Speaking to President Gay, Harvard Chabad rabbi blasts school’s handling of antisemitism
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Standing next to a large menorah in front of Harvard’s historic Widener Library, Harvard Chabad Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi delivered a blistering speech on Wednesday castigating the school for a lack of leadership on antisemitism and bemoaning the difficulties faced by Jewish students in recent months.
Zarchi spoke to a crowd of several dozen students and community members, but the most important person in the audience was Harvard President Claudine Gay. Just a day earlier, Harvard’s governing board had voted to keep her as president after her disastrous handling of congressional questioning about whether calls for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard’s code of conduct.
“The email referred to you as ‘Our President,’” Zarchi said, referring to the subject line of the university-wide email sent on Tuesday by the Harvard Corporation that affirmed Gay’s service as president. “We in the Jewish community are longing for a day that we can refer to the president and all of Harvard as ours.”
Days earlier, the board of the University of Pennsylvania had voted to oust President Liz Magill following her own similarly bungled response to the question about Jewish genocide. Meanwhile, a couple miles away, Massachusetts Institute of Technology had — like Harvard — decided to keep in place President Sally Kornbluth, who had also appeared at the Capitol Hill hearing about antisemitism.
In a 15-minute address, the usually upbeat Zarchi offered a sober assessment of the state of Jewish life at Harvard since Oct. 7. He described an atmosphere of fear for Jewish students and for his own family, who he said had been advised by Harvard’s police department to obtain private security last week after Harvard Chabad hosted a screening of IDF footage from the Hamas terror attacks in Israel. “We were being accused of hosting a war criminal,” Zarchi said, presumably referring to Israeli ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan, who introduced the screening last week.
“We are gathering in a moment when the eyes of the world are upon us. Everybody is looking at Harvard now,” Zarchi said. “It pains me to have to say, sadly, that Jew-hate and antisemitism is thriving on this campus.”
“I don’t feel that they had the back of me and my family and our community,” said Zarchi, the Jackie and Omri Dahan Harvard Chabad Jewish Chaplain. “Twenty-six years I gave my life to this community. I’ve never felt more alone.”
In a story that at first seemed inspiring, Zarchi shared how Harvard had first allowed a menorah to be set up in Harvard Yard more than two decades ago. But quickly, this story, too, took a turn toward the negative when he shocked the crowd by revealing that the menorah does not remain in the Yard at night.
“This bothers me until this very day. You know what happens to the menorah? After everyone leaves the Yard, we’re gonna pack it up. We have to hide it somewhere,” Zarchi said. Harvard “would not allow us to leave the menorah here overnight, because there’s fear that it’ll be vandalized.”
He had never shared that fact publicly before.
“Think about that. We’re trying to fix the world, teach the leaders of the world,” Zarchi continued. “On our campus, in the shadow of Widener Library, we in the Jewish community are instructed, ‘We’ll let you have your menorah. Make your point. OK. Pack it up. Don’t leave it out overnight. Because there will be criminal activity here and it won’t look good.”
Change, he said, will happen “when we don’t have to pack up the menorah.”
Throughout Zarchi’s speech, Gay, flanked by her husband, watched solemnly. He concluded by calling her up to help light the menorah for the seventh night of Hanukkah.
“It’s my hope, and I know I speak for everyone here, that we can work together with you,” Zarchi said. He implored her to speak up when she sees people on campus targeting Jews: “You don’t walk by and say nothing. You speak. You don’t remain silent.”
Gay walked up and lit the shamash, the candle that is used to then light the rest of the flames. At the end of the event, she posed for a picture with the group. But she did not share any public remarks.
House Democrats split again over calling for Harvard, MIT presidents to resign
The House voted 303-126-3 on Wednesday for a resolution condemning the testimony by three college presidents before the House of Representatives last week and calling for Harvard President Claudine Gay and Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Sally Kornbluth to immediately resign.
The resolution was the second time in two weeks that the House Democratic caucus has split nearly down the middle over a resolution relating to antisemitism. Eighty-four Democrats voted to support the resolution and 125 voted against it, with three Democrats voting present. Republican Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) also voted against the resolution.
The resolution focuses specifically on responses by Gay, Kornbluth and former University of Pennsylvania President Elizabeth Magill l — who already tendered her resignation in the hearing’s fallout —equivocating on whether calls for the genocide of Jews would violate their campuses’ policies on bullying and harassment.
Some of the Democratic votes against the resolution came in spite of concerns about the university presidents’ comments. Some also came from lawmakers who prominently opposed last week’s resolution describing anti-Zionism as antisemitic. A majority of the votes for the resolution came from more moderate-leaning members of the Democratic caucus but some progressives also supported it.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), in a speech on the House floor, called the presidents’ answers to the question about genocide “overly legalistic” and “tone deaf.” He said they also lacked the “common sense” that anyone calling for genocide could pose a physical threat to Jewish students and would also create a “hostile learning environment and deserves disciplinary action.”
But, he argued, using the power of Congress to call on the presidents of private colleges to resign was unprecedented, inappropriate and borderline unconstitutional. And he noted Congress had already voted numerous times since Oct. 7 to condemn antisemitism, including on college campuses.
Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA), the ranking member of the House Education and Workforce Committee, went further in defending the university leaders.
Scott argued that, while calls for genocide of Jewish people are “reprehensible” and have “no place in reasonable discourse,” the presidents’ answers had been taken out of context and that the presidents had made clear their commitment to fighting antisemitism. He said that their answers were correct, in light of free expression protections, accusing Republicans of acting in bad faith.
Rep. Kathy Manning (D-NC) lambasted the resolution in a speech on the House floor but voted for it anyway.
“I was appalled by the failure of the three college presidents to simply say ‘yes, a call for the genocide of Jews is wrong. Period,’” Manning said. “But I have no interest in meaningless resolutions that do nothing to address the underlying issue of antisemitism… Nonbinding, politically motivated resolutions are not worth the paper they’re written on.”
After Magill’s ouster, Harvard and MIT’s presidents face renewed pressure
Following Elizabeth Magill’s resignation as the president of the University of Pennsylvania, public attention is now focusing on Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which are facing calls to unseat their own presidents. But Harvard’s Claudine Gay and MIT’s Sally Kornbluth are thus far facing less in-state political pressure for their resignations.
Pressure from Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiroplayed a role in Magill’s ouster; other Pennsylvania political figures, such as Senate candidate David McCormick and Sens. Bob Casey (D-PA) and John Fetterman (D-PA) were also critical of the former Penn president. But such calls have been less prevalent so far from within Massachusetts.
“Strong, moral leadership should be qualification number one for the president of the world’s leading university, but as a tireless advocate for ending the ‘cancel culture’ so pervasive at Harvard over the past decade, I’m not going to rush to cancel the president,” Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA), a Harvard alum, said in a statement to Jewish Insider on Monday. “That’s a decision the university’s governing boards should consider carefully.”
Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) said Friday, “I would say that in the last two months, Dr. Gay has been making a lot of second and third statements when she should have gotten it right the first time. Genocide is unacceptable, period,” but said he’d leave the decision of her resignation to the school’s board.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) said last week, “If you can’t lead, if you can’t stand up and say what’s right and wrong — very much in the extreme cases, and these are the extreme cases — then you’ve got a problem,” but didn’t respond to a question from JI on Monday about whether the schools’ boards should ask their presidents to resign.
Neither did Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) or Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, a Democrat.
Several prominent Harvard alums in Congress, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), also did not respond to requests for comment.
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), who led the questioning at a House hearing last week that fueled outrage toward the three college leaders, renewed her calls on Monday for Gay and Kornbluth to be fired.
“As clear evidence of the vastness of the moral rot at every level of these schools, this earthquake has revealed that Harvard and MIT are totally unable to grasp this grave question of moral clarity at this historic moment as the world is watching in horror and disgust. It is pathetic and abhorrent,” Stefanik said in a statement. “The leadership at these universities is totally unfit and untenable.”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who led a letter with Stefanik and other Republican Harvard alums in October raising concerns about the treatment of Jewish students on campus, said on his podcast on Monday, “I think we could easily see all three of these college presidents lose their jobs because of this testimony.”
“Both those institutions are hoping this just blows over,” Cruz continued. “They’re defending them in essence by not firing them right away after they witnessed this testimony.”
House lawmakers demand Harvard, MIT, Penn fire their presidents over antisemitism testimony
Seventy-four House lawmakers wrote to the boards of Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Pennsylvania on Friday demanding that they immediately fire their presidents in response to widely criticized congressional testimony they delivered on antisemitism on their campuses earlier this week.
The presidents of the three schools have come under increasing scrutiny this week amid growing speculation that their jobs could be on the line following their refusal to say earlier this week that calls for Jewish genocide would violate their schools’ codes of conduct.
“Testimony provided by presidents of your institutions showed a complete absence of moral clarity and illuminated the problematic double standards and dehumanization of the Jewish communities that your university presidents enabled,” the letter reads. “Given this moment of crisis, we demand that your boards immediately remove each of these presidents from their positions and that you provide an actionable plan” to ensure the safety of the Jewish community on campus.
“Anything less,” than the steps they requested, the lawmakers continued, “will be seen as your endorsement… and an act of complicity in their antisemitic posture.”
The letter was led by Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), who questioned the presidents on the genocide issue, and Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL). Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) is the only other Democrat who signed the letter; the rest are Republicans.
The lawmakers said that the testimony makes it “hard to imagine” any Jewish or Israeli person feeling safe on their campuses when the presidents “could not say that calls for the genocide of Jews would have clear consequences on your campus.”
It adds that subsequent social media statements seeking to clarify or walk back those comments “offered little clarification on your campus’ true commitment to protecting vulnerable students in this moment of crisis,” describing them instead as “desperate attempts to try and save their jobs” and “too little too late.”
Shortly before the Stefanik-Moskowitz letter was released, a group of thirteen House Democrats wrote to the boards of the three schools urging them to re-examine their codes of conduct to make clear that calls for the genocide of Jews are not acceptable.
This second letter, led by Reps. Kathy Manning (D-NC), Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) and Susan Wild (D-PA), includes similar language to the bipartisan letter regarding the presidents’ testimony and how it would make Jewish campus members feel unsafe, but stops short of directly calling for the presidents to be fired.
The lawmakers wrote that they felt “compelled to ask” if the presidents’ responses “align with the values and policies of your respective institutions.”
“The presidents’ unwillingness to answer questions clearly or fully acknowledge appalling and unacceptable behavior — behavior that would not have been tolerated against other groups — illuminated the problematic double standards and dehumanization of the Jewish communities at your universities,” the letter continues. “The lack of moral clarity these presidents displayed is simply unacceptable.”
The lawmakers requested that the schools update their policies to “ensure that they protect students from hate” and describe their plans for protecting Jewish and Israeli community members.
“There is no context in which calls for the genocide of Jews is acceptable rhetoric,” the letter reads. “While Harvard and Penn subsequently issued clarifying statements which were appreciated, their failure to unequivocally condemn calls for the systematic murder of Jews during the public hearing is deeply alarming and stands in stark contrast to the principles we expect leaders of top academic institutions to uphold.”
The letter notes that federal civil rights law prohibits discrimination against Jews on campus, and that criminal law bans hate crimes, violence and incitement to violence.
“Students and faculty who threaten, harass, or incite violence towards Jews must be held accountable for their actions,” the lawmakers wrote. “If calls for genocide of the Jewish people are not in violation of your universities’ policies, then it is time for you to reexamine your policies and codes of conduct.”
Signatories to the Democratic letter include Manning, Wild, Auchincloss, Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Lois Frankel (D-FL), Haley Stevens (D-MI), Greg Landsman (D-OH), Grace Meng (D-NY), Brad Schneider (D-IL), Dan Goldman (D-NY), Donald Norcross (D-NJ), Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and Elissa Slotkin (D-MI).
All of the signatories to the Democratic letter are either Jewish or deeply involved with Jewish community issues on the Hill.
Earlier this week, a third letter by six House Republicans from Pennsylvania — Reps. Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA), alongside Congressmen John Joyce, M.D. (R-PA), Mike Kelly (R-PA), Lloyd Smucker (R-PA), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), and Dan Meuser (R-PA) — called for University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill specifically to be fired.
House committee calls Harvard, UPenn, MIT presidents to answer for campus antisemitism
The House Committee on Education and the Workforce is calling a hearing next week with the presidents of Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Pennsylvania, where the university leaders will be asked to answer for antisemitic and violent incidents against Jewish students on their campuses, the committee announced on Tuesday.
“Over the past several weeks, we’ve seen countless examples of antisemitic demonstrations on college campuses. Meanwhile, college administrators have largely stood by, allowing horrific rhetoric to fester and grow,” committee Chair Virginia Foxx (R-NC) said in a statement.
“College and university presidents have a responsibility to foster and uphold a safe learning environment for their students and staff. Now is not a time for indecision or milquetoast statements. By holding this hearing, we are shining the spotlight on these campus leaders and demanding they take the appropriate action to stand strong against antisemitism.”
According to an announcement from the committee, the presidents will be asked to “answer for mishandling of antisemitic, violent protests.”
Harvard President Claudine Gay, UPenn President Liz Magill and MIT President Sally Kornbluth have all faced criticism for their responses to anti-Israel and antisemitic demonstrations and other incidents on their campuses.
Scores of schools across the country have taken similar flak for their responses to antisemitism on their campuses.
A committee spokesperson told Jewish Insider Foxx had chosen these schools because they had been “at the center of the rise in antisemitic protests.” The committee also contacted Columbia University which declined to attend due to a scheduling conflict. All three presidents are appearing voluntarily.
“President Gay has accepted the invitation to testify before the House Education and Workforce Committee on Dec. 5,” Harvard spokesperson Jason Newton told JI. “President Gay looks forward to sharing updates and information on the university’s work to support the Harvard community and combat antisemitism.”
MIT spokesperson Kimberly Allen told JI that Kornbluth “welcomes the opportunity to engage with the Committee Members” and referred JI to past statements on “recent events on campus.”
A UPenn spokesperson said in a statement, “President Magill understands the critical importance of fighting antisemitism and other forms of hate on Penn’s campus and looks forward to sharing the actions Penn is taking at next week’s hearing.”
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