THANK YOU, RABBI DAVID WOLPE

 It is not often that one can find a piece of writing which could have come from one's own pen or keyboard. I have found such a piece, written by Rabbi David Wolpe, an amazing man, a Rabbi, an author of many books, of which I possess several. While I do not always agree with what he writes, this article published in the Jewish Journal could have had my name as author, though obviously, Rabbi Wolpe says it better and with more authority. I present it, or rather the first part, to you for your perusal. Please read it all. Simply type in the title and it can be found. It is a profound piece which writes of hard truths and an even harsher reality and a deep concern for a future. It is entitled

 My Year at Harvard

 Rabbi David Wolpe took a one-year position at the Harvard Divinity School. What he found was an institution rife with antisemitism and anti-Zionism. Now he tells his story.

 The first day of the holiday of Sukkot was a week before the Oct. 7 attack. Each year the Divinity School at Harvard, to its credit, erects a Sukkah. Remarkably, the only ceremony marking the holiday was run by a group that called itself “Jews for Liberation.” As a Visiting Scholar I was new to campus and decided to attend my first Divinity School event. There was no lulav or etrog, traditional symbols of the holiday. Hebrew prayers were omitted in favor of English songs.  But before even this exiguous ceremony began, we were told by the student coordinator for whom the ceremony was intended:

"This is a safe space for anti-Zionists, non-Zionists and those who are struggling with Zionism.”  Wow, I thought. My first Divinity School event is a Jewish one in which there is no safe space for people like me. 

Like many people, I had a somewhat idealized image both of Harvard and of the position of Jews in the United States. I stood in the Divinity School chapel and marveled that this was the spot where Emerson had delivered his famous address, “The American Scholar.” Here was a plaque to the great American Preacher Theodore Parker whose sermons Emerson called “a streak of rockets all night long.”   I passed by storied halls and pictures of illustrious alumni.  But as the days passed, in the pit of my stomach was a gnawing sadness mixed with dismay. I began to understand, as I visited these places with my kippah on my head, that I might be the kind of Jew that this place was not eager to see

Then came Oct. 7. As the world knows, campuses exploded into protests and became a focus of worldwide attention.  The Divinity school was swept up in the maelstrom. The “apartheid wall” — an art installation claiming Israel is an apartheid state and calling for divestment from any business or institution associated with the State — was removed from Harvard Yard, where it had stood in previous years, and found a congenial home on the grounds of the Divinity School. The explosion and its implications, of course, went far beyond that corner of the university. 

When I packed my bags in September and moved across the country, the air was still warm and I felt a little like a student again. After 26 years as the Senior Rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, I retired and was serving for one year as a visiting scholar at Harvard’s Divinity School. The move promised a reunion across the generations. My parents grew up in Boston and we used to come here when I was a child to visit my grandparents. Although I had not returned here as an adult, and never attended Harvard, it was a kind of homecoming. Cousins appeared whom I had never met nor knew existed. I expected a year of family, quiet study, teaching and writing. Nothing turned out to be quite what I thought it would be.

The Divinity School has a very strong Protestant tradition, but is nonsectarian. Today you will find self-identified pagans, Buddhists, Sikhs, syncretic faiths, as well as Judaism, Islam Christianity, and many others. The notice boards are a pastiche of workshops in psychedelics, gender studies, ancient languages and slam poetry.

I was aware that the Divinity School had a reputation for being politically left even among the leftist bent of higher education.  The usual explanation was that graduates, unlike those in other departments of the university, did not have to enter corporations or businesses that moderate any ideological excesses. Additionally, the Divinity School was both geographically and ideologically the most distant from the business school. These were the avatars of Harvard idealism. Or, as one professor wryly put it, “The Woodstock of Cambridge.

During orientation we all stood before the students and presented our classes for the coming year. The dean who ran the session with skill and wit, told us all where her office was located. Later that day I happened to wander by her office. Her front door was dominated by a poster reading “Democracy is not Occupation” in Hebrew, English and Arabic. For the curious, no, I don’t recall during my time seeing a poster or protest concerning the Chinese treatment of the Uyghurs, the Syrian treatment of the Yazidis, the oppression of the Rohingya in Myanmar, or even a forlorn hope that Tibet might be restored. With hundreds of millions of literal slaves in the world from North Korea to Mauritania to Eritrea, America’s racial problems, gender questions and the plight of the Palestinians seemed to be the only issues that gripped the conscience of students and faculty.

The day after Hamas’ brutal massacre of some 1,200 Israelis, 33 campus organizations issued a statement blaming Israel for its citizens having been raped, brutalized and burned alive. The following day I received a call from the Harvard President, Claudine Gay. She was clearly shaken by the events. Only two months into her term, the University was suddenly facing what one old hand told me was “undoubtedly its greatest crisis.” Gay was contemplating possible responses.  We spoke for a while and it was a good conversation:  I suggested some resources to acquaint her with the history of the conflict and the story of antisemitism. She asked if I would serve on an antisemitism committee. I said yes without thinking — why wouldn’t I? I felt proud to have stepped onto campus two weeks before and suddenly have a way to contribute something meaningful.

To her credit, and the credit of the advisor to the committee, Provost (now interim President) Alan Garber, those appointed to the antisemitism committee were both committed to Israel and to free speech on campus.  We took the meetings — almost all on Zoom — seriously. I think it is fair to say we began under the impression that our advice would be heeded.

The conversations of the committee were confidential, since it was advisory. Each of us was glued to the news day and night and much of the communication concerned the latest developments in the unfolding war and the world’s reaction to it. Our task was clear: To encourage Harvard to enforce university policies already in place, institute transparent punishments for those who broke the rules, set up a decent and responsive reporting system for infractions, and take antisemitic speech as seriously as racist or homophobic speech. We offered longer term suggestions in terms of hiring and administrative and policy changes. It took skill and will, but the solutions to the immediate problem were not that complex. Effecting deeper ideological changes would take longer. 

Yet day after day we received reports on the ubiquitous faculty and student WhatsApp groups of hostage posters defaced or torn down, students subjected to cruel and sometimes blatant antisemitic statements on internal channels of communication, protests that violated the school’s own policies, and in the favored inversion, defining Israelis as that which has most cruelly afflicted Jews, widespread Nazi imagery. 

More than one student showed me the vile images on Sidechat, the internal Harvard communication channel. When a Jewish student pushed back they were overwhelmed by a torrent of shame, abuse and accusation. Eventually many of the Jewish students went silent. 

In a place where discourse and argument should prevail, certain suggestive silences took their place. In silence and stealth, hostage posters were ripped down and defaced. Complaints from Jewish students to the administration were met with silence. On my way to class I saw a student published newspaper: “Harvard Daily: The Genocide Edition.” On internal Harvard messaging and on X, tutors in a student house were writing about “Judeonazis.”

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a good place to stop, and I entreat you all, urge you all, to find the article and read it to the end. Well worth the time. Harsh truths but better to know than fool oneself and try to bury one's head in the sand. To know is to be informed, to be prepared and perhaps have a period of time during which we can try to fix the situation, at least to a livable degree. Maybe. Who the hell knows!