by Tyler O’Neil in The Daily Signal

Orthodox Jewish leaders condemned The Harvard Crimson, the student newspaper of Harvard University, for “whitewashing” antisemitism in a series of op-eds published at the tail end of 2023.

Although Harvard’s efforts to respond to antisemitism on campus after Hamas’ terrorist attacks on Oct. 7 in Israel drew early scrutiny, the university took the spotlight even more after its president, Claudine Gay, said at a Dec. 5 congressional hearing that calls for genocide against the Jewish people may not violate Harvard’s policies against harassment, depending on context. Gay resigned Tuesday amid a plagiarism scandal; concerns about Harvard’s failure to clamp down on antisemitism remain.

The Harvard Crimson published “Antisemitism at Harvard, According to Seven Jewish Affiliates” on Dec. 29, a package of five “op-eds,” three of which warn against the “weaponization of antisemitism” against pro-Palestine protesters.

One op-ed claims that “Jewish safety—in Israel and the diaspora—is inextricably intertwined with Palestinian liberation.” In another, a former executive director of Harvard Hillel condemns “today’s McCarthyist tactic of manufacturing an antisemitism scare, which, in effect, turns the very real issue of Jewish safety into a pawn in a cynical political game to cover for Israel’s deeply unpopular policies with regard to Palestine.”

Some essays acknowledge the deep pain that Israelis and American Jews feel since the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7 in southern Israel, where terrorists slaughtered more than 1,200 people, including women and children, and raped women while murdering them.

An op-ed criticizing the disturbing denial of Jewish grief in the wake of Oct. 7 included this caveat: “We are not blind to the fact that charges of antisemitism have been politicized and weaponized to silence criticism of Israel—including silencing calls for a cease-fire.”

Other Jewish leaders condemned such statements.

Rabbi Yaakov Menken, managing director of the Coalition for Jewish Values, which represents more than 2,500 Orthodox Jewish rabbis in American public policy, said the essays surfaced by The Harvard Crimson were “reflective of an academic effort to whitewash antisemitism.”

“They problem is the reverse of what they say,” Menken told The Daily Signal in a phone interview Tuesday. “Several of the pieces explicitly referred to the weaponization of antisemitism to somehow exonerate Israel. Instead, in reality, the articles reflect an academic effort to whitewash antisemitism by using Israel as a fig leaf.”

“Anyone who justifies mass rapes, burnings, beheadings, and captive taking is not a civilized human being,” Menken said. “How is it not antisemitic to make an exception when the victims are Jews?”

Menken also condemned calls for “Palestinian liberation” that appear in some of the op-eds presented by the Crimson.

“As soon as you describe Arabs uniquely in that region as Palestinians to the exclusion of Jews, you’ve wandered into antisemitic territory,” the rabbi said. “As soon as a person claims that it is not antisemitic to employ demonization and double standards against Israel, you are listening to an antisemite.”

See the full article in The Daily Signal