At Harvard, US academics compare notes on a year of post-Oct. 7 campus antisemitism
Jewish Studies faculty from around the United States convene in Cambridge this week to dissect an ongoing period of unprecedented hostility
Reporter at The Times of Israel
CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts — The Fong Auditorium at Harvard University’s Boylston Hall gradually filled up to about three-quarters capacity on Tuesday for an afternoon conference, “Antisemitism on Campuses: Reflections From Jewish Studies Faculty at Major American Universities.”
After a year of significant activism and challenges following the Hamas murderous onslaught on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, panelists from the US and Canada reflected on lessons learned.
However, attendees’ seating preferences in the front and back rows attracted the attention of the convener, Harvard Prof. Derek Penslar.
“The edges are filled, the middle is empty,” observed Penslar, who directs Harvard’s Center for Jewish Studies and co-leads a university task force on antisemitism that was established in response to campus turmoil caused by October 7 and its aftermath. “It tells us something — gravitating toward the edges, the middle does not hold.”
Collectively, the scholars demonstrated a desire to maintain a middle ground on campus, where ideas can flow freely in a respectful atmosphere, even if it’s about Israel-Palestine.
Magda Teter, the Shvidler chair of Jewish studies at Fordham University and president of the American Academy for Jewish Research, lamented “social media culture that allows you only to like or block, a short-form quickness of reaction … We have to relearn to disagree with each other, not to cancel each other.”
“There are some things [in class] we disagree with,” she said. “We still read them, not block it or reject it, but actually to get new thoughts, and leave a classroom or reading with new thoughts, whatever these thoughts might be.”
Yale University Prof. Maurice Samuels, director of the Ivy League school’s antisemitism studies center and a panelist at the conference, spoke about a chance encounter with a Jewish anti-Zionist colleague last December.
The October 7, 2023, Hamas terror onslaught on Israel had ignited pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel protests on campuses nationwide, which intensified as Israel’s ongoing war with Hamas in Gaza dragged on.
In December 2023, three college presidents — Harvard’s Claudine Gay, Penn’s Liz Magill and MIT’s Sally Kornbluth — testified on campus antisemitism before a Congressional committee headed by Rep. Elise Stefanik.
The trio’s responses have been criticized as overly legalistic; Magill and Gay subsequently stepped down.
In Samuels’s telling, his colleague viewed the hearing as a publicity stunt aimed at smearing pro-Palestinian protesters to silence campus dissent — yet in the process, making the charge of antisemitism so widespread as to be discredited. Samuels offered him firsthand evidence that the problem of antisemitism was very much alive: Menacing emails filling up his spam folder from a sender named “Holocaust Decimate” that had caused Samuels to alert campus police.
“Since I hadn’t made any statement on the war and had in fact made a point of not signing any letter or petition having to do with Israel, I could only think that I was being targeted simply because of antisemitism,” Samuels recalled. “A little sheepish, [my colleague] got away from me as fast as he could, perhaps worried that the Holocaust decimators were lurking in the bushes.”
No Zionists allowed
A recurring concern was intentional or unintentional antisemitism: classical tropes resurfacing of alleged Jewish control of finance or media; or student organizations prohibiting Zionists as members, leading to the exclusion of many Jewish students, intentionally or not. Rebecca Kobrin, co-director of an Israel and Jewish studies center at Columbia University, visited the Columbia anti-Israel protest encampment during the day, but not at night, voicing safety concerns.
Alexander Kaye, the director of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies at Brandeis University, said, “There has been … a startling rise in antisemitism in North America and globally. Some students, faculty, administrators and other members of university communities have acted in bad faith, interested in shutting down conversations, and continue to be disruptive, even threatening and on occasion dangerous.”
Panelists indicated that this semester has been relatively quiet, suggesting reasons such as enforced discipline and divisions between pro-Palestinian activists. They suggested ways to counter campus antisemitism, such as working with diversity, equity and inclusion departments or creating bridge-building opportunities, although students participating in the latter have sometimes been criticized.
Panelists generally expressed hesitation on policing speech on campus or getting outside organizations involved. And some criticized how Israel is conducting the war in Gaza — which according to unverified figures released by the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between combatants and civilians — has claimed over 44,000 Palestinian lives and devastated Gazan infrastructure.
Dov Waxman of UCLA, director of his school’s Israel studies center, lamented what he described as a violent mob that attacked the UCLA anti-Israel protest encampment.
After a full afternoon, attendees streamed out into Harvard Yard. Clouds covered the historic space, but the conference had helped provide a clearer picture of the situation on campuses.
“The majority of students, in my opinion, a very large number of students, are open, respectful, curious, and may well have deep convictions about Israel or Palestine or other issues,” Kaye said. “By and large they understand the world is complicated and historical phenomena cannot be reduced to soundbites, slogans.”
There were a few lighthearted moments — including when Kobrin spoke about visiting the Columbia encampment.
“Someone came over and asked, ‘Are you Prof. Kobrin?’” she recalled. “I said yes … She asked, ‘Will you be my senior thesis advisor?’”
