CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts — Jewish students at Harvard University continue to experience a sense of unease on campus over antisemitism they say the school could be doing more to prevent, according to one sophomore.
“Jews here, don’t necessarily feel safe,” third-year student Alex Bernat said Tuesday evening at a Hanukkah menorah lighting ceremony on campus.
“I think the university can be doing a lot more to start to quell some of the antisemitism and try to teach people why it’s wrong,” said Bernat, a member of Harvard Chabad and Students for Israel.
Bernat was one of at least 60 students and alumni who gathered outside Widener Library to listen to speakers at the ceremony, many of whom expressed concerns about antisemitism on campus.
Pointedly, at one point a woman interrupted with shouts about how antisemitism was a myth, adding “all your history is fake!” before tearing off into the night.
While describing having some of his lectures raided by anti-Israeli demonstrators, Bernat said he didn’t believe embattled Harvard president Claudine Gay was herself antisemitic but that the problem was “far more systemic than one person, one university, or one department.”
“I think there’s a much deeper problem in all American universities when it comes to antisemitism,” he said, adding “I really just wanna emphasize the pervasive and systemic nature of this, as opposed to as opposed to any one action.”
“I think Harvard needs to have a much, much deeper reckoning than even this antisemitism committee now with how it’s pervading into academic departments, how it’s pervading the administration, how it’s pervading all the staff, and how it’s pervading the student body.”
That antisemitism committee Bernat referenced was convened following outrage over the school’s response to Hamas’ deadly attacks on Israel, and the ensuing anti-Israel protests on campus which saw Jewish students harassed by demonstrators chanting “Intifada” and “From the river to the sea” — two phrases considered to be calls for genocide against Jews.
Last week, prominent Rabbi and committee member David Wolpe resigned his post on the committee with a dramatic statement echoing the sentiments shared during Tuesday’s lighting ceremony — calling President Gay a nice person, but accusing the school under her leadership of harboring deep-seated anti-Israeli biases and antisemitism.
Gay found herself in a firestorm last week after refusing to explicitly say “Yes” when asked during congressional testimony whether calls for genocide against Jews on campus violated the school’s disciplinary policies.
Alongside her at the hearing was now-former University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill, who resigned four days after the disastrous testimony.
The Harvard president managed to keep her job, however, after the school’s highest governing body and over 500 faculty members threw their support behind her — even as the school reportedly lost over $1 billion in donations since the testimony.
Psychology professor and author Stephen Pinker — who on Monday published in the Boston Globe a five-point plan for addressing campus antisemitism — joined the speakers at the lighting ceremony in Harvard Yard and told The Post firing Gay would be a meaningless gesture with little real effect.
“I think that would be like firing a coach when your team isn’t doing well. It’s a symbolic sacrifice, but it doesn’t speak to the very real problems in university campuses,” Pinker said.
He voiced his belief that schools should commit to supporting free speech among students and professors while remaining neutral as institutions, while adding that Harvard “should not put up with forcible disruptions, with students invading lecture halls, chanting slogans on bullhorns or intimidating other students.”
Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi, founder of Jewish student group Harvard Chabad, told The Post it was “sad” that people had been calling for Intifada at Harvard and other college campuses.
Nevertheless, Zarchi said the hardships Jewish students have faced in the last two months had only served to bring that community closer together — and that shows of solidarity like the lighting ceremony demonstrated that.
“These are the students who have been, and this is the community that’s been, suffering on this campus. Who have been neglected, who have been on the receiving end of such hateful and at times, even aggressive, violence.”
“When the adults in the room aren’t fulfilling their responsibility and sometimes not only not condemning [the violence], but inciting it, it’s very sad,” Zarchi said.
