Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance Slams Harvard, Global Antisemitism at Event

Updated September 24, 2024, at 10:15 a.m.

A number of speakers condemned antisemitism on Harvard’s campus and called on the University’s leadership to better protect Jewish students during an event hosted by the Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance on Sunday.

The event, titled “Crisis on Campus: Zionism, Antisemitism and the Future of Higher Education,” drew hundreds of people people to Sanders Theatre to listen to several high-profile speakers, including U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism Deborah Lipstadt.

Harvard Hillel and Harvard Chabad, the two largest Jewish centers on campus, co-sponsored the daylong event, alongside several other external organizations. HJAA organizers said they sold 887 tickets and provided another 113 tickets to people who staffed the event.

Harvard College Dean of Students Thomas Dunne was also in attendance on Sunday.

Laura E. Fein ’91, founding vice president of the HJAA and event chair, said in an interview with The Crimson before the event that it had been “a very hard year for most Jewish people at Harvard and at many campuses.”

“We wanted to gather and support each other and show each other that we’re a united community,” Fein added.

The event featured a significant security presence, with dozens officers from Securitas, Harvard University Police Department, Cambridge Police Department, and Longwood campus security, as well as a large mobile command stationed around Sanders Theatre. A law enforcement officer also operated a drone over the event.

Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks against Israel took center stage at the event. Prior to the scheduled speakers, attendees were invited to view a photo exhibition outside of the lecture space featuring scenes of devastation and carnage in Israel following the attacks. During the event, graphic videos of Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians were shown to a tearful audience.

Avigail Gimpel, who volunteered at an Israeli burial society during the attacks, provided testimony of the death and mutilation she observed. Her son, Gavriel Gimpel, a soldier in the Israeli Defense Forces, was met with standing ovations from the audience as he shared his motivations for serving in the Israeli military.

U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism Deborah Lipstadt also spoke to attendees on the work she has done for the government around combating antisemitism.

“In fighting antisemitism, we are fighting for what America stands for,” she said.

Eylon Levy, a former spokesperson for the Israeli government, and Einat Wilf, an author and scholar of Zionism, also discussed the rise of antisemitism on college campuses and beyond during a panel session.

Asked about his response to human rights groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Groups condemning Israel for the high civilian death toll in Gaza, Levy questioned the credibility of their judgments.

“Sometimes the world is wrong,” he said.

“What is so painful about the current wave of antisemitism is the gaslighting — trying to make us doubt our own humanity, our own sanity,” he added.

In addition to speaking against global antisemitism, much of the event centered directly on campus antisemitism and Harvard’s response.

Event organizers showed videos of pro-Palestine demonstrations at Harvard, MIT, Yale, Columbia, and the University of California, Los Angeles, as well as a clip from former Harvard president Claudine Gay’s testimony before Congress last December.

Shabbos “Alexander” Kestenbaum — a Harvard Divinity School graduate who spoke at this year’s Republican National Convention and is currently suing Harvard over campus antisemitism — said in his speech, during the event that “for a year, Claudine Gay, Alan Garber, and my dean, Marla Frederick, have proved to be incompetent at best.”

University spokesperson Jason A. Newton wrote in a statement that “Harvard has and will continue to be unequivocal that antisemitism will not be tolerated on our campus.”

“We have taken, and continue to take, actions to combat hate and to promote and nurture civil dialogue and respectful engagement,” Newton added.

Speakers also spoke about pro-Palestine campus groups’ use of social media.

Harvard Jews for Palestine and Harvard Graduate Students 4 Palestine posted on Instagram Saturday denouncing the event, claiming it conflated “Anti Zionism with antisemitism” to draw attention away from the “the genocidal Israeli regime.”

During his speech at Sanders Theater, Alex L.S. Bernat ’25, co-president of Chabad’s undergraduate board and a Crimson Editorial editor, blasted the post as “ridiculously antisemitic,” telling the audience that it was “accusing us all of lying.”

Former Harvard antisemitism advisory group member Dara Horn ’99 told the crowd she had the “dubious distinction” of serving on the advisory committee.

“I can say I feel that Harvard did not take a whole lot of our advice,” she said.

Horn also pointed to speaking before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce in March. “In fact, it went so badly that I got called into Congress to testify about it,” she said about Harvard’s antisemitism advisory group.

She also called into question pro-Palestine student demonstrators’ knowledge of their cause.

“​​Harvard students are clearly fascinated by the Intifada,” Horn said. “They can’t stop talking about it.”

“How many Harvard courses or lectures describe the Intifada that the students were so excited to mobilize?” she added.

Despite the strong criticism of Harvard and antisemitism during the event, speakers also emphasized the importance of unity and truth.

Harvard Chabad founder and president Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi encouraged the crowd to “embrace our legacy.”

“Let’s honor it. Let’s express it,” he said. “Speak the truth wherever you go, to the power and to the powerless, and it will prevail.”

Correction: September 23, 2024

A previous version of this article incorrectly identified the HJAA as the Harvard Jewish Alumni Assocation. In fact, it is the Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance.

Clarification: September 23, 2024

This article has been updated to clarify the number of tickets sold for the “Crisis on Campus: Zionism, Antisemitism and the Future of Higher Education” event on Sunday.

—Staff writer Rachael A. Dziaba can be reached at rachael.dziaba@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @rachaeldziaba.

—Staff writer Aisatu J. Nakoulima can be reached at aisatu.nakoulima@thecrimson.com.