Jewish leaders: Harvard’s reversal of protester suspensions will lead to more antisemitism
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.
Harvard Jewish leaders, alumni disappointed by antisemitism task force recommendations
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.
Rabbi David Wolpe resigns from Harvard’s antisemitism committee
Rabbi David Wolpe, the Anti-Defamation League’s rabbinic fellow, announced on Thursday that he will step down from the antisemitism advisory committee at Harvard University amid an investigation into allegations of antisemitism at Harvard and other Ivy League universities.
Wolpe said his resignation is due to the role not allowing him to make the difference the school needs, which he realized after Harvard President Claudine Gay made widely criticized statements about her university’s handling of antisemitism as she appeared before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce earlier this week.
“As of today I have resigned from the antisemitism advisory committee at Harvard,” Wolpe wrote on X.
“Without rehashing all of the obvious reasons that have been endlessly adumbrated online, and with great respect for the members of the committee, the short explanation is that both events on campus and the painfully inadequate testimony reinforced the idea that I cannot make the sort of difference I had hoped,” he wrote.
“Still, there are several points worth making. I believe Claudine Gay to be both a kind and thoughtful person. Most of the students here wish only to get an education and a job, not prosecute ideological agendas, and there are many, many honorable, thoughtful and good people at the institution. Harvard is still a repository of extraordinary minds and important research.”
He continued, “However, the system at Harvard along with the ideology that grips far too many of the students and faculty, the ideology that works only along axes of oppression and places Jews as oppressors and therefore intrinsically evil, is itself evil. Ignoring Jewish suffering is evil. Belittling or denying the Jewish experience, including unspeakable atrocities, is a vast and continuing catastrophe. Denying Israel the self-determination as a Jewish nation accorded unthinkingly to others is endemic, and evil.”
Wolpe’s resignation came just hours before the start of Hanukkah, a story he invoked in his message.
“In this generation, outside of Israel, we are called to be Maccabees of a different order,” he wrote. “We do not fight the actual battle but we search for the cruse of oil left behind… of course the first night was the greatest miracle — because the motivation to light the initial candle, to ensure the continuity and vitality of tradition in each generation, that is the supreme miracle. Dispute but also create. Build the institutions you value, don’t merely attack those you denigrate. We are at a moment when the toxicity of intellectual slovenliness has been laid bare for all to see. Time to kindle the first candle. Create that miracle for us and all Israel.”
For many years, Wolpe headed Sinai Temple, the largest Conservative congregation in Los Angeles, until he retired in June. He started a visiting scholar position at Harvard Divinity School in Boston upon leaving Sinai Temple, while also joining the ADL in May.
Wolpe was one of eight members on Harvard’s antisemitism advisory committee, which was formed at the end of October as the school faced fierce criticism over its response to the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.
Gay appeared before the House Committee on Tuesday to crack down on the backlash against the university, but her testimony only fueled the controversy.
When asked if a call for genocide of Jewish people would be considered harassment at Harvard, Gay said such a call could violate the school’s policies “depending on the context.” The hearing, at which MIT President Sally Kornbluth and University of Pennsylvania President Elizabeth Magill also testified, ended with members of Congress demanding Gay’s resignation. The leadership of Harvard Hillel called her remarks “profoundly shocking” and said it doesn’t trust her to protect Jewish students.
Debating Israel: David Suissa vs. Peter Beinart
Jewish Journal Publisher David Suissa debates political author Peter Beinart about Israel. Moderated by Rabbi David Wolpe