Journal ‘is tangential to Harvard’s tolerance of grotesque antisemitism,’ rabbi tells The College Fix

A new scholarly journal at Harvard Divinity School focused on “modern Judaism” and named after a pagan goddess is adding to concerns about antisemitism on campus.

The first edition of Asherah, a “journal of Jewish liturgy,” was published in May, funded in part by the dean’s office.

Rabbi Yaakov Menken, vice president of the Coalition for Jewish Values, told The College Fix in a recent email interview that the decision to name a journal after a pagan deity is not original but it is concerning

“That it is named after a form of idolatry reminds me of the Jewish feminist magazine ‘Lilith,’ named after an impure spirit, which is turning 50 this year,” Menken said.

He continued: “There’s nothing groundbreaking here.  When the founder claims that they ‘received many responses stretching from congratulations to curiosity to disturbance and even anger,’ I would take that with a hefty grain of salt.”

The goddess, according to the journal introduction by student editors Daisy Jacobs and Lila Rimalovski, is “entirely present and invisibilized in most expressions of modern Judaism.”

“Some claim she was originally a Canaanite deity, but that remains a matter of scholarly debate. She was certainly adopted and used by Israelites in their places of worship and homes in both the kingdoms of Judah and the more unruly northern kingdom of Israel,” the preface states, citing Old Testament scriptures.

The name refers back to “a spiritual moment in the ancient Israelite tradition, not to subvert the norms that constitute Judaism today as much as to enhance them by reviving the idea of devotional practices that are not severed from the beauty of the natural world all of us inhabit,” it states.

However, a recent article by the Washington Free Beacon raised concerns that the use of the name Asherah constitutes a blatant disregard of biblical Judaism. The article cites Deuteronomy 16:21, which states, “You shall not plant for yourself an asherah, [or] any tree, near the altar of the Lord, your God, which you shall make for yourself.”

Menken told The Fix that the journal “is about hostility to Judaism, not just Jews. The journal claims to be respectful, but names itself after an idol and implies Judaism needs revision.”

“I would expect that several of its writers tolerate and even subscribe to beliefs about the modern-day country of Israel and its enemies that all traditional scholars would deem antisemitic,” he said.

The Free Beacon similarly raised issues with the journal and antisemitism, describing Harvard as “a cesspool of Jew-hate.”

“… it’s more than a bit much for the Harvard Divinity School dean’s office–after all that had happened in recent years–to subsidize the production of an openly non-scholarly magazine devoted to redefining Judaism into something that will strike many Americans, justifiably, as a perversion,” according to the article.

Rabbi Menken also referenced Harvard’s record on this score, telling The Fix that the journal “is tangential to Harvard’s tolerance of grotesque antisemitism.”

To Menken, the journal’s intentions were questionable from the outset.

“The notion that Harvard Divinity would genuinely contribute to ‘Innovations in Jewish Prayer and Ritual,’ much less with a journal devoid of any authentic Jewish scholarship, is alternately humorous and sad, more than hateful,” the rabbi said.

Neither of the co-editors nor the school’s media relations responded to two emailed requests for interviews over the past two weeks, asking about the academic value and mission integrity of the journal as well as the concerns about antisemitism.

Although the journal’s first issue invites inquiries, pointing interested parties to its website, Asherah does not include any means of contacting it. Under the donations tab, there is a place for donors to include a message. But otherwise, neither the website nor the first issue of the journal include an email address, phone number, or contact form.

The journal, which is dedicated to “Innovations in Jewish Prayer and Ritual,” states that it is offered “in the hope that it will serve a broad community of Jews and non-Jews.”

The first article of the journal is an interview with Rabbi Jericho Vincent who self-identifies as “trans” and “nonbinary.”

In the interview, Vincent told student editor Rimalovski, “The word ‘God’ is one way to hold on [to the concept of one divine being], ‘Goddess’ another, ‘Goddexx’ another.’”

Vincent praised the journal, exclaiming: “And now — oh my Goddess — there’s going to be an Asherah journal at Harvard Divinity School! Our ancient mothers and fathers, ancestors two and a half thousand years ago, they’ve been waiting so long. How much nachas they must have that we’re coming home [to a faith with Asherah].”

Vincent described “mainstream Judaism” as an “articulated myth” surrounding a “new king [who] is going to rise, some dude on his calico donkey who will save us all.”

Vincent said of the Messiah of traditional Jewish religion, “It’s very beguiling, and, of course, he’s never going to come.”

Instead, Vincent painted a picture of Jews worshipping Asherah, lamenting, “We know so heartbreakingly little about how the ancestors worshiped the Goddess, but we know there’s strong evidence of dancing around the tree…Spending time dancing in circles — versus sitting in a pew that doesn’t move, staring at people performing for us, checking a box and leaving — it moves the energy in a completely different way.”

Vincent also called on Asherah in the closing prayer of the interview: “From our places of deep center, I call out to Asherah — the One within us, between us, and beyond us.”

When asked about the potential impact of the Asherah journal, Rabbi Menken was confident in the victory of the traditional Jewish religion over the quasi-Jewish, pagan rituals.

“It will not have a meaningful, long-term impact upon the Jewish world, especially among those practicing Jewish Prayer and Ritual,” he said.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s remarks for America’s 250th birthday, in which he decried the country spending “our tax dollars on bombs and bailouts,” Elon Musk as the “world’s first trillionaire” who “hungers for more” and a “health insurance industry that exploits the sick,” were dangerous and in appropriate, rabbis told JNS.

“We see a city of contradictions within a nation of contradictions. We see the wealthiest country in the history of the world—one where children go to sleep hungry while the world’s first trillionaire hungers for more,” the mayor said on Friday ahead of July 4.

“We see monopolies that dominate every industry and oligarchs who buy elections. We see masked agents terrorizing our streets, eating food cooked by our undocumented neighbors before spiriting them away in unmarked vans,” he added. “We see a nation whose immense wealth has been built by those with calloused, dirt-streaked hands— those who toil on factory floors and chisel into stone—and we see a nation that has allowed so much of that wealth to be held instead in the soft hands of a precious few.”

Rabbi Menachem Levine, CEO of Joan Dachs Bais Yaakov–Yeshivas Tiferes Tzvi, a 70-year-old Orthodox school in Chicago, told JNS that Mamdani’s approach, in which he began by referring to the United States as a place of opportunity and “a grand experiment in self-governance,” evokes the tactics of the biblical spies, whom Moses sent to scout out the Holy Land.

The spies returned bearing enormous fruits and told the Israelites that the land was good and then pivoted to information that it was inhabited by giants, who saw the men as grasshoppers. Because the spies led the people to fear entering the Holy Land, God forced almost the entire generation to wander for 40 years in the desert—one year for each day of the mission of the spies—until each person had died before their descendants could enter the Holy Land.

Per rabbinic tradition, the spies “began by acknowledging the land’s physical beauty, thereby lending credibility to their subsequent falsehoods regarding its inhabitants,” Levine told JNS.

“Ultimately, his objective is to dismantle the existing social order,” he said of the New York City mayor. “However, he has unfortunately considerable political acumen and is a significant threat.”

Mark Goldfeder, an Orthodox rabbi and CEO and director of the National Jewish Advocacy Center, told JNS that “Judaism invented institutionalized national self-criticism, so the objection is not that a leader criticized his country.”

“It’s how and why and when,” Goldfeder said.

The Talmud “contrasts two people welcomed at the same table,” Goldfeder told JNS. “One says, ‘Look how much trouble my host went to, and all of it for me.’ The other says, ‘What trouble did my host really go to? He ate his own bread. Whatever he did, he did for himself and his household.’”

He advised reading Mamdani’s speech with that template in mind. “You will see it is built exactly like the second guy’s toast,” Goldfeder said. “Every American generosity gets recharacterized as extraction.”

Those who defend the New York City mayor will say that there is a “some kernel of truth” in everything that he said, according to Goldfeder.

“Sure. The spies Moses sent into Canaan also told the truth. The Talmud points out that slander only takes hold when it opens with truth, and it still counted the spies’ report among the gravest sins in the national record,” he told JNS. “The facts were right. The verdict was the sin.”

Standing on the threshold of the Promised Land, the spies “assembled some technically accurate observations into a case against the entire enterprise,” Goldfeder said. “The mayor did the same thing at the threshold of the country’s 250th year.”

“Judaism never tamed national self-criticism by suppressing it. It tamed it with a calendar,” he said. “There is an entire fast day, Tisha B’Av, set aside for the national indictment, when Jews sit on the floor and read the catalogue of their own failures out loud. And precisely because that day exists, Passover is not allowed to become a seminar on them.”

“Eulogies are barred on festivals for the same reason,” Goldfeder told JNS. “July 4 is the festival, and he went ahead and gave the eulogy.”

Rabbi David Wolpe, rabbi emeritus of Sinai Temple, a Conservative synagogue in Los Angeles, told JNS that it was “foolish” for Mamdani to make the statement that the “powerful have always known their answer” and that “America, in their view, is an arena of supremacy, where only a select few are allowed freedom, where not all are created equal.”

“To speak of the powerful as a block not only betrays the many powerful people who created the rights and economic dynamism and hope that he celebrates but neglects the reality that he is among the powerful,” Wolpe said.

“A less thoughtful and more self-sabotaging statement would be hard to imagine,” he told JNS. “When the Torah says, ‘Do not favor the rich or poor in judgement,’ it is arguing against this exact lumping of people into a category simply to excoriate them.”

Rabbi Yaakov Menken, executive vice president of the Coalition for Jewish Values, told JNS that he is reminded of a different biblical episode when he listens to the New York City mayor’s July 4 speech: Jacob’s prayer in Genesis 32, imploring God to “save me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau.”

Chaim ibn Attar, an 18th century Moroccan rabbi and Kabbalist, explained that Jacob was praying for protection from his enemy Esau even if the latter came to him as “my brother,” according to Menken.

“He is dangerous either way. The same can be said of Mamdani,” he told JNS. “Much of what he says is historically wrong, and his characterization of businesses today is no better.”

Diverse Religious Perspectives

A brief submitted by the Anglican Church in North America, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Coalition for Jewish Values, and the National Association of Evangelicals emphasizes that the term “conversion therapy” originally meant only physical treatments to eradicate homosexuality. But the American Psychological Association’s 2009 report represented a “sea change” in counseling people reporting their homosexuality or gender dysphoria. It made “sexual orientation change efforts” (SOCE) or “sexual orientation and gender identity/expression change efforts” (SOGIECE) cover any counseling that did not affirm reported same-sex attraction or gender identity, and condemned all such efforts as dangerous, even though some people reported being benefitted by SOCE.

The brief maintains that what it calls “exploratory therapy,” which these organizations say they practice, is neither “affirmative” (supportive of same-sex attraction or opposite sex identity) nor “conversion” or “reparative” therapy (which seeks reorientation to opposite sex attraction or identification with one’s biological sex). It simply seeks to provide clients with “a safe therapeutic space to discuss how their current values ha[ve] shaped and informed how they view their sexuality in ways not understood by many [n]onreligious clinicians.” But because it might involve moving away from homosexuality or transgenderism, it is not “affirmative” and thus was banned in Colorado. It would seem, however, that a committedly Christian counselor would have to decline further conversation if the client feels he or she should move toward some LGBT identity, which again would have been illegal under MCTL, because of its viewpoint discrimination.

The Manhattan Institute, the Islam and Religious Freedom Action Team, the Jewish Coalition for Religious Liberty, and Dr. Dovid Schwartz observed in their brief that proper identification of males and females is essential to the practice of Judaism. A Jew experiencing gender dysphoria must identify with his or her biological sex to participate in the life of the community, but licensed counseling to help with this for a Jewish minor was illegal under MCTL. This “is a serious burden on the exercise of Judaism.” There are many situations in Orthodox Jewish religious life where biological sex is important (a ritual haircut for boys on their third birthday, wearing the kippah (skullcap) and tzitzit (ritual fringes) for the first time, girls reciting a morning blessing thanking God that they are women, and “strictures that govern all areas of Jewish life, from marriage, sex, and privacy to prayer and even death and burial.” Laws that prohibit counseling to identify with one’s biological sex “inhibit the free exercise of Judaism by burdening Jewish patients, therapists, and communities.”

The impact on the practice of Islam is similarly grave. “Belief in the distinct biological sexes is not only rooted in sacred teachings but goes to the very core of religious exercise. Rules governing decency, modesty, and seclusion apply to all Muslims and require clear distinctions between men and women … Prohibiting therapy that would make patients more comfortable with their biological sex interferes with religious free exercise, which Muslim therapists would consider to include helping fellow Muslims fulfill Islam’s obligations. It also contradicts Muslim therapists’ religiously driven mission to alleviate pain and suffering. It imposes a set of values that are alien to Islam and violates the principles of proper care.” Although these claims were cast in terms of religious freedom, which the court did not consider, they easily translate into claims of free speech, and MCTL’s censorship and viewpoint discrimination. The brief further noted the separate seating areas for men and women in prayer, and the male-only obligation for Friday prayers. A minor child growing up in Islam will naturally want to participate in this and may want counseling illegal under MCTL.

An Islamic therapist associated with the Islam and Religious Freedom Action Team very persuasively said:

“In professional counseling, it is in our code of ethics to work with the values of our client. Denying clients this service is contradictory to our very mission to elevate [sic] [i.e., alleviate] human suffering and contradicts our code of ethics because we are saying they are not entitled to help, in essence imposing another set of values on them. A Muslim therapist who is not allowed to assist clients with issues related to gender and sexuality in congruence with their and the clients’ beliefs would actively be harming the client.”

Anti-Israel podcaster Tucker Carlson’s decision to leave the Republican Party “can only be seen as a good sign, not just for Republicans but for the future of the American experiment in representative government, tolerance for all and pursuit of peace,” Rabbi Yaakov Menken, executive vice president of the Coalition for Jewish Values, told JNS.

“Despite his statements, it is not Israel, America or the Republican Party that has changed but Carlson himself,” Menken said. “Israel was attacked by genocidal enemies 30 years ago, responded with force in order to restore peace and Americans, especially American conservatives, supported Israel in that fight.”

“Carlson’s own past criticism of politicians obsessed with ‘needling the Jews’ applies with equal force to who Carlson has become today,” the rabbi told JNS.

The former Fox News host recently said on his podcast that “there’s no chance I would support the Republican Party” in midterm elections.

“Not gonna support the Democratic Party,” he added. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

Menken told JNS that “for decades, mainstream Democrats covered for the explosion of antisemitic extremism in their progressive flank, now represented by members of Congress like Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.”

“We saw in figures like Carlson, Candace Owens and Nick Fuentes a similar danger on the right, especially when the president of the Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts, threw his organization’s support with Carlson and dismissed his critics,” he said.

The GOP “made a different choice, and it is Carlson himself who, along with President Trump, has made this clear,” Menken said. “Republicans refused to let antisemitism become a tolerated faction within their ranks and reaffirmed that support for Israel, opposition to terrorism and the fight against Jew-hatred are non-negotiable.”

“Tucker Carlson wanted to take the Republican Party down a different and much darker road. He failed,” the rabbi told JNS. “Republicans chose principle over populist grievance, America’s allies over its enemies and moral clarity over moral confusion. Carlson’s departure tells us that the American political system still has a place for those who value American civilization. For this, we are grateful.”

The coalition is a nonprofit, with a rabbinic “circle” of more than 2,500 traditional, Orthodox rabbis, and it “promotes classical Jewish principles in public policy,” per its website.

Photo: Tucker Carlson speaking with attendees at the Indiana University tour stop of the “This Is The Turning Point” tour at IU Auditorium in Bloomington, Ind., Oct. 21, 2025. Credit: Gage Skidmore with CC BY-SA 4.0 license on Flickr.

Despite his statements, it is not Israel, America, or the Republican Party that has changed, but Carlson himself. Israel was attacked by genocidal enemies thirty years ago, responded with force in order to restore peace, and Americans, especially American conservatives, supported Israel in that fight. Carlson’s own past criticism of politicians obsessed with “needling the Jews” applies with equal force to who Carlson has become today.

For decades, mainstream Democrats covered for the explosion of antisemitic extremism in their progressive flank, now represented by members of Congress like Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, and NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani. We saw in figures like Carlson, Candace Owens, and Nick Fuentes a similar danger on the right, especially when the President of the Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts, threw his organization’s support with Carlson and dismissed his critics.

The Republican Party made a different choice, and it is Carlson himself who, along with President Trump, has made this clear. Republicans refused to let antisemitism become a tolerated faction within their ranks, and reaffirmed that support for Israel, opposition to terrorism, and the fight against Jew-hatred are non-negotiable.

Tucker Carlson wanted to take the Republican Party down a different and much darker road. He failed. Republicans chose principle over populist grievance, America’s allies over its enemies, and moral clarity over moral confusion. Carlson’s departure tells us that the American political system still has a place for those who value American civilization. For this, we are grateful.

Image credit: Tucker Carlson by Gage Skidmore with CC BY-SA 2.0 license on Wikimedia.

Before issuing a kneejerk condemnation of Beckwith’s comments, the JCRC should thus first have addressed their merits. They are considerable.

In the immediate wake of the largest post-Holocaust mass murder of Jews, the Hamas massacre of October 7, 2023, chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine at Indiana, Purdue, and Butler Universities all held rallies in support of the kidnapping, rapes, and massacres of that day, branding these despicable crimes as “resistance.” Similarly, 57.5% of American Muslims surveyed in the wake of October 7th claimed the Hamas jihadi attack on Jewish civilians was at least somewhat justified.

The Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), billed as “the largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization in the United States,” said that he was “happy” to see the atrocities of that day, which he called “self-defense.” In a 2024 survey, CAIR found overwhelming Muslim support for the notion that Israel’s efforts to free hostages from rape, starvation, and torture were actually a “genocide.”

Here in Indiana, Shaykh Mongy El-Quesny, Imam of the Northwest Indiana Islamic Center, called for “annihilation” of those who support Israel, while Sheikh Abdullah Alhajj, Imam of the Highland Masjid, denounced those who neutralized Jihadi terrorists as “enemies of Islam.” Masjid Al-Fajr of Indianapolis hosted a discussion claiming an “Islamic war” against “Zionists” and promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories. Is the JCRC claiming to know Islamic beliefs better than Indiana’s leading Imams?

While we may not agree with everything Lieutenant Governor Beckwith says or how he says it, JAACI believes that he has every right to call out hatred within the Muslim community, just as he does for any other group or community within Indiana. The JCRC and its allies cannot claim to represent the Jewish community while ignoring the existential threat to Jewish life in Indiana now festering under their noses.

JAACI touts its own strong record of supporting Jewish rights and opposing antisemitic boycotts, and calls upon all people of good will to condemn the threats to Jews and other Americans regardless of ideology, religion or political persuasion.

 Hundreds of protesters waving Israeli and American flags gathered Tuesday night, just steps from Gracie Mansion on Manhattan’s Upper East Side to rally against Democratic Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Speakers at the rally accused the mayor of failing to protect the city’s Jewish population and ignoring antisemitism. The protest featured a long list of speakers, including former “Big Time Rush” star James Maslow, artist Scott LoBaido, Lawfare Project founder Brooke Goldstein and several pro-Israel activists.

The rally was organized by #EndJewHatred, a grassroots group focused on combating antisemitism.

In between the speeches, the crowd broke into chants of “Remove Mamdani” and “USA, USA,” and sang “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

“This is not the New York City I knew and loved,” Ari Ackerman, an entrepreneur and outspoken pro-Israel advocate, told Fox News Digital.

“There’s a different ideology that has taken over by the man who’s living in that house right over there,” he added, pointing at Gracie Mansion, “and it’s not good. It’s changed everything.”

Mamdani’s friction with the city’s Jewish community came into focus during his campaign as some questioned his stance on Israel, refusal to condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada” and his ties to activists like Hasan Piker and Mahmoud Khalil.

Antisemitic incidents have surged in New York City since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks in Israel. Recently, there have been anti-Israel protests outside Jewish institutions and synagogues.

Since Mamdani took office in January, tensions have remained high, with many Jewish New Yorkers saying they do not feel safe in their own city. New York City is home to the largest Jewish population in the world outside Israel.