Harvard PSC Holds Memorial Church Vigil to Mourn ‘1 Year of Genocide’

More than 80 people, including Dean of the College Rakesh Khurana, attended a Thursday evening vigil organized by the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee to commemorate “one year of genocide.”

Holding candles on the steps of Memorial Church, attendees listened to speeches mourning Palestinian civilian lives lost in Gaza and reading a portion of the Quran. Khurana briefly stood and listened at the back of the crowd for a portion of the vigil.

The group wrote in a Wednesday Instagram post that the vigil marked the conclusion of their two-day art installation in Tercentenary Theatre, which featured posters and wooden structures displaying information about the Palestinian death toll in Gaza. After the vigil, speakers encouraged attendees to walk through the exhibition.

In a Thursday email to The Crimson, the PSC wrote that the art installation was intended to stand in contrast to the University’s policy of refraining from public statements on controversial public matters.

“In a campus that purports itself to be ‘institutionally neutral,’ we created a space in Harvard Yard intended explicitly for Palestinian grief,” the group wrote.

“After a year of genocide, decades of student organizing against the occupation, and illegitimate Israeli military campaigns, today’s vigil brought the installation to a close and reminded the Harvard community that the grief we feel over the 42,000 lives lost over the course of this year will continue to underscore our organizing,” they added.

Thursday’s vigil came three days after the PSC wrote in an Instagram post that Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attacks on Israel demonstrated that “the ongoing Nakba and apartheid cannot stand,” adding that now “is the time to escalate” campus protest activity. University President Alan M. Garber ’76 called the statement “offensive” in a Tuesday interview with The Crimson.

Several speakers at the vigil discussed particular aspects of the art installation, which student organizers said they set up early Wednesday morning in Harvard Yard after driving in a truck of supplies.

Eva C. Frazier ’26, an organizer with the PSC, encouraged attendees to specifically engage with one component of the installation: 1,000 slips of paper displaying the names of Palestinian citizens who died in the conflict which she said took students 10 hours to construct.

“Each of these losses is an entire universe,” Frazier said.

“A university that refuses to even acknowledge Palestinian grief is actually complicit in the ongoing genocide,” she added. “We have a duty to honor the individuality that is denied of these names each and every day.”

A University spokesperson did not immediately respond to a Thursday evening request for comment.

The PSC’s art installation also featured a timeline from 1948 to October 2024, describing particular Israeli attacks and marking an increasing number of Palestinian deaths.

“Creating the timeline was hard,” Kulani B. Temesgen ’26, an organizer with the PSC, said. “It was and is emotionally exhausting, because it is a painful reality to have to bear witness to.”

During the vigil, Elom Tettey-Tamaklo — a Harvard Divinity School student who was criminally charged for a confrontation with a pro-Israel student during a demonstration last October — criticized attempts to “justify” and “intellectualize” the impact of the conflict, pointing to the University’s policy of refraining from public statements on controversial public matters.

“We declare institutional neutrality when our investments are killing the children of Gaza,” Tettey-Tamaklo said. “We are as guilty as those who hold the gun.”

“Even the stones of Gaza cry out — the rocks that crush the heads of innocent children,” he added. “These stones condemn you, America. These stones condemn you, Harvard.”

—Staff writer Samuel A. Church can be reached at samuel.church@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @samuelachurch.

—Staff writer Azusa M. Lippit can be reached at azusa.lippit@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @azusalippit or on Threads @azusalippit.