applicant came to me to ask if they should do this, I would tell them not to.”
A graduate student in the School of Arts and Science at the Ivy League college that has been an epicenter of anti-Israel activity since the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks, Amit said the negative experience stemmed from “a whole dynamic of covert and overt situations.”
Those situations have ranged from threatening demonstrations on campus to hostile and ignorant peers to faculty who essentially erased her and her experience as an Israeli. Now that the year is over, Amit said, “I feel like the acid is leaving my system, it was just so toxic, and I am very disappointed.”
Amit is one of hundreds of Israeli students who traveled to the U.S. in the last year to enrich their academic knowledge and enhance their professional skills, but who found themselves the targets of fierce anti-Israel activists, as Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza played out.
Beginning on Oct. 7, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists invaded Israel from the Palestinian enclave, murdering, raping and taking hostage hundreds of people, mostly civilians, and through to the hostile anti-Israel encampments that sprung up on campuses during the spring semester, many Israelis studying in the U.S. have experienced both the pain of the attacks and the negative climate on campus.
Experiences like that of Amit, who told JI that she felt “canceled” by the director of her department and had been denied the chance to engage in open dialogue with those attacking Israel, and her, have cast a dark shadow — especially over high-level programs — giving pause to future Israeli fellows, doctoral and postdoctoral students who are considering studying in the U.S.
“I really hope that what we’ve been seeing on social media is an exaggeration,” Yana, an Israeli who is heading to the Harvard Kennedy School of Government this summer on an Israeli Policy Fellowship, told JI. She also asked that her real name not be used out of concern that it could impact her experience.
“I feel confident that the majority of the people I meet there will see me face to face and maybe we’ll have tough and challenging conversations, but I’m pretty sure that I will at least be able to talk to them,” she said, admitting that as much as she is excited about the program, she is also nervous.
“I haven’t done all the things I did to get accepted in order to be low-profile or hide at the side of the road,” said Yana, an Israeli who is heading to the Harvard Kennedy School of Government this summer on an Israeli Policy Fellowship. “It’s very easy for Israelis to say, ‘This is too hard, they hate us, they are all antisemites, so we are letting go of these platforms,’ but I think we have to keep making efforts to convince Israelis that these programs are important, they are important for us now and important for our future.”
“I hope that when I say I served in the IDF, people will not cancel me, but I’m not sure,” Yana continued, describing how she has already been deliberating whether she should stay away from studying subjects that might cause friction.
“I hope it won’t be like that, but I am still being cautious,” she said, pondering how free she will be to express herself and how her future professors might respond.
Yana said that studying at an Ivy League college in the U.S. was a long-term dream, but that she has also received a mixed response from family and friends in Israel.
“Two years ago, even one year ago, people would have been so proud of me for being accepted to Harvard,” she recounted. “But even while I was going through the application process, I got a lot of criticism. My closest friends were not pleased about it and my father was really angry with me. He said, ‘You’re going to pay them so much money and they’re against you – why would you do that?’ He did not understand why I wanted to go there.”
Her family and friends also expressed concerns for her safety on a campus that has become increasingly hostile to Jews, and Israelis in particular, she said.
“As an outspoken Israeli student who supports my country, over time, I had to deal with a level of social isolation,” said Barak Sella, who recently completed the mid-career Masters Degree in Public Administration at Harvard’s Kennedy School. “This wasn’t from antisemitism but mainly because most people just wanted to avoid the conversation.”
But, Yana added, that she would not be deterred by the anti-Israel and antisemitic rhetoric.
“I haven’t done all the things I did to get accepted in order to be low-profile or hide at the side of the road,” she said, adding, “It’s very easy for Israelis to say, ‘This is too hard, they hate us, they are all antisemites, so we are letting go of these platforms,’ but I think we have to keep making efforts to convince Israelis that these programs are important, they are important for us now and important for our future.”
Barak Sella, who recently completed the mid-career Masters Degree in Public Administration, also at Harvard’s Kennedy School, similarly described his experience as toxic.
“I went to Harvard to experience an international cohort and expand my network and intellectual horizons,” Sella, previously the executive director for the Reut Institute, an Israeli strategy and leadership think tank, told JI. “I aimed to gain skills and insights that would help enhance my leadership skills and impact within Israeli society.”
While he described his American campus experience up until Oct. 7 as “fantastic,” as one of around 20 Israelis in a program of some 200 students, Sella said it soon became very difficult.
“There were many sessions and protests against Israel, and being visibly Israeli was a burden,” he said, describing how the debate over Israel, its actions, and its right to exist ended up permeating into every subject – even topics that were totally unrelated to the Middle East.
Whenever he tried to speak up and defend Israel, Sella said, “I was rudely shut down.”
“As an outspoken Israeli student who supports my country, over time, I had to deal with a level of social isolation,” he continued. “This wasn’t from antisemitism but mainly because most people just wanted to avoid the conversation.”
“Most students at Harvard are not antisemitic or anti-Israel – that is just a loud but small minority – the majority of students are thoughtful and moderate people who are interested in creating relations with Israeli students,” Sella added.
While the protests were noisy, Sella said the main problem with them was that they “see Israeli identity as illegitimate … that is why Israelis must continue to apply and participate in these programs.”
“We just can’t give in to this type of behavior,” he emphasized. “We need to double down and ensure a solid and high-quality Israeli presence on campuses.”
While a new batch of Israeli students is set to arrive in the U.S. over the summer, some prestigious programs – and donors supporting these programs – have already been impacted by antisemitic and anti-Israel activities on campus and the failure by some schools to confront it.
In October, the Wexner Foundation abruptly announced the end of a 30-year relationship with Harvard and its Kennedy School, citing the university’s failure to condemn Hamas’ barbaric attacks on Israel. Its statement described an environment in which Israeli students – emerging leaders there to study a mid-career master’s degree and forge important relationships with other local and international fellows – were increasingly being marginalized.
Elad Arad, an Israeli studying for a post-doctorate in chemical engineering at Columbia, said it was critical for Israelis to remain present at top U.S. academic institutions, not only to act as ambassadors for their country, which is feeling more and more isolated, but also to ensure the future of Israeli academia and research, particularly in the field of science.
Not having the opportunity to study abroad, he noted, would contribute to a reduction in academic levels within Israel’s higher education system.
“No one will give me a faculty position without having a postdoc from an Ivy League institution or a well-known institution or university,” Arad said, explaining, “I need to be here for two reasons, the first is prestige and the second that it is much easier to get my [research] work published and make an impact, if it is coming out of a place like these universities.”
He said he had heard about other postdoctoral students rethinking the option of studying abroad, deciding that it might be best to wait until the war ends or to study in Europe, instead of the U.S.
“The main problem is that many of the postdocs already here are afraid to go back to Israel because they think that from there, they will not be able to publish any papers at all and that will end their academic career,” Arad said, adding that could have an impact not only the future of Israeli academia but also on its thriving innovation sector.
Sender Cohen, chairman of the board of the Fulbright Fellowship in Israel, told JI that all these programs were “critically important because they build academic bridges,” in both the short and long term across disciplines.
“It would be heartbreaking for Israelis to miss the opportunity to study in the U.S. and for American universities to lose the intellectual contribution that Israelis offer. We just cannot let that happen,” Professor David Schizer, who served as the dean of Columbia’s Law School from 2004-2014, told JI. “I recognize that some Israelis may be hesitant to come to the U.S., but I would encourage them to come.”
“History has shown that a lot of the Fulbrighters have gone on to great things in universities or in government or in research institutions, and they utilize the relationships formed on the program,” he said.
“For example, those who go to military colleges, the officers get to know each other and then they become generals, they build personal relationships,” Cohen added. “It’s the same with the Fulbright fellows, you have all these brilliant academics spending time together in these departments and then they might end up leading research or becoming the president of a university or even a secretary of education.”
Professor David Schizer, who served as the dean of Columbia’s Law School from 2004-2014, told JI that “it would be heartbreaking for Israelis to miss the opportunity to study in the U.S. and for American universities to lose the intellectual contribution that Israelis offer.”
“We just cannot let that happen,” Schizer, who is now a co-chair of the university’s task force on antisemitism, said. “I recognize that some Israelis may be hesitant to come to the U.S., but I would encourage them to come.”
He said that American universities, including Columbia, needed to be doing much more to ensure that Israeli students feel “safe and welcome on their campuses.”
“Unfortunately, it has been a difficult year,” Schizer explained. “There have been a number of absolutely unacceptable instances in which Israeli students have experienced discrimination based only on their country of origin, and that problem has to be fixed.”
“Israeli students are enormously valuable as members of the Columbia community,” he said, referring to his own institution. “It’s critical that the university ensures that they have the excellent experience that they deserve.”
Schizer, who lectures in law and economics, said that this was not only “a moral obligation because Columbia is committed to the idea of not discriminating based on national origin,” but also a legal one.
Under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, “universities that accept federal funding are not allowed to discriminate based on race, color, or national origin,” he said. “Israeli students are entitled to the same experience that any other student is entitled to have.”
Both Schizer and Cohen said there are some efforts underway to address the toxic experiences Israeli students described from the last academic year.
At Columbia, Schizer said the antisemitism task force had put together a list of recommendations for university’s leadership, including suggestions that future anti-Israel protests be contained to “a designated part of campus,” and that it “enforces its own rules more effectively.”
“We looked into why the university has, at times, failed to enforce its own rules,” he said. “We found that in most cases it was because the bureaucracy at the university was not trained to deal with a situation like the one we had and was not properly prepared, perhaps they didn’t even recognize that times have changed.”
“It can’t be solved overnight, it’s like turning a supertanker,” said Cohen, noting that some major university donors, both Jewish and non-Jewish, are “pulling back in a way that is having an effect.”
He said he believed that some schools, where Israeli and Jewish students were particularly mistreated, would likely see their funding cut, while other universities and individual departments might see their funding increase.
“I’m not actually too worried about it for the long term because at a lot of these universities, the actual people who are in charge, are pragmatic centrists,” Cohen said. “And, I think, everyone realizes there’s a problem.”
‘Maybe there’ll be some changes in the schools we’ve highlighted. But even there, I don’t expect a lot,’ Foxx said

Michael A. McCoy/Getty Images
Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) speaks at a hearing called "Calling for Accountability: Stopping Antisemitic College Chaos" before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce on Capitol Hill on May 23, 2024 in Washington, DC.
Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) said she has low expectations, even after a series of high-profile hearings with university presidents on antisemitism on college campuses, that university leaders will make significant changes to their responses to antisemitism on campus.
Asked what might happen on college campuses if the executive branch changes hands after the November election, Foxx, who chairs the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, largely predicted that the status quo will continue.
“I’m a little skeptical of whether the presidents of many of these institutions will take any different kinds of action than what they’re taking now,” she said, speaking on Monday at the American Enterprise Institute. “I think they’ll rant and rave, I think they’ll scream things like ‘academic freedom,’ I think they’ll say, ‘But look over here at these other kinds of things.’”
“I’d like to believe that as a result of what we’ve done already, you’re going to see major changes on campus,” Foxx continued. “I’d like to see that happen. Maybe there’ll be some changes in the schools we’ve highlighted. But even there, I don’t expect a lot.”
Foxx said one of the “most frustrating” revelations from the hearings was that there is an unclear structure of accountability and responsibility within campus administrations for responding to incidents of antisemitism.
But she said she’s hopeful that at the very least, schools will work to implement better conduct codes, as Northwestern University’s president said his school would at a recent hearing. She said she wants to see clearer “lines of responsibility” and punishments for faculty, staff and students involved in antisemitic activity.
She said that the issue of tax-exempt status for colleges is largely outside of her committee’s jurisdiction but that it’s being examined by Congress.
She said she’s also had discussions with former President Donald Trump during which they’ve shared the belief that the federal government should not be involved in education “at all.”
It’s not clear what that approach might mean for federal enforcement of anti-discrimination provisions in education.
The Education Committee chair dismissed calls from Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona and House Democrats for additional funding for the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, arguing that, particularly in the case of Harvard, the committee had already done the department’s work for it.
“This should have been at the top of their list, they should have gotten to it immediately,” Foxx said, referring to enforcement action by the department against Harvard.
According to Cardona, each investigator in the office has been handling 50 cases, given the surge in discrimination complaints since Oct. 7.
Foxx, highlighting the committee’s report on Harvard’s antisemitism task force, largely decried such advisory boards as lacking substance, claiming schools rarely actually respond to such committees’ recommendations.

Anthony Behar/Sipa USA via AP Images
Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) seen removing his colored hood from Harvard University as a sign of protest against their policies concerning the ongoing Israel-Palestinian war during the commencement ceremony for 2024 Yeshiva University graduating class, at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center's Louse Armstrong Stadium, Flushing Meadow-Corona Park, Queens, NY, May 29, 2024.
Good Thursday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff we report on Israel’s move to seize the Philadelphi Corridor, investigate the increasingly hostile environment Jewish therapists are facing after Oct. 7, and cover Sen. John Fetterman’s renunciation of Harvard at the Yeshiva University commencement yesterday. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Sen. Gary Peters, Virginia State Sen. John McGuire and new Yale President Maurie McInnis.
The Israeli army has taken full control of the Philadelphi Corridor, the strategic pathway that runs along Gaza’s southern border with Egypt, it announced yesterday evening.
In a press conference, IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said the route had served as an “oxygen pipeline” for Hamas to smuggle weapons into the Strip. He also said that the Iranian-backed terror group had exploited the corridor’s proximity to Egypt to store its weapons, including rocket launch sites. IDF troops operating in the area in recent weeks discovered dozens of Hamas’ launch sites used as recently as last week to fire projectiles into Israel and at least 20 tunnels, as well as tunnel shafts, located a few feet from the Egyptian border, Hagari explained.
IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi carried out an operational assessment along the corridor on Wednesday, telling troops that the military operation in Rafah, which sits adjacent to the border, was essential to “dismantle the Rafah Brigade.”
Among the tunnel shafts discovered in the area of Rafah in recent days, the army said, was a mile-long tunnel not far from the border crossing into Egypt. The tunnel, which was destroyed by combat and engineering units, contained dozens of anti-tank missiles and a large quantity of weapons.
Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) and the Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy, told Jewish Insider’s Ruth Marks Eglash that controlling the corridor weakened Hamas militarily and economically, both above and below ground.
“The infrastructure that exists beneath the corridor of active smuggling tunnels is used by Hamas for smuggling weapons, munitions, money, people and explosives into Gaza,” Michael said. “By disconnecting them from these tunnels, by dismantling them and destroying them, Hamas will have difficulty restocking.”
The Rafah border crossing also sits along the corridor and was used by Hamas as a source of income, Michael explained. “Hamas received a lot of money from controlling the Rafah crossing, they took customs and taxes and they also used the crossing as another smuggling platform,” he said.
“Disconnecting Hamas from the tunnels and the crossing weakens them dramatically militarily and economically, and also vis-à-vis the population,” he continued. “Hamas leaders are sitting in their tunnels and understand they are close to losing their sovereignty over the Gaza Strip and that might make them more willing to make concessions to reach a deal over releasing the hostages.”
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said during a briefing with reporters on Wednesday that the IDF had briefed the administration on its plans for Rafah, including “moving along that corridor and out of the city proper to put pressure on Hamas in the city. He said that Israel’s control of the 8.6-mile buffer zone along the border was consistent with the “limited” ground operation President Joe Biden’s team had already been briefed on.
“I can’t confirm whether they seized the corridor or not, but I can tell you that their movements along the corridor did not come as a surprise to us and was in keeping with what we understood their plan to be — to go after Hamas in a targeted, limited way, not a concentrated way,” Kirby told reporters.
U.S. Deputy Ambassador to the U.N. Robert Woodtold reporters yesterday that a new U.N. resolution proposed by Algeria to stop Israel’s operation in Rafah “is not going to be helpful.” The draft resolution calls for the opening of all border crossings and demands an immediate cease-fire and the release of all the hostages. Wood said that “another resolution is not necessarily going to change anything on the ground.”
While the movesteers clear of U.S. red lines, it could exacerbate tensions between Israel and Egypt, which is performing a delicate act as a mediator in the war, and has charged that increasing Israeli troops in the border area would be a breach of the peace treaty between the two countries.
An understanding must be reached between Israel and Egypt to prevent Hamas from regaining control of the area in the future and a sophisticated barrier, similar to that which exists between Israel and Gaza preventing the digging of more tunnels, must be erected, Michael said.
bad therapy
‘Opposite of inclusive’: A look inside the increasingly hostile environment for Jewish therapists

When someone posted in a private Facebook group for Chicago therapists in March, asking whether anyone would be willing to work with a Zionist client, several Jewish therapists quickly responded, saying they would be happy to be connected to this person. What happened next sparked fear and outrage among Jewish therapists in Chicago and across the country, and illuminated the atmosphere of intimidation and harassment faced by many Jews in the mental health world who won’t disavow Zionism. Those who replied soon found themselves added to a list of supposedly Zionist therapists that was shared in another local group as a resource, so that other professionals could avoid working with them. The only trait shared by the 26 therapists on the list is that they are Jewish, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
No compassion: The anti-Zionist blacklist is the most extreme example of an anti-Israel wave that has swept the mental health field since the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks and the resulting war in Gaza, which has seen the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians. More than a dozen Jewish therapists from across the country who spoke to JI described a profession ostensibly rooted in compassion, understanding and sensitivity that has too often dropped those values when it comes to Jewish and Israeli providers and clients.
Crisis mode: “We all worried that it could get this bad, but I don’t think any of us were actually expecting it to happen,” said Halina Brooke, a licensed professional counselor in Phoenix. Four years ago, she created an organization called the Jewish Therapist Collective to build community among Jewish professionals and raise the alarm about an undercurrent of antisemitism in the field. “Once Oct. 7 hit, we’ve all been in crisis mode since literally that morning, and the stories that have come in from colleagues and about their clients have been horrifying.”
Read JI’s full investigation into antisemitism in the mental health profession here.
Bonus: The Illinois body that licenses therapists has filed a formal complaint against Heba Ibrahim Joudeh, the author of the Zionist blacklist, alleging that the creation of the list violates state anti-discrimination laws as well as professional codes of ethics and standards of practice, according to a copy of the complaint obtained by JI. The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation “prays” that Ibrahim Joudeh has her counseling license “revoked, suspended or otherwise disciplined.” A preliminary hearing on the case is scheduled for June 17.