Herzog scraps appearance at JTS after objection from pro-Palestinian students

President Isaac Herzog has canceled an in-person commencement speech at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, the chancellor of the flagship Conservative institution said, after some students and alumni accused Herzog of having incited violence against Palestinians.

In a May 12 letter shared Thursday by JTS, Chancellor Shuly Rubin Schwartz, Herzog said he could not attend the May 19 ceremony because of unspecified “circumstances that prevent my travel to New York at this time,” the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported.

Rubin Schwartz said Herzog, who was set to receive an honorary degree at the ceremony, would address the gathering virtually and would be awarded the degree in person at a later date.

Writing in the Forward, Rubin Schwartz also decried what she described as the “public media spectacle” that ensued after six members of the graduating class privately wrote to top JTS officials to object to Herzog’s selection last month as commencement speaker. The letter received the support of several other JTS students and alumni, including four rabbinical students, she said.

“As too often happens in such circumstances, the letter was shared more widely, without the students’ prior knowledge or consent,” Rubin Schwartz said. “This was dismaying to several of the students, who had intended to hand-deliver it to me to spark conversation.”

“The authors were publicly criticized, misidentified as rabbinical students and labeled ‘anti-Zionist,’ including by some parties who purport to care deeply about JTS,” said Rubin Schwartz. “Calls were made for their expulsion, and unfounded accusations were directed at their characters.”

The six authors, whom Rubin Schwartz identified as students in undergraduate JTS dual-degree programs with Barnard and Columbia, said that “as scholars of ethics, text, history and rabbinics,” they were compelled to express their concern about “the invitation of a speaker at our graduation celebration who condones the suffering of others.”

The authors claimed Herzog had “incited violence” by inscribing a message on an artillery shell that was fired into Gaza, denying that there was a famine in the Strip and declaring “an entire nation” responsible for the Hamas-led onslaught of October 7, 2023, that sparked the war there.

“To choose an individual to speak with whom many students and community members so vehemently disagree invites controversy, tension and an air of unease into what is supposed to be a beautiful ceremony,” the six authors said.

הנשיא יצחק הרצוג חותם בכיתוב ״סומכים עליכם״ על פגז בדרך לעזה, בביקור בגדוד תותחנים במילואים בצפון הרצועה. pic.twitter.com/UPN7wsSQmI

— Or Heller אור הלר (@OrHeller) December 25, 2023

In response, 24 members of the graduating class wrote a letter expressing their support for Herzog, according to the Columbia Spectator, a student newspaper.

Rubin Schwartz weighed in on the controversy in a May 7 statement that defended Herzog’s invitation, citing JTS’s long-standing support for Israel — due to “the fact that more than 7 million of our fellow Jews” live there — and Herzog’s own record of advocacy for “the democratic character of Israel” and a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.