Brown University trustees vote against Israel divestment 

Brown University trustees, known as the Brown Corporation, voted on Tuesday night against divesting from nearly a dozen companies with ties to Israel, in a rebuke to students who have been pushing for boycott measures in protest of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.

The vote, which was held during a special convening ahead of the regularly scheduled meeting slated for Oct. 17, made Brown one of the first major research universities to vote on a proposal to boycott companies with ties to the Jewish state. (At most other universities, the resolutions have been voted on only by student governments.) It did so as part of an April agreement between Brown University President Christina Paxson and members of the Brown Divest Coalition to take down an anti-Israel encampment that was set up on the campus’ Main Green for six days. One of the students’ central demands was a divestment vote. 

The Brown Corporation held the vote by secret ballot “so that no members felt pressure to conform to a majority view,” a spokesperson told Jewish Insider. Results were not made public until Wednesday. 

The vote totals are not known by members of the Corporation or the chancellor, president or University administration in general — only that a majority of the Corporation as a body voted to support Brown’s Advisory Committee on University Resources Management’s recommendation on the question of divestment, the spokesperson said, adding that Brown “always releases only final decisions regarding votes on Corporation business, not vote totals, regardless of the item of business.” The spokesperson said that “the timing of the vote was guided by a number of factors, including the very high interest from members of our community to both see the advisory committee report and learn the Corporation’s decision.” 

The resolution called for Brown to divest from 10 companies with ties to Israel: Northrop Grumman, RTX Corporation (formerly Raytheon), Airbus, Volvo Group, Boeing, General Dynamics, General Electric, Motorola Solutions, Textron Corporation and Safariland.

In a letter on Wednesday, Paxson and Brown University Chancellor Brian Moynihan wrote to the campus that “Brown’s exposure to the 10 companies identified in the divestment proposal is de minimis, that Brown has no direct investments in any of the companies targeted for divestment and that any indirect exposure for Brown in these companies is so small that it could not be directly responsible for social harm … These findings alone are sufficient reason to support ACURM’s recommendation” against divestment.

“ACURM’s analysis shows that, based on data from June 30, 2023, Brown’s indirect investments in the 10 companies represent only 0.009% (i.e., nine-thousandths of one percent) of their aggregate market value,” Paxson and Moynihan wrote. 

Leading up to the vote, Brown University leaders faced significant pushback — including the resignation of one Brown trustee, Joseph Edelman, the CEO of the hedge fund Perceptive Advisors, who condemned the Corporation’s “stunning failure of moral leadership.” 

Rabbi Josh Bolton, executive director of Brown Hillel, told JI ahead of the vote that “even if divestment is voted down,” the fact that it reached the university’s board “is still a win to some certain extent” for anti-Israel groups and “makes being Jewish and Zionist a liability in terms of full participation in campus life, freedom of expression in the classroom and social relationships between students.”

Ann Arbor police, University of Michigan probing suspected ‘bias-motivated assault’ of Jewish student

A Jewish student at the University of Michigan was attacked early Sunday morning in what the Ann Arbor Police Department described as “a bias-motivated assault.” 

The 19-year-old student, who has requested that his identity not be disclosed, was walking near campus and in proximity to the Jewish Resource Center on Hill Street, at approximately 12:45 a.m. when a group of unknown males approached from behind and asked if he was Jewish, according to a police report. When the victim replied yes, the suspects reportedly proceeded to assault him. The suspects then fled the area on foot. The victim suffered minor injuries and did not require hospitalization.

The Anti-Defamation League announced it will offer a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the suspects. “ADL is horrified to learn of an alleged antisemitic assault on a Jewish UMich student,” the group’s CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, tweeted. 

Rabbi Davey Rosen, CEO of the University of Michigan Hillel, told Jewish Insider that Hillel staff met on Monday morning with detectives from the Ann Arbor Police Department (AAPD) and is convening a joint meeting Monday afternoon with AAPD, the University of Michigan Police Department and additional Jewish organizations on campus and in Ann Arbor.

“These meetings follow recent antisemitic incidents that have targeted Jewish students and the Hillel community,” Rosen said. 

Based on the rise of antisemitic incidents last year around Michigan’s campus, Michigan Hillel increased its security presence at its facility before the new academic year began. The added security measures, Rosen said, include “organizing walking groups and ride shares for students who do not feel safe traveling alone” and “encouraging students to reach out to the Hillel team for support and to report any concerns or incidents to the University Dean of Students office.” 

“We take bias-motivated crimes very seriously and have assigned this incident to our hate crimes detective,” the AAPD said in a statement, adding that the department is asking for tips as there is currently “limited information on the suspects.” 

AAPD Chief Andre Anderson said in a statement that the department has talked to the University of Michigan police staff, “and our goal is to discuss safety over the next few weeks.”

“There is absolutely no place for hate or ethnic intimidation in the City of Ann Arbor,” Anderson said. “We are committed to vigorously investigating this and other hate-motivated incidents and will work with the County Prosecutor’s office to aggressively prosecute those who are responsible.” 

In a campus-wide letter on Monday, the university’s president, Santa Ono, condemned the incident. “Antisemitism is in direct conflict with the university’s deeply held values of safety, respect and inclusion and has no place within our community,” Ono said.  

Antisemitism and anti-Israel activity has roiled the University of Michigan campus repeatedly since the start of the Israel-Hamas war. In June, the exterior of the university’s Board of Regents member Jordan Acker’s law office was vandalized overnight with the phrases “FREE PALESTINE,” “DIVEST NOW,” “FUCK YOU ACKER” and “UM KILLS” scrawled on the walls, walkway and front window. The incident was the second time since Oct. 7 that Acker, who is Jewish, has been targeted by anti-Israel demonstrators. 

Last week, nine anti-Israel demonstrators and two counter protesters were charged for their involvement in incidents relating to anti-Israel protest encampments that sprung up on the university in the spring.

University of Illinois reaches agreements to protect Jewish students, resolving antisemitism probe

The new school year is bringing fresh protections for Jewish students at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, following the administration’s announcement on Tuesday that its nondiscrimination policy will now extend to harassment or discrimination based on Jewish students’ connections to Israel and Zionism.

The guidelines are part of a new agreement with Hillel International, Illini Hillel and the Jewish United Fund, Chicago’s federation, and it comes as several elite universities have received criticism for a lack of transparency about specific messaging as to what university policies are and how they are going to be enforced.

Under the agreement, announced on Tuesday, the University of Illinois declared that the protections offered by the university’s nondiscrimination policy extend to harassment or discrimination of Jewish students, including harassment or discrimination based on Jewish students’ connections to Israel and Zionism. 

UIUC published a set of examples, for the first time, of discrimination and harassment of protected classes as part of its nondiscrimination policy. 

The examples include the use of antisemitic slurs and stereotypes, blaming a Jewish student for Israel’s policies, physical contact with an individual and derogatory or hostile messages on social media.  

In 2020, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and the law firm of Arnold & Porter filed a Title VI complaint on behalf of University of Illinois Jewish students who alleged antisemitism on campus. Also on Tuesday, a resolution agreement issued by the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) was reached. 

Catherine Lhamon, assistant secretary for civil rights at the Department of Education, said that UIUC “has now agreed to take the steps necessary to ensure its education community can learn, teach, and work without an unredressed antisemitic hostile environment, or any other hostility related to stereotypes about shared ancestry.” 

Lonnie Nasatir, president of JUF, told Jewish Insider that “the terms in this settlement are the best achieved across the country and will have a significant positive impact on the campus climate for Jewish students.” 

Additionally, the university agreed to publish a summary report of bias incidents every month, commit to mandatory antisemitism training for administrators and students and hire an expert on campus antisemitism to enhance the university policies. 

The agreement does not include implementation of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism, a definition that mainstream Jewish groups and congressional leaders have called for universities to adopt as schools confront antisemitism on campus. . 

In a statement, Robert Jones, UIUC’s chancellor, said that the university is “deeply committed to implementing the Mutual Understandings we are announcing today and to working together to provide a safe and supportive educational environment for our entire Jewish student community and for all students at Illinois.”

Erez Cohen, executive director at Illini Hillel, said in a separate statement that Hillel will “work alongside UIUC during the implementation of their new policies and to help reaffirm their promise to protect the rights of Jewish students on campus.”

While antisemitism on campuses has skyrocketed since the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks and the subsequent war in Gaza, the university’s agreement with Jewish groups had already been in discussion for several years. An OCR investigation from 2015 through December 2023 found 135 allegations of anti-Jewish discrimination (compared to four related to anti-Muslim, anti-Palestinian or anti-Arab discrimination). Incidents in the OCR investigation include flyers distributed around campus via plastic bags containing rocks stating, “Every single aspect of the Covid agenda is Jewish” and a student throwing a rock toward an event at the Hillel Center.

Brandeis Center President Alyza Lewin said in a statement that “UIUC’s administration began engaging in meaningful discussions with the Jewish community about how to address antisemitism on campus after we filed our OCR complaint years ago.” 

Lewin called the agreement “a significant milestone,” adding that it will “when implemented, improve the campus climate for Jewish students.”

University of Maryland reverses decision to allow Oct. 7 anti-Israel protest on campus

Following pressure from Jewish groups at the University of Maryland, the administration reversed course on Sunday and canceled an anti-Israel rally slated for the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks. 

But the policy reversal was met with mixed reactions from Jewish leaders on the College Park campus, who simultaneously applauded the decision while also “requesting a more complete response” from the university — especially a better understanding of “how to identify antisemitism.”  

UMD initially granted the campus group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) a permit last month to hold the Oct. 7 demonstration on the campus’s central McKeldin Mall, prompting swift backlash and calls from campus groups including Hillel and the Jewish Student Union — and from former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, who’s running for the Senate — for the school to reverse course. 

On Sunday, in a letter from university President Darryll Pines, the university announced it had canceled the event. Pines wrote that the decision was made following a “safety assessment,” which, he added, did not identify any threats to the campus. He did not, however, specifically address the Jewish community, which has faced unprecedented levels of antisemitism on college campuses nationwide — often related to SJP demonstrations — since Oct. 7.  

“Given the overwhelming outreach, from multiple perspectives, I requested a routine targeted safety assessment for this day to understand the risks and safety measures associated with planned events,” Pines wrote. “UMPD [University of Maryland Police Department] has assured me that there is no immediate or active threat to prompt this assessment, but the assessment is a prudent and preventive measure that will assist us to keep our safety at the forefront.”

“Jointly, out of an abundance of caution, we concluded to host only university-sponsored events that promote reflection on this day,” he continued, adding that “all other expressive events” will be held prior to Oct. 7 and permitted to continue on Oct. 8. 

The decision from Pines came following a letter, signed by tens of thousands of members and allies of the broader University of Maryland Jewish community, co-authored by Gilad Chen, an associate dean for research in UMD’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, and a parent of a sophomore at the university. On Monday, Chen co-penned a follow-up letter, addressed to Pines and Chancellor Jay Perman, expressing several concerns regarding the statement that canceled the SJP event.

“While we were relieved to learn yesterday that UMD will not allow SJP to rally on our campus on October 7, we respectfully request a more complete response to our letter from last Friday,” Chen wrote. The letter goes on to claim that Pines’ statement shows an “apparent lack of understanding by UMD regarding Jewish identity and how to identify antisemitism.” 

The letter also states that UMD is lacking in “clear guidelines for the UMD community at large as to what actions and speech contribute to a hostile environment for the Jewish community on campus,” as well as “enforceable policies and procedures for protecting the Jewish community from hate and a hostile environment on the UMD campus.” 

Chen told Jewish Insider that because the cancellation states that no events — other than university-sponsored ones — can occur on Oct. 7, it sets a standard that there is “a comparison between the Jewish organizations gathering to mark Oct. 7 and an SJP rally.” 

In a joint statement, Maryland Hillel and the Jewish Student Union echoed that “only university-sponsored events will occur on Oct. 7,” calling that decision “not an ideal situation,” but also noting that “it ensures that our physical and psychological safety is protected on this day of grief.” It has not been announced whether the university will hold its own event to mark Oct. 7, but Hillel on campus said it plans to hold an event to memorialize “the atrocities of Oct. 7.” 

Despite criticism that Pines’ language did not convey the magnitude of trauma that Oct. 7 — and the subsequent rise of antisemitism — has caused for Jewish students, Maryland Hillel and JSU, as well as Maryland elected officials, commended the restriction of anti-Israel events held on Oct. 7.

“We are reassured to learn that SJP will no longer be permitted to host their event on McKeldin Mall, or anywhere, on campus, on Oct. 7,” the groups wrote in a joint statement. 

Hogan, a Republican, wrote on X that “university officials are right to reverse their inexplicable decision to allow a major anti-Israel protest on October 7th. Antisemitic bigotry has no place in our state, and especially on our college campuses.” 

Hogan, who was the first Maryland leader to release a statement urging for the Oct. 7 event to be called off, called for “more to be done to ensure Jewish students can feel safe on their own campuses.” 

“Hogan will never hesitate to call out antisemitic hate and that’s why he condemned the despicable protest scheduled for Oct. 7,” Blake Kernen, a spokesperson for Hogan’s Senate campaign, told JI.

Angela Alsobrooks, Hogan’s Democratic opponent in the Senate race, initially didn’t provide a comment when JI reached out to her spokesperson. 

After the story’s publication, the Alsobrooks spokesperson reached out to JI with a statement in support of UMD’s decision to cancel the anti-Israel protest.

“I’m the mother of a 19-year-old daughter, so I can tell you that I agree with the parents and families who want nothing more than for all of our kids to be safe on college campuses; to feel safe and to actually be safe,” Alsobrooks said in the statement. “I know the University considered the safety of its students in its decision. I do agree with the decision. I think that October 7 is a solemn day. To have it as a day of remembrance, I think, is important.”

“I know too that the right to protest is foundational to our nation and that right must be protected. But I am unequivocal that any such protest must not call for violence or target any groups of people. Full stop,” she added.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, in a statement to JI, said that “everyone in Maryland has the right to peacefully protest, to voice their opinions, but not to call for violence against each other and it is my expectation that any demonstration at the University of Maryland follows that very ideal.”

“I’ve led soldiers in combat. I’ve seen not just the direct impacts of terrorism, but also the collateral damage it leaves. Terrorists target civilians, and that’s what Hamas did on October 7th. And, that’s what that day should be remembered as, a terrorist attack that took innocent lives.” 

Moore continued, “If you stand with Israel, you stand against Hamas. And if you stand with the Palestinian people and their right to self-determination, you stand against Hamas too. We must strive to achieve a permanent cease-fire that brings home the hostages, that ends the suffering of innocent Palestinian civilians, and leads to a permanent peace.” 

In a statement to JI, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) said: “October 7th marks one of the darkest days in our recent history — we must never forget the lives that were taken and the hostages seized by the brutal Hamas terrorist attacks. I support the University of Maryland’s decision to preserve this day as a day of reflection. We must immediately bring home the hostages and end this war.”

With one of the largest Jewish student populations in the country — nearly 20% of the College Park undergraduate student body of more than 30,000 is Jewish — UMD has largely avoided egregious episodes of antisemitism that have occurred on many campuses. But Einav Tsach, a junior studying journalism and marketing who leads Mishelanu, an on-campus Israeli-American cultural association, told JI that in recent months, “SJP has taken on a larger and more noticeable presence and that is impacting Jewish students.” 

On Monday, SJP UMD wrote on Instagram that it will still “find ways to honor the martyrs of this genocide and mark one year of resistance” on Oct. 7. 

“They’ve worsened their rhetoric in the past year,” Tsach continued, pointing to the group’s July statement that it “unequivocally states that the Zionist state of Israel has no right to exist,” and another social media post that “openly supports armed struggle.” 

“Those are things that are very alienating to Jewish students,” Tsach said, adding that he is “thankful for the direct outcome of the letter, which is that SJP cannot hold a rally on a day of immense suffering for the Jewish people.” 

While Tsach said he hoped Pines’ letter would “get more into the specifics of what happened on Oct. 7 and reassure that it’s a day of mourning,” at the same time the university has “made every effort to hear from us and be in touch with us, with Pines attending our vigil on Oct. 9 last year.”

Broad coalition of Jewish groups urges ‘highest possible funding’ for Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights

In a letter sent to key members of the Senate and House Appropriations Committees on Friday, a coalition of 23 Jewish groups, spanning a range of political and denominational positions, urged Congress to “provide the highest possible funding” in 2025 for the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.

The widespread support for funding for the office, known as OCR, is notable given political divisions over the issue on Capitol Hill. Democrats critical of Republicans’ approach to combating antisemitism on campuses have emphasized calls for increased funding for the office. Some Republicans, meanwhile, have downplayed the need for additional funding for the office, often arguing that it has the resources it needs but must better prioritize antisemitism cases.

But calls for increased funding span the political spectrum. In the 2024 funding process, a bipartisan group of 51 lawmakers urged Congress to provide funding in excess of the administration’s budget request for OCR.

House Republicans sought to cut funding to OCR, the office responsible for investigating complaints of antisemitism on campuses, for 2024. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona has said the office’s staff are severely overstretched, with each staffer working 50 cases in light of a post-Oct. 7 surge in complaints.

OCR received $140 million for 2024, the same funding it received in 2023, falling $37.6 million below the administration’s request. The administration requested $162 million for OCR for 2025.

“It is Congress’s responsibility to ensure that OCR has the resources it needs to conduct immediate and robust investigations into these complaints. OCR cannot protect the rights, safety and wellbeing of students if it does not have adequate resources to appropriately investigate and respond to its increased caseload,” the letter reads.

The signatories include the Anti-Defamation League, Alpha Epsilon Phi Sorority, Alpha Epsilon Pi, American Jewish Committee, B’nai B’rith International, Combat Antisemitism Movement, Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Hadassah, Hillel International, Jewish Council for Public Affairs, Jewish Federations of North America, Jewish Grad Organization, Jewish on Campus, Olami, National Council of Jewish Women, Rabbinical Assembly, Sigma Alpha Mu Fraternity, Sigma Delta Tau, StandWithUs, Union for Reform Judaism, Orthodox Union, Zeta Beta Tau Fraternity and Zionist Organization of America.

They include liberal, nonpartisan and conservative-leaning Jewish groups, as well as groups representing the Reform, Conservative and Orthodox denominations.

The groups, the letter states, “reflect the depth and breadth of American Jewish life [and] are united in asking your urgent support to combat growing antisemitism on university campuses.”

The letter highlights data showing that cases of antisemitism on college campuses have “skyrocketed” since Oct. 7, and that OCR is facing “a surge in reported cases” alongside a reported 10% reduction in full-time staff.

Jewish leaders worry that university presidents are appeasing anti-Israel protesters — at any cost

As universities around the country strike various deals with anti-Israel protesters to quell the turmoil on college campuses — including giving protesters a seat at the table regarding investment decisions — Jewish leaders fear that even these largely symbolic concessions could further poison the atmosphere for Jewish students.

Negotiating with protesters sets up a climate in which “Jewish students — who are not violating rules —- are being ignored, bullied and intimidated,” Mark Rotenberg, vice president and general counsel of Hillel International, told Jewish Insider. “People who violate university rules should not be rewarded with financial benefits and rewards for the violation of university rules,” he continued. 

Shira Goodman, senior director of advocacy at the Anti-Defamation League, echoed that the series of deals struck all “ignore the needs of Jewish students increasingly at risk of harassment and intimidation, or worse, on campus.” 

“It is critical to acknowledge the facts on the ground,” Goodman said. “For days and in some cases weeks, anti-Zionist protesters have openly violated school policies and codes of conduct by erecting encampments that have provided cover for students to fan the flames of antisemitism and wreak havoc on the entire campus community… The protesters’ aim and impact on many campuses has been to intimidate and alienate Jewish students for whom Zionism and a connection to Israel is a component of their Jewish identity. They must be held to account, not rewarded for their conduct.” 

The nationwide “Gaza solidarity encampments” began on April 17 at Columbia University. On April 29, Northwestern University set the precedent for conceding to some of the protesters’ demands when its president, Michael Schill, reached an agreement with the activists to end their anti-Israel encampment, in which protesters camped out and engulfed campuses for weeks. 

The protesters — most, but not all, of whom were students — took over buildings, blocked access to throughways, vandalized school property and chanted intimidating, antisemitic slogans while calling for an end to Israel’s war with Hamas and demanding that institutions cut ties with the Jewish state.

The deal at Northwestern complied with several of the students’ demands. These include allowing students to protest until the end of classes on June 1 so long as tents are removed, and to encourage employers not to rescind job offers for student protesters. The school will also allow students to weigh in on university investments — a major concession for students who have been demanding the university to divest from Israeli corporations. 

The Anti-Defamation League, StandWithUs and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law joined together to slam the strategy and call for Schill’s resignation after the agreement was announced. But a handful of schools, including University of Minnesota, Brown University, Rutgers University and University of California, Riverside followed suit — giving into the demands of encampment protesters in an effort to shut them down. 

While all of the agreements center around divesting from Israel, resolutions at each school look different. At Rutgers, a proposed deal reached last Thursday includes divesting from corporations participating in or benefiting from Israel; terminating Rutgers’ partnership with Tel Aviv University; accepting at least 10 displaced students from Gaza; and displaying Palestinian flags alongside other existing international flags on campus. Eight out of the 10 demands were met, while Rutgers students, faculty and alumni continue to push for the two not yet agreed to — an official call for divestment as well as cutting ties with Tel Aviv University.

At Minnesota, meanwhile, protesters packed their tents after a 90-minute meeting with Jeff Ettinger, the school’s interim president. A tentative deal was reached, which could include divestment from companies such as Honeywell and General Dynamics, academic divestment from Israeli universities, transparency about university investments, a statement in support of Palestinian students, a statement in support of Palestinians’ right to self-determination and amnesty for students arrested while protesting (nine people were arrested on campus on April 22). 

In a statement to students and faculty,  Ettinger wrote that coalition representatives will be given the opportunity to address the board of regents at its May 10 meeting to discuss divestment from certain companies. Public disclosure of university investments would be made available by May 7. Ettinger also said that the administration has asked university police not to arrest or charge anyone for participating in encampment activities in the past few days, and will not pursue disciplinary action against students or employees for protesting. 

Rotenberg, who was general counsel of University of Minnesota for 20 years before coming to Hillel, told JI that he is working on a statement objecting to the settlements, which will be addressed to the school’s board of regents. 

“I am hopeful that this is not a trend,” Rotenberg said. “No university can exist if rules violators are rewarded with financial incentives, while students who do abide by the rules are not similarly rewarded,” he continued. “That’s an upside-down world and it cannot be acceptable for individuals who violate university regulations to be given the benefits while our students’ voices are not heard.” 

Rotenberg expressed ire over universities’ lack of consulting with Jewish faculty or students ahead of making the agreements. At Northwestern, seven Jewish members of the university’s antisemitism advisory committee stepped down from the body last Wednesday, citing Schill’s failure to combat antisemitism while quickly accepting the demands of anti-Israel protesters on campus.

“Any meeting with the board of regents at University of Minnesota that relates to these issues, must include Jewish voices — voices of the overwhelming majority of the Jewish community who identify with and support Israel,” Rotenberg said. 

“There are many ways to enforce university time, place and manner regulation that do not involve rewarding violators,” he continued, applauding the University of Connecticut, University of Florida and Columbia University for shutting down encampments while “eliminating the dangers of disruption and violence, without rewarding the violators.” At Columbia, for example, officers in riot gear removed demonstrators who had seized Hamilton Hall and suspended students who refused to dismantle their encampment.

Not all efforts to strike deals have been successful. At University of Chicago, for instance, negotiations to remove encampment tents from the campus central quad were suspended on Sunday, after protesters reached a stalemate with the university president, Paul Alivisatos.

“The Jewish community is right to be outraged,” Miriam Elman, executive director of the Academic Engagement Network, told JI. “You don’t capitulate to groups that are in violation of reasonable restrictions by giving into demands. That is not moral leadership… the right statements are not negotiations with rule violators, but rather say that free expression is a core value but you have to abide by university policy in doing that,” she continued, noting that she has observed a “trend with private universities being more able to weather the storm, as well as just doing better than some of the public universities.” 

Like Rotenberg, Elman singled out Minnesota for its “disheartening” snub of Jews. 

“Their statement [on encampments] had nothing to say to the Jewish community,” Elman said. “Nothing condemning the rank antisemitism on display, in rhetoric and calls for violence against Israeli citizens. How can you not even in one paragraph of your statement condemn how antisemitism has infused these protests?”

In a statement to JI, Jacob Baime, CEO of the Israel on Campus Coalition, called on university administrators to “clear the encampments, equally enforce existing policies, and protect Jewish students and their friends and allies,” without capitulating to “supporters of Hamas.” 

Experts said that it’s too early to know whether or not the concessions offered are merely symbolic — Brown, for example, plans to wait until October for its corporate board to vote on a proposal to divest from Israeli interests, as per its negotiation with protesters. But already, according to the ADL’s Goodman, administrations that have made deals “[incentivized] further rules violations and disruption and normalized antisemitism on campus.” 

Goodman cautioned that as universities try to restore order during finals and graduations, more may strike similar deals. “Administrators may see this as an acceptable solution to resolve the current situation on their own campus… It will also be interesting to see how they determine whether protestors who committed no further code of conduct violations comply and what happens if they do not comply.” 

Rotenberg warned, “The Jewish community has ample reason to fear when people take the law into their own hands and who, after being warned, decide to violate the norms of their community and then get rewarded for doing so.” Going down that path, he said, is “marching down the road to authoritarianism.”

University antisemitism task forces feature much talk, minimal action so far

In the aftermath of a surge in antisemitism that erupted following the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks in Israel, top universities including Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania and Northwestern announced the creation of new bodies tasked with studying antisemitism on campus and identifying how to address it. Their impending work is framed with urgency, and the bodies are generally discussed using language about the importance of inclusivity on campus. 

But nearly five months after the environment for Jewish students on these campuses began to rapidly deteriorate, questions remain over the efficacy and mandate of such groups. They will also face the thorny issue of campus free speech as they delve into questions about what, exactly, constitutes antisemitism on campus. 

The question over the credibility of these antisemitism task forces was underscored this week at Harvard, following the resignation of business school professor Raffaella Sadun, the co-chair of the presidential task force, reportedly because she felt university leaders weren’t willing to act on the committee’s recommendations. 

“They’ve utterly failed to protect Jewish and Israeli students. It’s shameful,” a Jewish faculty member at Harvard told Jewish Insider. They requested anonymity to speak candidly about interactions with students and administrators in recent months. The professor has seen numerous Israeli students kicked out of WhatsApp groups unrelated to politics because they are Israeli. The professor also described widespread opposition, among many students, to topics having to do with Israel — and a corresponding reluctance to act from administrators, who fear pushback from far-left students. 

“If you’re an administrator, and you care about your own personal well-being, and you want to keep Harvard out of the news or off social media, you basically try not to engage with these people in a way that will provoke them,” the professor said. “In the end this backfired on Harvard, because their failure to take care of Jewish students contributed to the accusations of institutional antisemitism, the lawsuit, the congressional investigation.”

Harvard announced the creation of an antisemitism task force in January, which immediately faced criticism due to comments made by its other co-chair, historian Derek Penslar, suggesting that antisemitism is not a major problem at Harvard. The body’s full membership has now been announced, but the scope and timeline of its work remains unclear. 

Interim Harvard President Alan Garber said in a Monday email that he expects the work of Harvard’s antisemitism task force to “take several months to complete,” but he asked the co-chairs “to send recommendations to the deans and me on a rolling basis.” It is not clear if the university will provide updates along the way; or if Harvard’s leadership will accept the task force’s recommendations.

At universities that already had antisemitism task forces prior to Oct. 7, those that achieved the most success generally have a budget to pursue actual work, a clear timeline for their work and strong buy-in from administrators, who must be willing to actually implement the groups’ recommendations, according to Miriam Elman, executive director of the Academic Engagement Network, which works to fight anti-Israel sentiment and antisemitism at U.S. universities. 

It’s not yet clear if the newly created task forces — especially those at private universities, which don’t have the same obligation for transparency as public universities — will achieve the needed support from leaders.

“I think if the mandate is not clear, if there’s not enough resources, if the council doesn’t have committees and jobs, it’s just going to be window dressing,” said Elman. “It’s not going to be able to do the work that needs to be done.”

At Columbia University, Shai Davidai, an assistant professor in the business school, said he doesn’t have confidence that a newly created antisemitism task force can succeed unless the faculty on the committee changes to include more Zionist and Israeli voices. 

“At universities, if you want to make sure something doesn’t happen, you set up a task force,” Davidai continued. “The task force at Columbia has done absolutely nothing. They just talk.” 

At Stanford University, an antisemitism task force created in the wake of Oct. 7 has, like Harvard’s, been mired in conversations and controversy over its membership. Faculty co-chair Ari Kelman, an associate professor in Stanford’s Graduate School of Education and Religious Studies, had a record of downplaying the threat of campus antisemitism along with recent alliances with anti-Israel groups. He resigned, citing the controversy, and was replaced with Larry Diamond, a pro-Israel professor in Stanford’s political science department. Under its new leadership, the committee also expanded its name and scope in January to include anti-Israel bias. 

Despite the updates, Kevin Feigelis, a doctoral student in the Stanford physics department, who on Thursday testified at a House Education Committee roundtable with Jewish students, said that “the task force has still accomplished nothing and it’s not clear that they have the power to accomplish anything.” 

In January, Feigelis worked with the campus antisemitism task force to plan an on-campus forum meant to combat antisemitism. The symposium was disrupted by a pro-Palestinian protest that included threats to Jewish attendees.

The task force “was instituted just to appease people,” Feigelis said. “Stanford is aware of exactly what is going on, and if they cared they would have done something over the last five months. The university places people on these committees in one of two ways: either it places people who they think are going to be most sympathetic to the university or they go straight to Hillel and ask them. These are both troubling.” 

Feigelis expressed belief that the task force could accomplish more if it consisted of lawyers and more Israeli faculty. 

“If [the administration cared] the committee would not be made of political scientists and a biologist… lawyers should be the ones staffing a committee that determines what constitutes antisemitism. Instead they picked people who have no idea what constitutes free speech or what the code of conduct actually is.” 

He continued, “The task force is currently holding listening sessions, but it’s just not clear what will come of that.” 

After Northwestern University announced in November that it would create an antisemitism task force, 163 faculty and staff members at the university wrote a letter to President Michael Schill saying they were “seriously dismayed and concerned” by the announcement, raising concerns that the task force’s work would challenge “rigorous, open debate.” Three of the signatories of that letter — including Jessica Winegar, a Middle Eastern studies professor and vocal proponent of boycotts of Israel — were then named to the task force, which will also focus on addressing Islamophobia. 

“If you really want to fix the problem, why conflate it with other issues that are going to prolong trying to find a solution to it?” Mike Teplitsky, a Northwestern alum and the president of the Coalition Against Antisemitism at Northwestern, said of the task force’s attempt to also focus on Islamophobia and other forms of hate. “I would call it a bureaucratic distraction from trying to fix the problem.” 

Mark Rotenberg, Hillel International’s vice president for university initiatives and the group’s general counsel, argued that antisemitism has proven to be so severe as to warrant its own mechanisms. The inclusion of Islamophobia “and other hateful behavior” in the group’s mandate would be like if a campus Title IX office, focused on gender-based inequality, was also required to focus on racism.

“Antiracism may be a very important thing, but merging it with the problem of violence in frat houses is not going to signal the women on that campus that they are really taking that problem seriously,” said Rotenberg, who works with administrators at campuses across the U.S. on antisemitism-related issues. “That’s our point about antisemitism.”

Lily Cohen, a Northwestern senior who is a member of the task force, came face to face with antisemitism on campus a year before the Oct. 7 attacks. After writing an op-ed in the campus newspaper decrying antisemitism and speaking out about her support for Zionism, she was called a terrorist and faced an onslaught of hate — including a large banner that was printed with her article, covered by “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” in red paint. 

“I think it comes from the top,” said Cohen, who noted that, after the op-ed incident, “no strong actions were taken to stand up for Jewish students or protect Jewish students, or even just express that that wasn’t OK. It fostered an environment where antisemitism is tolerated at Northwestern as long as it stays just subtle enough that you’re not saying Jews.”

Afterward, she met with university administrators to talk about what happened to her. “At the end of the day, listening is not enough,” she said. “I don’t think in any of the meetings I had with any administrators, that they actually referred to what happened to me as antisemitism. I think that that’s a huge problem here, is how easy it is to say, ‘We are not antisemitic, we’re just anti-Zionist,’ or ‘We don’t hate Jews, we just hate Zionists. We just hate Israel.’”

The group started meeting in January, and it was asked by the president to finish its work by June, which Cohen worries is not enough time, especially given its broad scope. Administrators at the school have not instilled much confidence in her in the past, but she is choosing to be hopeful.

“Being on the committee, I have to be optimistic that we’re going to do something and that the president will take our recommendations seriously, and will put them into action,” she said. “Because if not, what was it all for?”

Gabby Deutch is Jewish Insider’s senior national correspondent; Haley Cohen is eJewishPhilanthropy’s news reporter.

‘This is that time’: Hillel Int’l CEO calls for Jewish students to lean in on Israel

ATLANTA – Among the more than 800 North American college students who gathered in Atlanta this week for an Israel-focused conference organized by Hillel International, the mood was lighthearted and joyful, even as the students shared story after story of the antisemitism and demonization they have faced on their campuses since Oct. 7. 

That students are able to come together to share their pride in being Jewish and caring for Israel at a time when hostility toward Israel has become ingrained at many schools is a point of pride for Hillel International CEO Adam Lehman, who told Jewish Insider in an interview at the conference that the organization’s “core commitment” to Zionism has never been more important. 

“If there has ever been a moment in modern Jewish history when Zionist organizations need to be clear about our commitments, and make sure that we are there for Jewish students who share these beliefs — and in ways that meaningfully support the Jewish and democratic State of Israel — this is that time,” said Lehman. 

Hillel’s strong and straightforward embrace of Zionism — and its delineation of clear ground rules for how campus Hillels should handle anti-Zionism — stands in contrast to some Jewish institutions, such as Reform and Conservative rabbinical schools, where the topic of Israel is largely avoided because it is viewed as divisive even among some Jews. 

Hillel International does not have ownership or control over campus Hillels, but it provides crucial logistical and financial support. By reaping the benefits of the umbrella organization, campus Hillels largely opt in to the group’s approach to Israel. 

“There’s an enormous pressure on all Jewish organizations, including Hillel, to downgrade commitments to Israel and to step back from core values as it relates to Zionism. Jewish students, like Jewish organizations in the diaspora, are swimming in an ocean of extreme demonization of Israel,” said Lehman. “We have taken that demonization, that external pressure, and actually used it to strengthen our commitments.” 

This position has not been embraced by everyone. Over the past decade, Hillel has had to contend with some left-wing Jews leaving the Hillel umbrella to create their own Jewish institutions that are more hospitable to anti-Zionism. On many campuses, Hillel professionals have to find a way to manage students who may have competing views on Israel and try to create space for them to coexist. But Lehman said that while Hillel would never give a platform to people opposed to the Jewish state, the movement’s core goal is supporting all Jewish students.

“We truly are committed to creating space for every student, regardless of their political views as it relates to Israel, the United States or anyplace else,” Lehman said. “However, at the same time, we don’t want to compromise or sacrifice our core commitments and beliefs as a Zionist organization.” One priority for Hillel International, Lehman explained, is promoting dialogue within the Jewish community. The organization will be sending facilitators to several schools this spring to help jump-start those conversations. 

Lehman contrasted that commitment to dialogue and inclusivity with the ethos of Students for Justice in Palestine, an anti-Israel group that on many campuses describes its work as “anti-normalization” and prohibits interactions with Zionists. 

“We are committed to outreach from Hillel and Jewish student communities to other communities on campus, including Muslim student associations and Palestinian student groups,” Lehman explained. “Our objective is to promote dialogue and understanding as part of nurturing strong Jewish life overall. For other organizations, their objective is to poison the campus climate and specifically poison it for Jewish and pro-Israel students, as part of a very clearly stated global Intifada.” 

The degree of well-organized animosity to Israel that erupted even a day after the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks, revealed that the Jewish community was unprepared for such an onslaught of hate, Lehman said. This happened even after Hillel and a whole cottage industry of campus pro-Israel groups spent more than a decade exerting untold millions of dollars on actions like fighting Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) resolutions and organizing pro-Israel students. 

“I do think that as a Jewish community, and as Jewish organizations supporting campuses, we’ve woken up post-October 7 to the unfortunate reality that the level of organization, resourcing and synchronicity of groups dedicated to the destruction of the Jewish and democratic state of Israel has surpassed what we as a community have organized to respond and address,” Lehman said. There is a need, he continued, to “better align across many organizations that are addressing pieces of the puzzle but not in a comprehensive enough way.” 

Hillel has in recent years made a concerted effort to educate and work with college administrators, and Lehman pointed to this as one arena where the Jewish community has seen some success. But he pointed to two other areas where he thinks the Jewish community should focus its energy — university faculty and social media.

“Faculty are the permanent residents of campus and feel unaccountable, really, to anyone other than themselves, and have across entire disciplines of academia become uniform in their demonization of Israel,” Lehman said.

As to social media, Lehman noted that “students live and swim in an ocean of social media that has become the largest cesspool of antisemitism in the history of the world. We need to both better analyze how that has come to be, but also, as a community, take seriously how to address that cesspool.” It’s a code no one has yet been able to crack. 

During the conference, students shared stories that painted a picture of what Lehman described as “an ambient level of Israel demonization on campus that all of us just take for granted because it’s everywhere.” While anti-Israel sentiment existed and even thrived on some campuses prior to Oct. 7, its ubiquity and ferocity is new. Students were resigned to this new reality, even as they also sought to find ways to refute the hate they see.

“My message to Jewish students and pro-Israel students,” said Lehman, “is that’s not OK.”

The former Facebook exec seeking to re-center Harvard

Before last year, tech entrepreneur and venture capitalist Sam Lessin thought of himself as only slightly more engaged with Harvard than the average Cambridge graduate. In his 20s, he had served as an alumni interviewer; since then, he’s helped raise money from fellow graduates in the class of 2005. 

But Harvard was not his identity — Lessin didn’t make a habit of flying across the country to Harvard football games, nor was the former Facebook executive a major donor to the university, even after he likely made a windfall when Facebook went public.

That changed last fall, after the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks in Israel spurred a rise in antisemitism on American campuses, including at Harvard, and set off a ripple effect of bad decisions that would mire the Ivy League university in scandal and months of brutal headlines. Lessin stepped off the sidelines.

In late December, Lessin announced a long-shot write-in bid to be a candidate to serve on Harvard’s Board of Overseers, the university’s second-highest governing body. He came just a few hundred votes short of qualifying for a spot on the ballot, winning more support than any of the other outside candidates that had not been approved by the Harvard Alumni Association. 

“It actually was very invigorating in that you just do see this huge mass of alums coming out of the woodwork who do want change, and I’m optimistic that there can be change,” Lessin told Jewish Insider in an interview last week, in which he pledged to remain involved with university affairs ahead of another board campaign next year. 

He attributed his loss, despite winning the backing of some big names like former Harvard President Larry Summers, to Harvard’s difficult-to-use website, technical problems for alumni who voted and simply running out of time. 

The mounting controversies at Harvard in recent months — including student protesters disrupting classes and common spaces on campus, former President Claudine Gay’s disastrous Capitol Hill testimony and the resulting leadership vacuum — can be traced, in Lessin’s estimation, to “mission creep” at Harvard. He thinks his alma mater has shifted from an institution whose raison d’etre is academic excellence to a place that has tried to accommodate too many goals, and to make itself too many things to too many different people. 

“You need to get the president and the [Harvard] Corporation to reaffirm that very clearly the school is an academic school and academic excellence is the only goal,” Lessin said. “It’s not that and six other goals.” 

He decried a yes-man culture among Harvard’s lay leaders, many of whom are large donors or prominent Harvard boosters, who have governed the school with an utter lack of transparency even as the world’s attention has turned to Cambridge in recent months. 

“That can work when things are easy,” said Lessin. “When things are hard, those are not necessarily the right voices to be leading. The reason is simple, which is, they have so much political liability, and they have very little willingness to push back.” 

Lessin described himself as a moderate seeking to avoid the culture wars in which Harvard has become entangled, a position that he viewed in contrast to Harvard’s loudest critic: hedge fund manager Bill Ackman.

“I worry that he’s politicizing this even more, in certain ways, putting forward right-wing voices against left-wing voices. I’m much more of a centrist, is the way I would approach it,” said Lessin. Instead, he earned the endorsement of another billionaire who studied at Harvard — Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg. (As a Harvard dropout, Zuckerberg was not able to vote for Lessin.) 

Harvard, like other prestigious universities, has over the past decade made a concerted effort to increase diversity in its student body. Lessin said the way the university has emphasized diversity has in turn led to “factionalism” rather than “academic excellence.” 

“If you’re looking at the admissions essays, ‘What makes you diverse, and then what do you intend to do with that, like, your Harvard education to help the world?’” Lessin asked. “It became very, very tribal, in terms of people saying, ‘I’m here as the token X,’ or ‘I’m here to represent my community Y,’ and it’s not to learn and be part of society and help people integrate into the melting pot of society. Instead it’s like, ‘I’m here to defend that group.’”

The goal of the university, then, should be to get back to promoting academics as the school’s top goal, including absolute freedom of expression in an academic setting, as Lessin sees it. He extends that thinking even to the most abhorrent anti-Israel rhetoric Harvard has seen since Oct. 7. 

“I believe strongly that there should be free speech in the classroom towards the goal of academic excellence. If people want to make a civil argument about why rape and murder is OK, inside of the classroom — from my personal perspective, I think that’s fair game,” he said. “That is the thing I think is nuanced about this, and I might not agree with every Jew about.” 

But what happens outside of the classroom is another story. This is where he thinks Harvard has a responsibility to act much more strongly against antisemitic student protests, which he views as “more of a symptom than a root cause.” The answer is not “treating it as a one-off,” but rather, according to Lessin, revamping the way Harvard thinks about freedom of expression. 

“What you say in the Boston Common is a different situation. If you want to have protests there, that is a space for free speech. Private property at a private university with a purely academic mission is actually a place you don’t have free speech for the sake of free speech,” said Lessin. “Any speech to shut down other people, or to keep them from participating in academic endeavors, or to block academics, is completely unacceptable on private property.” Policies, he continued, must be “enforced and strengthened” so protests in Harvard Yard cannot disrupt people walking to class. 

“It’s private property, full stop,” Lessin said. During his six-week campaign for a seat on the board, he engaged alumni across the world, including among Harvard’s Jewish community; during college Lessin occasionally attended Hillel or Chabad Shabbat dinners, but was not a regular at either.

“Sam’s emergence as someone who wants to help correct and change the narrative and to restore the dignity of Harvard, and help elevate the discussion and challenge the status quo that that allowed for this rise of anti-Israel and antisemitic rhetoric on the campus couldn’t have come at a more important moment,” Harvard Chabad Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi told JI.

Jewish alumni and donors are exerting influence on campus affairs in new ways. One group of Jewish alumni lowered their annual donations to $1, to send a message that they care about the university but disagree with its actions in recent months. Other big-name donors have ceased giving entirely. Zarchi, who has worked at Harvard for more than two decades, has never seen this level of engagement from Harvard alumni. 

“I don’t expect that to decline,” he said. “For larger purposes, even beyond their care for Harvard, they want to stay engaged because of the outsized influence that Harvard has in the public conversation.”

Harvard administration slammed by lawmakers, alums for response to pro-Hamas student letter

One day after 31 student organizations at Harvard University published a letter on social media claiming Israel is “entirely responsible” for Hamas terrorists’ murder of 900 Israelis, Jewish student leaders and alumni condemned the university’s handling of the incident and called for a stronger response from Harvard’s administration. 

Harvard President Claudine Gay and other university leaders said in a Monday night statement that the school is “heartbroken by the death and destruction unleashed by the attack by Hamas.” But Jacob Miller, the president of the student board at Harvard Hillel and a former editorial fellow at Jewish Insider, called Harvard’s response a “weak statement [that] fails to capture the gravity of the moment.” He called for the university to “unequivocally condemn these terror attacks, a step they have been unwilling to take thus far.”

“It’s completely wrong to blame Israel for these types of attacks,” Miller told JI on Monday afternoon. “Clearly Israel is not responsible for attacks against its own civilians and it’s also deeply offensive to the Jewish community. I would say it’s antisemitic to blame Israel.” 

Two letters from Harvard students and alumni directly call on the university’s leadership to condemn the anti-Israel statement released by the student organizations, who called themselves the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Groups (PSG). 

One, organized by Harvard Hillel and Harvard Chabad, was signed by more than 2,000 people as of Monday night. “The statement signed by the Palestine Solidarity Committee and dozens of other student groups blaming Israel for the aforementioned attacks is completely wrong and deeply offensive,” the letter states. “There are no justifications for acts of terror as we have seen in the past days. We call on all the student groups who co-signed the statement to retract their signatures from the offensive letter.” 

Signatories include former NBC Universal President Noah Oppenheim, businessman and philanthropist George Rohr, former Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz, former U.S. solicitor general Seth Waxman, Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), Hadar President Ethan Tucker and novelists Dara Horn and Allegra Goodman. 

The Harvard chapter of alumni group Alums for Campus Fairness (ACF), is demanding in a letter set to be released today that the school’s leadership directly condemn the anti-Israel statement released by the student organizations. 

“It’s time for the administration to step up and make a statement,” Naomi Steinberg, a 1988 Harvard graduate who spearheaded the counter letter through ACF, told JI.  “Our strategy is completely alum-based to put pressure on the administration.” 

Steinberg’s daughter, Alana, who graduated from Harvard in 2018, added, “The silence is deafening. In not saying anything they are making a statement.” 

The alumni letter, which is addressed to President Gay, states that “ACF-Harvard holds Hamas and Iran fully responsible for this premeditated day of savagery, which will live in infamy. More Jews were murdered on October 7, 2023, than on any single day since the Holocaust. Hamas has killed and kidnapped babies, raped women, and paraded mutilated bodies of Israelis through the streets of Gaza, often accompanied by celebrations.”

The letter, a copy of which was obtained by JI, goes on to call the joint statement from Harvard student groups “shameful and replete with lies and should be rejected by fair-minded and informed people.” A Harvard spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.

“As pro-Israel alumni, ACF stands with Jewish students and faculty on Harvard’s campus during this difficult time. We call on President Gay, the Board of Overseers, and all Harvard administration and faculty to unequivocally support the Jewish and Israeli members of the Harvard community during the difficult days ahead.” 

“We believe that now is the time for the university to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which would place the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Groups’ statement well within the definition of antisemitism, and would give the university even more grounds for condemnation,” the statement concludes. 

The statement from Harvard’s administration, which came after pressure from several prominent alumni, including members of the U.S. House and Senate, did not condemn or mention the letter from the student groups. 

The student letter, titled “Joint Statement by Harvard Palestine Solidarity Groups on the Situation in Palestine,” was signed by 31 student organizations, including the Ivy League’s affiliate of Amnesty International. It condemned Israel, claiming Hamas’ attack “did not happen in a vacuum,” and that the Israeli government has forced Palestinians to live in an “open-air prison for over two decades.” 

“We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence,” the letter reads. “The apartheid regime is the only one to blame.” 

The letter continued, “Today, the Palestinian ordeal enters into uncharted territory. The coming days will require a firm stand against retaliation. We call on the Harvard community to take action to stop the ongoing annihilation of Palestinians.”

Signatories to the letter include the African American Resistance Organization, the Harvard Islamic Society and Harvard Jews for Liberation.

The statement from Harvard’s administration, which came more than 24 hours after the student letter, said the university has “heard an interest from many in understanding more clearly what has been happening in Israel and Gaza.” 

It also said the school has “no illusion that Harvard alone can readily bridge the widely different views of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but we are hopeful that, as a community devoted to learning, we can take steps that will draw on our common humanity and shared values in order to modulate rather than amplify the deep-seated divisions and animosities so distressingly evident in the wider world.” 

Naomi Steinberg told JI that “ACF-Harvard rejects the equivocating statement made by the Harvard administration, which attempts to draw a moral equivalency between Hamas terrorism and Israel’s defensive operations. The statement blatantly ignores and fails to condemn simple facts, among which are: that Hamas has slaughtered, raped, and taken innocent civilians hostage and is using them as pawns on the international stage.” 

“The administration must clearly and unequivocally condemn Hamas as an antisemitic terrorist organization in order to protect Harvard’s Jewish and pro-Israel students, as well as denounce the statement made by PSG,” Steinberg said. 

On Sunday night, more than 100 students gathered at Harvard Hillel to mourn Israeli victims.  

A vigil for “all civilian lives lost and in solidarity with Palestine” is planned for Tuesday night at the university. 

The letter from the student groups sparked almost immediate scrutiny, including from Lawrence Summers, who served as Harvard president from 2001-2006. “In nearly 50 years of @Harvard affiliation, I have never been as disillusioned and alienated as I am today,” Summers wrote on X on Monday.

Summers, who was the Treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton and advised former President Barack Obama, wrote, “The silence from Harvard’s leadership, so far, coupled with a vocal and widely reported student groups’ statement blaming Israel solely, has allowed Harvard to appear at best neutral towards acts of terror against the Jewish state of Israel.”

“Instead, Harvard is being defined by the morally unconscionable statement apparently coming from two dozen student groups blaming all the violence on Israel,” he wrote, adding, “I am sickened.”

Lawmakers who attended Harvard also expressed disappointment in the school’s lack of response. 

Immediately after the Harvard administration released its statement, Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) tweeted, “Harvard’s leadership has failed. The president and deans refuse to denounce the antisemitism of Harvard student groups. Instead of moral clarity and courage, they offer word salad approved by committee. I am ashamed of my alma mater.” 

Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) wrote on X,  “Terrorism is never justified nor someone else’s fault. As hundreds of Israelis and others, including several Americans, remain kidnapped, injured, or dead, the 31 Harvard organizations that signed a letter holding Israel ‘entirely responsible’ for Hamas’ barbarous terrorism should be condemned, as should Harvard leadership for whom silence is complicity.” He added, “I cannot recall a moment when I’ve been more embarrassed by my alma mater.”

Republican Conference Chair Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), who graduated from Harvard in 2006, also condemned the letter and called on Harvard to respond. 

“It is abhorrent and heinous that Harvard student groups are blaming Israel for Hamas’ barbaric terrorist attacks that have killed over 700 Israelis,” Stefanik tweeted. “Any voice that excuses the slaughter of innocent women and children has chosen the side of evil and terrorism.

“I am calling on the leadership of Harvard to immediately publicly condemn these vile anti-Semitic statements.”

Jason Furman, head of the U.S. National Economic Council under the Obama administration, wrote on X that the letter is “getting global attention and the sentiments it expresses are egregious.”

“Blaming the victims for the slaughter of hundreds of civilians,” Furman continued. “Absolving the perpetrators of any agency. This is morally ignorant and painful for other members of the community.” 

Political scientist Ian Bremmer posted on X that he “can’t imagine who would want to identify with such a group.” “Harvard parents — talk to your educated kids about this.” 

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who attended Harvard Law School, wrote, “What the hell is wrong with Harvard?”

At a Monday pro-Israel rally on the Boston Common, former Harvard Hillel director Rabbi Jonah Steinberg called out his former workplace. “We do not want to see crimson in this city become blood on the hands of those student groups who have signed on to such a despicable letter,” said Steinebrg, who is now the regional director of the Anti-Defamation League in New England.

At universities around the U.S., Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapters released statements similar to the Harvard student group letter, but with far fewer student groups signing on. National SJP called for a Day of Resistance on Thursday at colleges including Penn State, New York University and University of Virginia The group also praised Hamas’ “surprise operation against the Zionist enemy which disrupted the very foundation of Zionist settler society.” 

Jewish Insider’s Capitol Hill reporter Marc Rod contributed reporting.