[Oct 27, 2023: I was hoping for this piece to be posted as an op-ed in the Crimson, since I really want to reach students that are well-intentioned but may not realize they are harmful. However, it was rejected and so I am posting this here].
[Update Jan 3, 2024: In light of my new op-ed on The Crimson, I decided to also post here a file of some of the anti-semitic social media posts of Harvard students with names redacted, as well as a video of Harvard pro-Palestinian protestors calling out the Arabic version of “from the river to the sea” which ends with “Palestine will be Arab”, with blurred faces. See also this X thread and my Dec 10 letter to the Harvard Corporation]
The events of October 7th, 2023, hit many Israeli-Americans personally. My immediate family was thankfully spared, but I have several friends who were not so lucky. At Harvard, where I teach, one student lost four members of her family; three generations: grandmother, father, and two kids were murdered. The Idan family were the next-door neighbors of another student’s family. Parents Roee and Smadar were murdered. Their children, Michael (age 9) and Amalya (age 6), survived by hiding in a closet for 14 hours. Little three-year-old Avigail ran out and is now a hostage in Gaza. As is well known, Hamas terrorists killed more than 1,400 Israelis that day. They gunned down hundreds of innocent partiers, raped women, tortured and mutilated their victims. Entire families were slaughtered in their homes. Hamas also took over 200 hostages, including mothers, babies, and the elderly.
The same night, more than 30 Harvard student groups issued a statement holding Israel “entirely responsible for all unfolding violence” without mentioning Hamas at all. The statement claimed that “massacres in Gaza” are taking place. The attack was still ongoing, with Israeli forces rescuing citizens held hostages in their homes, all under a barrage of thousands of rockets. This statement was equivalent to condemning the U.S. as entirely responsible for the 9/11 attacks and decrying the response while firefighters were still in the building. Not to be outdone, at Tufts, Students for Justice in Palestine praised Hamas’ “creativity,” and even added emojis of the paragliders used by the terrorists.
The Harvard statement justly drew criticism, including in a letter I co-authored and signed by more than 400 faculty members. An anonymous resolution condemning our letter was proposed to the Harvard Graduate Student Union and emailed to all writers (myself included). The resolution states that the goals of some (though not all) in the “Free Palestine movement” is the “total reconquest, total evacuation, or total eradication of the Jews,” and some pray for Israel’s destruction by an Iranian nuclear bomb. While the destruction of Israel and the death of all its Jews are also advocated by the Hamas charter, at least Hamas doesn’t have the gall to call itself a “human rights movement.”
If public statements were not bad enough, Israeli and Jewish students soon saw on social media that fellow students were not just condoning the murder of their family and friends but even celebrating it, often using classical anti-semitic tropes. One Harvard student posted how the “innocent festival goers line does nothing for me,” and they couldn’t “give a f**k” about them. I know four different Harvard students who lost friends in the Nova Festival massacre— can you get more callous than that?
On Sidechat, students posted “Let ‘em cook” and “gotta get them all” with the Palestinian flags; one even posted an emoji of a baby with a severed head. Another student wrote about “how much power the Jewish population has over the media.” One student posted that the “two Israeli defeats” in October (1973 and 2023) make it a “great month.” October 2023 might have been a great month for American keyboard warriors, but it has been and continues to be an awful month for both Israelis and Palestinians. While Israel has no choice but to defend itself against Hamas, the images from Gaza are heartbreaking. I am glad that (long overdue and too little) humanitarian aid is now going in. Israel would be wise to heed President Biden’s warning that it should follow the laws of war. But such criticism is best received when it is not a knee-jerk reaction from people who seek your country’s destruction.
Let me be clear: not all criticism of Israel is anti-semitism. You can harshly criticize Israel’s policies and even call for sanctions or boycotts without being anti-semitic. But you cannot condone, let alone celebrate, the slaughter of Jewish babies, mothers, and grandparents without being anti-semitic. While I would hope that basic human decency should be enough, the failure to condemn Hamas also hurts the cause of a free Palestinian state alongside Israel, a cause that I personally support. Furthermore, like the Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, a Hamas-controlled Palestine would not be truly “free,” especially for women, sexual and gender minorities, or anyone who does not conform to Hamas’ narrow definition of Islam.
These offensive social media posts are reminiscent of the famous 2017 Harvard “meme scandal,” but the current situation is much worse. These are not high-school students but supposedly adult college students. They are not making hypothetical jokes in a private group chat but celebrating the murder of actual people on a platform shared by the friends and relatives of the victims. Of course, there is another difference. While in 2017, Harvard had no compunction rescinding admittance for the students, now it is setting up a task force to protect students from any consequences to their careers. I have repeatedly voiced my disapproval of “shaming” students via (often inaccurate) blacklists or trucks. But the hypocrisy is palpable. How is it that on a campus so intent on promoting equality and inclusion, condoning the murder of people due to their ethnicity is even up for debate? Why do Harvard students, ever sensitive to the slightest micro-aggressions, feel OK to repeat anti-semitic stereotypes? How is it that some of the smartest and most educated people on Earth seem to have lost the ability to distinguish between supporting a cause and supporting all actions done ostensibly in the name of this cause?
Windows On Theory 
Boaz, would you take a PhD student that signed these petitions? Would you write such a student a recommendation letter for a job? Would you put your name next to theirs on a scientific paper?
You may already be established enough for this to not impact your career, but what would you expect more junior faculty members to do?
I really hope you nor anyone else will have this conflict, but if someone does, I hope they act wisely.
I believe in doing my job, and in educating students, not punishing them. Regarding your question yes I will take a PhD student that signed for example the Harvard student petition, will write a recommendation letter if they deserve it, and will co-author a paper with them. I hope that the students will learn this way and improve.
However, if someone wrote the more horrendous things – such as sending an email with paragliders emojis or writing “let ’em cook”, then without a sincere apology I would not do any of these things. Not to punish them, but because they would create a toxic and unsafe atmosphere for me and other Jewish members of the community.
I would not knowingly take an antisemitic student, just like I would not knowingly take a racist, sexist, or any other of the ists. I don’t understand the forgiveness in which student misbehavior is accepted. When are we supposed to start treating them as adults?
My bar is in fact much higher than that. I avoid working with people that I do not like and this applies twice as much to my students. My students are extremely talented and smart but I am even prouder that they are good human beings. This lets me be in their corner and promote their careers with clear concious and the enthusiasm that they deserve.
Well said, Boaz!
Was there any reason provided for the rejection of your essay by The Crimson? What’s the process editing there?
I didn’t get any reason. My understanding is that this is standard not to give a reason
Thank you Boaz. I can share from here that Stanford has a similar problem. The progressive left is the natural political home for me, based on what they were supposedly standing for. But it seems that in their tent there is more room for antisemites that for Jews. I almost prefer the more honest antisemitism of MTG than that of her spiritual twins on the left. I am thus left politically homeless.
Thank you Boaz for your leadership. It is of the utmost importance and highly impactful, also outside of the confines of Harvard University.
Boaz, thank you for your leadership. My question to you is, why is it that only Israeli and some Jewish academicians leading the way? Others are signing petitions, good for them. But why others are going on their lives as if nothing much happened? Why is it that only Jewish people are hanging posters about the hostages on the streets? What Hamas did was among the worst crimes against humanity ever perpetrated. Not crimes against the Jewish people. Crimes against humanity! Where is the rest of humanity?
Boaz, you are basically correct, but the analogy with the “meme” students is faulty. Students who have been admitted but have not matriculated are on thin ice; they have fewer rights than matriculated students. And Harvard never publicly shamed those students or in fact said anything at all about that affair — what is known came from the students themselves. (And whether Harvard had any “compunctions” about taking the actions they took is therefore unknown.) A better parallel is Harvard’s announcement a couple of years ago that the posture of certain clubs was so at odds with Harvard’s “deepest values” that all members of those clubs would be declared ineligible for any institutional honors, including team captaincies and Rhodes nominations. The sins of those clubs? Not admitting men to women’s clubs and women to men’s clubs. That policy was dropped after national sororities took Harvard to court and decisively beat back Harvard’s motions to dismiss in both federal and state suits. Now THAT’s hypocrisy for you–to have nothing to say now, when violation of “our deepest values” was so important to decry only recently over such small stakes. The fact that Harvard was wrong then doesn’t change the fact that it had, to use your language, no compunction about ripping those clubs in public and severely sanctioning all their members regardless of those students’ views on the clubs’ policies. Harvard certainly can’t now claim it doesn’t meddle in the internal affairs of clubs, or comment on their policies and practices.
Thanks Boaz for your leadership and communicating such an important message to the academic world (and beyond).
…”some pray for Israel’s destruction by an Iranian nuclear bomb”..
It’s the Mullah’s Islamic republic regime and IRGC that seek to destroy Israel and Jews.
Islamic Republic and Iran are two (opposing) different entities. Iran’s got ~85m people and I think it’s a safe bet to say that more than 80% of Iran’s population is pro-Israel/Jews so please mind this while reading about Iran. Please recall that during and after WW2 Iranians welcomed Polish(Jews) refugees and took them under their wings wholeheartedly. Nothing has changed today and Iran will always be a safe place for Jewish community.
Iranian here,
Following the congressional testimony of Harvard’s president, I think your title is absolutely correct