‘Harvard Has an Anti-Semitism Problem’: Divinity School Rabbi Says It ‘Is Real and It Is Not Small’

Isaac SchorrOct 26th, 2023, 2:07 pm
 

 

(AP Photo/Elise Amendola, File)

Rabbi David Wolpe, a visiting scholar at Harvard Divinity School, released a video statement accusing the prestigious Ivy League school of having an “anti-Semitism problem” on Thursday.

Harvard has taken heat in the wake of Hamas’ brutal terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians earlier this month. In a statement issued in the immediate aftermath of the attack, a large number of student organizations held Israel “entirely responsible for the unfolding violence.”

The university has since created a task force to support the students affiliated with the statement, which drew widespread backlash.

“This year, I’m a visiting scholar at Harvard, and Harvard has an anti-Semitism problem,” began Wolpe in his statement addressing the campus climate.

He continued:

It’s not alone. It shares it with my alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania, with GW, with Columbia, with a lot of universities in different ways. Most of the students at Harvard just want to build a career and have a life. And I don’t think we should be abandoning the universities. A lot of good comes out of them  — innovation and thought and some societal leadership that is really sound. But, I and a lot of other people of goodwill are fighting against this both publicly and privately. And I hope that we can make progress because the problem is real and it is not small. And how ironic it would be and how tragic, if the people of the book cannot be safe in the place with all the books.

Wolpe isn’t the only Harvard-affiliated scholar to blast the university for its response. Earlier this month, former Harvard president Larry Summers said he was “sickened” by the university’s response to the attack.

“In nearly 50 years of @Harvard affiliation, I have never been as disillusioned and alienated as I am today,” remarked Summers on X.

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